What I'd been waiting for wasn't what I expected

The first week of the 2014-2015 school year is in the books.  And my baby, Beck, is in first grade.  While I love having my kids home for holidays, Christmas and summer vacation, I do relish some alone time.  And I have my particular ambitions.

Also, I hate the preschool/kindergarten-almost-in-school-but-not-quite thing.  That thing that I have been doing for the last 4 years.

It is this moment that I have dreamed about--when everyone is in school all day.  I had such grand plans of what I'd accomplish during this time.

1. Work part time.
2. PTA (why not start off as Pres of the Junior High)
3. Get more exercise
4. More diligent scripture study and religious studies
5. Get organized
6. Remodel my house
7. Writing
8. Doing fun activities with friends
9. Family history
10. Temple work

It's an ambitious list, to be sure, but I'd have 6 hours alone each day, right?

The first shock came by way of the realization that no, I don't have six hours.  With Emma gone early and home early with high school, the big boys at the junior high, and the little kids 16 minutes away at our city's very best elementary school, I have between 4-5 hours at most.  Plus mega carpooling.

I still can't quite figure out how to make our afternoons work.  And despite having the goal of being done with everything at 2:00pm I've learned, to my shock, that I can't fit it all in.  I just can't.

And I'm back to a familiar place where I realize that something's gotta give.

I keep thinking, "I'll just spend an hour and map out my week."  Then the list I have to map seems depressing.  And I'm bummed about the things that don't make the cut. And I wonder why I'm doing so much. And my week doesn't get mapped.  And I *know* I'm not be as productive as I should.

The answer I come back to is, "I must get up earlier."  But I have arthritis.  And my husband works late moderately often.  And even when he's home at dinner time, we don't really have *us* time until the kids are in bed.  Which is often after 10pm.  And it's nice to decompress and talk and so what if we don't get to bed until 11:30.  Or 12:00.  Or 12:30.  But going to bed late makes it impossible to get up early.  I need 8 hours and regardless of when I go to bed, I've got to be upright and in the kitchen by 7:15 so I can visit and give a proper send off to my eldest.

So I'll readjust.  Scratch a few things off my list.  And think, "Maybe I can do it all next year when I'm not PTA Pres."

Reviewing 2013

I sincerely apologize for keeping my goals posted on this blog, but it's such a great (and easy way) for me to find them.

Part of me feels really sad when I look at my goals from January of 2013, especially with what happened just a couple of days later.

I didn't write about family history.
I didn't lose weight.
I worked on the organization but with pretty marginal success.
I did get more clients!  In fact by the end of 2013, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off because I had so much to do.
I did get a new calling.  (I'm now in the 2nd Counselor in the Primary.)

I've been taking my sweet time as I think about my next year's goals.  What do I want to achieve?  What is valuable?  How much of anything is too much?

On Saying No...

I'm reading a book called, Amazing Things Will Happen by CC Chapman.  I won the book from a promo on condition that I would write a review on Amazon.  I haven't finished the book and hence haven't written the review, but I had to blog a bit on his chapter called, "Learning to Say No."

As my social media clientele has increased, my time has become committed to doing the things I promised to do for them.  As a stay-at-home (now work-from-home) mom, this has some serious impacts on other things I can do.

Among them, my time commitment to PTA--what I have time to actually do is decreasing.  Certainly, this takes people by surprise as I have had to say no to things I might have said yes to two years ago.  CC covers a lot of import things in his chapter, to it I would add saying no when someone is trying to force you to say yes.  I think men tend to be a bit more upfront, but women can be kinda tricky.  Whether this is intentional or too much of beating around the bush, is up for debate, but feeling really forced happens.

I had an experience recently in which someone said, "Perhaps you could do something small like (info about small thing)."  "Perhaps I could," I replied.  And BAM, unbeknownst to me, I had just signed up for something.

I had only meant that if the stars aligned and the job was reasonable, small and the timing perfect, I could help with something--not necessarily *that* thing and definitely not in the near future.  To my surprise, I received a follow-up email thanking me for "signing-up" and then more emails about doing this thing that I didn't want to do.

I had a whole internal struggle.  Should I just find a way to do it or should I say no since I had never intended on signing up in the first place?

Ultimately, I said no.  I explained that I already had serious time commitments and just couldn't do it.

As soon as I pressed, "Send" on the email, I felt lighter.  It's like sorting through your stuff and getting rid of everything you don't use.  Your drawers shut, your shelves are useable, you're not tripping over stuff that you don't need but somehow hang onto.

A friend of mine told me that after her year of being PTA President, she realized that she could spend the same amount of time doing good, only she'd get paid for it.  I couldn't have agreed more.  And, though at the time, I couldn't have imagined what I'd be doing this year, that was the end I had in mind too. But it also means that I no longer have the time for a huge PTA commitment. Which means learning to say no.