Revising my expectations

So it's been more than two weeks since my last post. You are probably thinking, "Mrs. Crackers I thought you said you'd do a better job of keeping up with your blog once your kids went back to school! What's the problem? Just what are you doing with your time?"


Umm...good question. You see, I thought I'd have buckets of down time once the kids got to school. I had fantasized using that time to accomplish all sorts of feats. I imagined I'd be living in a clean and clutter free house and that I would have plenty of time to do all of my laundry, iron it & put it away in the proper drawers. I thought I would be filling all of my new free-time with all sorts of worthwhile pursuits like:

1. Getting my endurance levels back up by running 3-4 times a week so I could prepare for an upcoming race.

2. Focusing myself into learning web design - my aspirational career once the kiddos are both in school full-time.

3. Planning out weekly menus again & spending more (child-free) time in the grocery store so that I didn't leave forgetting half of the items that I needed (like I normally do).

4. Redecorating the dining room, kid's bathroom & the office

5. Posting daily blogs & keeping up with all of my favorite bloggers.

6. Organizing all of my photos on the computer & correcting the ones that still need a little help.


I'll just stop listing all of my plans at this point, since I am starting to depress myself with all of the things that I now know I won't be accomplishing anytime soon.

It's clear to me now that I must've been smoking crack if I thought I'd come close to getting even 1 item on the list accomplished these goals weren't all that realistic. You see, it turns out I am childless for a mere 6 hours a week (less than that if you count the commuting time to & from school). When you also factor in that I have volunteered at my son's school to work in the library as well as assisting with some of the art classes, it is suddenly apparent that I must have had a screw loose if I thought I was going to have a lot of down time on my hands. (I won't even bore you with the details of our extra-curricular activities that sounded like fun during the lazy days of summer but that are now causing us to spend our evenings running around like crazy people.)

So, it's time to deal with the reality that I am not living in the clean & clutter free house of my imaginings. My laundry isn't getting done any more quickly than it was this summer & the ironing (let's not even talk about the ironing OK?!) isn't even close to being complete.

Luckily, the kids both love school & I have found a little time to squeeze in a few good runs over the past couple of weeks. Maybe it's not what I had originally planned, but for now it's good enough for me. I'll save all those grand plans for next fall when K starts Pre-Kindergarten & I'll have 10 whole hours of down-time. It's those extra 4 hours that will make all the difference, right?