Setting Goals

It's amazing how easy it is for me to get overwhelmed.  Seriously, one day I wear a cape and feel like I've conquered the world, and the next I want to go crawl under a rock, wave a white flag and scream at the top of my lungs, "I can't do this anymore!"  {Read 'can't': unable, don't have the patience, persistence, motivation, or endurance to do this successfully, so I (pause) give (pause) up!}

Today is kind of one of those days, the "I give up," kind.  One week ago I was able to lay Ansley down both for her morning nap and for bed with minimal work, and not hear from her until her sleepy time was over.  Fast forward through power-outages resulting in travel, Sunday church, and Easter, and now I'm working my rear off again to get this girl back on schedule.  It's very frustrating, especially when you are used to being able to lay down a two year old without any prep whatsoever.  (Not to mention the fact that I did, indeed, do quite a bit of work to get Ansley to the place where I could simply lay her down for those naps.)  Ugh.

On top of that I have the 'blahs' of a house that is filthy (okay, so it's not filthy, but it feels like it is), toys that are scattered everywhere, (not to mention about 3 dozen plastic Easter eggs and an ample amount of new stuff that is adding to the obstacles on my floor.  I mean, what do you do with old Easter baskets shaped like Mickey's head and 36 plastic Easter eggs, anyway?  (I must admit, for those of you with 12 month olds, Easter eggs were awesome for making snack time in the car last a looong time on car trips with Bryton!  I may just keep some of those eggs for that with Ansley.) 

So with all the new stuff accumulating with the old stuff, I feel like I need a whole new organizational system to make me feel 'put together,'  But, ahh, that takes work, effort, and free time to accomplish, and let's be honest, what parent of a two year old and 7 week old has 'free time?'  Or at least free time that they are willing to give up to completely reorganize a house? 

Add on top of that the anxiety (yes, anxiety, I'm a control freak by nature) of constantly wondering, "Was that her?  Did I hear her?  She's still supposed to be napping!  She's only been down for 20 minutes, the afternoon nap always lasts 1 1/2 hours at least! Ugh, all the work of having to get her back down, because if I don't, well then the whole evening is shot..."  Ugh, makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.  By the way - that sound that I thought was her... a bird outside.  All of the stomach churning for nothing. 

Ooops - nope, that's her.  Be right back... churn, churn, churn.

*Sigh*  Paci is back in.  We'll see how long that lasts. 

And so - it's safe to say that I feel amply, completely, utterly, overwhelmed some days.  Admittedly, half is due to my own anxiety ridden nature.  (And that fear of failure I mentioned previously.)  And so if I am the cause of at least half of what overwhelms me, then it seems only common sense to believe that I should be able to wipe out 50% of my anxiety by figuring out how to use my controlling nature to control me.  (Much easier said than done I may add.)

And so I started looking at the things that cause me stress (or anxiety).  Here is the list I came up with:

• Ansley's sleeping habits (though not bad at all)
• Bryton's daily routine (is he playing enough, getting enough playtime attention)
• The house looking like a trainwreck
• The house not being as 'clean' as I'd like
• The 'to do' list that forever exists
• Needing 'breaks' but not taking them
• Couponing / dealing (I know, though I love it, finding time to do it right now adds to the anxiety)
• Taking care of myself (in every sense of the word - I know I'm not doing well at it now)

And that's the short generic list.  So I got to thinking about how I could tackle each thing most easily and set achievable (achievable being the key word in this sentence) goals for myself.  I realized that I need goals that are 'long term' enough that they keep me motivated for a period of time and help me establish habits, but that are 'short term' enough that I can track and record progress.  You know, actually feel that I've accomplished something... enough to give me the drive to keep going.  And so I decided that I'd make monthly goals for myself.  Mostly dealing in areas of wellness and family, but also throwing in some goals to push me outside my limitations, make me take risks, and help me continue to 'develop' myself so to speak.

SO - that being said - tomorrow you'll see a list (I'm currently still developing this list), of goals designed specifically for the month of May.  I'm hoping this blog keeps me motivated to carry them through ;) 

(Btw - this blog is also a goal of mine.  I've found there are things I just have to make time for in order to bring myself some 'happiness' - and writing brings that out in me.  It's important that I keep this up.)

So until tomorrow -
Alicia