I joined a group at Work It, Mom!  a few weeks ago, in which we all decided to take on monthly goals, instead of these grand, yearly goals that might fall by the wayside almost as soon as they’d left our lips…

The group was started by Nataly, the owner of Work It, Mom!  and it is called 12 Small Goals for 2008.  I am so glad that Nataly decided to start this group - it makes the whole concept of ‘resolutions’ so much more doable for me!

The goal I picked for January is cleaning my office.  This place has become a complete and total pigsty! It has become the family dumping ground.  If anyone doesn’t know where something goes, somebody always says ‘put it in mom’s office’.  Ugh!  No more, people!  I have a hard enough time staying organized all on my own!

So I have spent the entire day in here working to make this place a haven for productiveness again and I am quite pleased with my progress so far!  My little monsters will get back on the school bus tomorrow after a long winter break, and I will get back at it.  And in no time at all, this place will HUMMMM with productivitity!

For now, though, I am exhausted!  I quit for the day - but, I’m quitting happy.  Pleased with my work…

Because I’m really, really feeling like this is Monday. In a bad way. Nothing is working. And I mean, absolutely nothing, is working.

It is now 1:30pm and my kids will be home in just over an hour, and I’ve accomplished almost nothing. It’s one of those ‘one step forward, seventeen steps back’ kind of days.I think the most important thing for me to learn on days like these is not to lose my cool, and not to let all this nonsense get me upset. It’s so easy to get so caught up in it, and get carried away with anger and frustration.

The more comfortable, and level-headed, way to approach this day is just to throw my hands up in the air, and say, “Oh well!” It is what it is. You know?

I could feel myself starting to get upset, and my chest getting tight, and so I decided to just post about it. And when things are getting this way it so easily could get worse. When I get all worked up about it, I keep pushing. And when I keep pushing, trying to force things to work like they are supposed to - things get worse, sometimes a lot worse. And then, of course, when the kids walk in the door, I will bite all of their sweet little heads off.

So I am not going to do any of that today. I am just going to accept that today is just not the most productive of days, and do with it what I can. The walls will not come crashing in around us if I give in and just relax.

I so badly want to get focused and organized, with my work at home stuff, my housework, and with managing my kids’ needs. And I’ve been wanting to get started working on it since the kids started back to school. But one thing after another keeps getting in my way.

So I guess I will have to just sit back and relax and keep trying to take baby steps towards my goals.

Whew - thanks for helping talk me out of having a grown-up temper tantrum - I feel a lot better now!

I’m inside trying to work, feeling completely overwhelmed, and like there just are not enough hours in the day, when from outside comes a TERRIBLE RUCKUS!

That old man of mine (of the husband variety) is BANGING on the bricks of the house!  And then he is DRILLING into the bricks of the house!  And yes, I am speaking of the wall that is right outside my desk.  Loverly!

And then there is some more odd BANGING!  And the dog, who was peacefully resting at my feet, is nervously pacing around directly behind my chair.  (Yes, he is a 120 pound scaredy cat - go ahead, laugh - we can take it!  Right, Puppy?)

There is no telling what that man is up to out there!  These are the joys and the pains of being married to a contractor - at any moment, some new project could be begun on your house.  He may come home with extra materials.  He may come into some ‘extra’ money.  He may have just had a really cool idea.

And then the banging, knocking, hammering, drilling will start - sometimes at the most innoppurtune times.  Like when I have so much to do today, and not enough hours to do it.  The RUCKUS is really not exactly beneficial.

I have just absolutely got to get more organized, and even more importantly, more focused.  You know, Wendy Piersall does a really cool thing on Mondays on her eMomsAtHome blog.  She calls it Monday Motivation.  She lists a few things that she really needs to get done that day, and then she gives herself a consequence if they are not done by the end of the day.  And then, she, of course - reports back to her readers about her success or failure to finish the list.  One of the consequences she gives herself is to not have coffee for a week.  Oh my gosh!  And she really, actually follows through with it!  She was even out of town once and had to go without coffee and it was really hard!

Most of the time, though, I think - she is successful.  I guess it just takes a time or two of an awful consequence like no coffee for a week to get you straight!

Anyway, I did it with her the first week she did it, and I got my list finished.  Whew!  I don’t remember what my consequence was, though.

So I was thinking, I wonder if I do that with her on Mondays, and then maybe also on Wednesdays and Fridays, if that would help get me to where I need to be.  I would just do the extra days for a little while, so that I could get myself in a good, organized frame of mind.  I want to do this, because, right now I am thinking that I need to give something up - a blog or two, or something.  And I don’t want to give anything up, nor do I feel that I can give anything up.  Well, I did decide to really back off from doing ChaCha.  That is not much, since I wasn’t doing it very much anyway.  But as long as it’s not hanging over my head, like all the little details of my WAHM life have seemed to become - that is a good thing.

So just picture me with about ten or fifteen black clouds over my head.  I got rid of one, and some of them are turning grey…

And hopefully soon, I will get this thing called ‘working full time+’ under a little more order.

Oh, and I finally realized what the old man of mine is doing out there.  He is hanging up the cedar shutters he made on the side window.  They are really beautiful - he is definitely an artist at his trade.

Ok, I’m off to try to complete a few more tasks before I just get way too sleepy to do any more!