Today at the Pool

D (my 3-year-old): Look Mom! Dad's can nurse too! (points an overweight gentleman exiting the pool).

Me: (gasping noises like I'm the one drowning).

How has your Monday been?

All This Messing Around Has to Stop

It's that time again. That time when I start to think, "you know, I could be a better blogger." I usually ignore these kinds of feelings because they come pretty constantly about pretty much everything. I could be a better housekeeper, writer, parent, chocolate-chip cookie maker.

 Actually, that last one is a lie. I am an excellent chocolate-chip cookie maker. Really. They ruin my diet every week.

 Anyway. Today is Monday and even though I hate Mondays they do offer the opportunity to start a week right. Today, already (nobody point out it is almost two and "already" hardly applies) I've, um, eaten breakfast, fed the brood, taken D to swimming and done 30 minutes of cardio, fed them lunch (why? Why do they need to eat so much?), showered, gotten the terrible twins on the bus and eaten lunch myself. And I think other stuff.

And let's be honest, if I'm going to fit something else in I need to learn to be more organized. Things that take me, right now, 30 minutes need to take me 20. I need systems. I need plans. I need (*shudder*) to-do lists. 

But here's the problem. Whenever I decide to get organized in my house, or in my writing (hello outline, I'm looking at you) my brain explodes. And that is a hard thing to recover from. Honestly, all the little pieces flying and somehow the organizing is MORE complicated than the chaos. Which frankly can't be true.

The thing is, to get to the organized you have to wade through the chaos and that forces you to face it. To look at each little McDonald toy you've been shoving in a bin for five years and think "this has served its purpose and can be thrown away." Or you can throw the bin away. Both work. And facing all those little loose ends you've been ignoring take a level of mental honesty I am not really prepared for.

 You know how when you're revising a book you're supposed to kill your darlings? (sidebar: is this a quote from Stephen King or does it predate his writing book? Because it feels like something he should've said). I think cutting back is hard for the same reason. You clean up a little corner which only reveals how messy everything else is. So once again its Monday and I have good intentions to do better this week. And I'm going to tackle one of those little places, in my house and in my book, that is all kinds of cluttered with broken dollar store toys and ripped up books (so the hardest, right? How do you throw away a book? I have board books my oldest chewed on so they look like they were shelved in a hamster cage but you can still read them so I keep them).

I'm going to tackle my little corner and make it cleaner, neater, and more organized. And I'm not even going to roll my eyes when I do it.

Monday Cheer

Okay so it isn't even Monday yet, and I'm already dreading it. Plus, this is the Monday before Thanksgiving, and even though I'm not hosting it this year, turkey day requires some prep. I need to expand my stomach's capabilities by gorging on ridiculous amounts of chips and salsa (oh. wait. check). I need to bake possibly two cheesecakes. I might venture into the land of pumpkin bread (or maybe the pumpin bread pudding Bobby Flay made on that Throwdown. MMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMmmm. Insert Homer Simpson drool). Plus, I should probably do my laundry and clean the house. So yeah, Monday.

But, Monday happens every week people! We can beat this thing! With a little know-how, some pluck and common-sense determination we can and will rise above the muck that is Monday and turn it into...Tuesday? Really, I've got no idea. But here:


That helped the Monday blues, didn't it?

(btw, I found it here).