Life Distractions

Sometimes life gets busy and somethings get put on hold. In my case, it was like dominoes, because one thing affects others and those things affect yet others. The first thing was dealing with a mess all the time. Our house got out of control and I wanted to fix that. I wanted to throw things out and give things away. Maybe we could sell some things and donate. I thought that it would be a good time to go through EVERYTHING. I don't just mean the clutter that is sitting around, preventing company or a babysitter from visiting. Yes, this means that my husband and I haven't been out without the kids in a VERY LONG TIME. I was intending to go through all boxes that haven't been unpacked and all papers not sorted, and all storage areas. The things that haven't been done yet I wanted to have done. You know all those little things that add up. Fixing things, putting bed frames together that are just sitting in the utility room, the Ikea coffee table that came without the proper screws to complete it. I just wanted to feel like we are living in our HOME and not dealing with a million moves by sitting back and watching the clutter pile up around us like skyscrapers. I didn't want to feel like this was a temporary location for our family. I'm tired of not painting, or setting up the furniture exactly how we want it. I want all things to have a place!

I wanted all of this to happen by the end of June. It turned out to be a bigger job then I thought. I'm still not done. Why? Because I'm not super human!!! I need to deal with that important fact. Most of what I talked about in the previous paragraph I would have to do alone. My husband is a hard worker and does large jobs that come up (he painted our walls), but he needs to work (ALOT). He has a full time job all day and he is working on his own work at night. He may not have work as of 2014 and he needs to try and get some income on the side to help us out incase he needs to go job searching again.I hope we don't have to move. My Dad still has cancer and our kids wouldn't be able to take ANOTHER move. So, I understand why he  can't help much. The kids don't help much... well, because they don't. Honestly, I'm overwhelmed, so I can be assured that the job must feel like climbing mountains to them. I am the stay-at-home-mom who keeps the house up. This is more my job then any ones. So... I trudge on alone.

Well, guess what happened in July that set me back? It's not a bad thing, but it really took a lot out of me. Zoe was bumped up in gymnastics. This meant I had to go to bed early even though I'm a night hawk and up early (5 am). No parent can ever be sure if their child is going to make it to the Olympics one day, but if we can provide the necessary training time to potentially make that happen, why not try. Or maybe she'll get a great scholarship to a big U.S. university, fully paid. It's happened often enough to see it as a true possibility. So each weekday I drive her in, while I sit in the car and read (not supposed to watch her, because it's distracting) and drink coffee. Not much is open that early and I didn't want to spend money. It should have been a nice relaxing break, but my OCD kicked into high gear as I thought about all of the things NOT GETTING DONE at home. I've never been diagnosed with OCD, but I assume that THAT is what it feels like. It took the whole summer to finally relax while waiting for her to finish training each morning. By the end I was a pro and settled into the role of taxi mom.

 The other thing is drag racing. We ended up having two cars to race this year. My husband raced the Mustang and Austyn raced a junior dragster. Zoe may race next year, but this year she sat out with me. Well, I didn't exactly sit. There are clothes to wash, dry, fold, and pack. There are meals to plan, grocery lists to write, food to purchase, and pack. There are camping and kitchen supplies to collect up, and I didn't mention unpack when we get to the trailer in our pit spot. While there, I do all homemaking chores like cooking, cleaning, and being sure that everyone has what they need to race. I listen to the radio station and notify everyone when they are called up to the staging lanes or when there is a problem or important information to share. It's not every weekend, but usually 3 weekends a month and sometimes we go to another track and camp inside the car trailer, which can make for even more work on my part.

With gymnastics and racing I was POOPED!! I was tired ALL THE TIME!! Not much organizing happened. I was just too busy because of the races that all I could manage was to do what needed to be done each day for us to function (a little homeschooling thrown in there), packing, and the consumption of large amounts of coffee. I did very little with our homeschool group. I took a break from the group and from blogging to organize and then I took a break from those activities to keep up with my kids' sports.

Now I'm back organizing. The early morning drives into the city are fading into my memory and racing season is winding down. Hockey season is starting and gymnastics has moved to after school hours. I have energy again and with  MY time at night (remember my natural night hawk tendencies) I have been getting caught up with organizing. There are still many things to be done, but life can't wait any longer. I will have to manage both for a while, and get my energy from the excitement of seeing things come together. Having my own time at night has really helped. Even when I stay up late, I feel so much better seeing that things are coming together nicely. It's hard to believe how bad things can get in a home. I think that living out of boxes for so long didn't help. Someday we will be fully settled. I'm not sure when, but it will happen... someday!