One of those days

We've all had them - those days where nothing goes right, or nothing gets done, or it's constant chaos, or whatever. Today is more of an "off" day than a "those" day for me...

I think it started at about 1am last night. I was on the phone with a friend, talking about the events of the past week and analyzing things with him - he's always good at giving me a long-distance smack upside the head when I need it, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Anyway, while we were talking, my 5 year old got up out of bed and came out to the living room with "the look" on his face. About a nano-second later, he started puking all over the living room floor. I hung up on my friend and grabbed a trash can to catch any remaining spewage and then got him cleaned up. He seemed to be fine, so we changed his clothes, he brushed his teeth, and went back to bed. I got the mess cleaned up and called my friend back to continue our late-night counseling session.

I finally got to bed around 3am, thankful that the weather had cancelled any plans that we might have had for the day, but bummed that it meant that my older three wouldn't be coming back home - but I'd rather have them stay safe at their father's house than risk driving out here with a foot of snow on the roads. The boys woke me up around 8am and I laid around for a while before I finally decided to get up. I made breakfast for us (double chocolate chip muffins)(out of a box) and then decided that we were going to go outside to play in the snow.

We recently got some hand-me-down clothes from a friend and there was a pair of snow boots in there that would fit my youngest, but I didn't have a pair for the 5 year old. I thought for a minute and then remembered that I had put a bag of shoes (also HMD's) in the garage when we moved, and I thought that there might be some boots in there. So, in order to get into the garage, I had to fire up the She-Beast, back her up about 5 feet away from the garage door, clear the snow away from the base of the door, pry the door open with the shovel, clear away some more snow, pry some more, and finally opened the door. I found the bag of shoes, and whaddya know - the boots were in there! I did a little happy dance and went back into the house clutching my new find.

Of course, in order to actually go outside, I had to get both boys dressed, put on their snow pants, put on their boots, get their coats on, then hats, then gloves, then make them stand around and wait while I put on a second pair of socks, my boots, my coat, a hat, and gloves. Then we could finally go outside. We had exactly 12" of beautiful white powder on the ground - more than I've seen at one time (that I can remember) in the 13+ years that I've lived in Kansas, so I was having a ball! I love snow - but only when it's "real" snow, which I define as a minimum of 12". We played around in the snow and I took a bunch of pictures and then we went back around front so that I could shovel the sidewalks.

I'm not sure why I bother with shoveling. I mean really, no one else does it. I've never bothered with it. But for some reason, after moving into this house, I've been shoveling. It is good exercise - and it is good stress relief. But I can already tell that I'll be feeling it later.

Once we got done playing around outside, we came in and I started uploading the pictures that I had taken. I got a nice hot shower and changed into my official Domestic Goddess Attire - sweats, tshirt, and sweatshirt. The rest of the day up until now has been more of the usual - the never-ending laundry, picking up toys, straightening up, doing dishes, etc etc etc...

But at the same time I've also been processing a lot of things in my head. I've been doing a little bit of online research into some ways to help me to reach the goals that I have, and although I wouldn't say that I'm feeling motivated, I'm at least starting to formulate some plans in my head. My next step will be to get those plans down on paper (or better yet into a document on the computer so that I don't lose the paper) so that I can figure out how to put them into action. My biggest thing right now is getting the house cleaned up - I bought and installed an 8' shelf in my laundry room yesterday, which is helping immensely, but I really just need to get moving - I bet if I seriously focused for one day (or even one long evening), I could have this place done the way that I want it to be done. And then once the house is clean and organized, I'll feel like I can concentrate on the other stuff.

So tonight's plan - find food for the kids (which might involve going out to get a pizza, just so that I can fire up the She-Beast for a while and keep her warm and fuzzy) and then start REALLY working on cleaning up and organizing. If I can get them into bed no later than 9pm, I can easily clean for 3-4 hours and really get a bunch done.

And now that I put it out here for the world to see (or at least my 20-something stalkers) I have no choice but to do it. Yep. It's all a part of the plan......