About Me

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Currently, I'm a stay-at-home mum to an inquisitive and often rambunctious three year old girl and her sunny little brother. In a former life, I was a lawyer. I know which I prefer. On the odd occasion that I get some downtime, I knit, crochet, read, sew, sing badly, dance even more so, enjoy a glass of wine and watch bad TV, sometimes in varying combinations of the foregoing and not necessarily in that order of preference.

Thursday 1 March 2012

A Little Bit Stuck

I'm in a bit of a funk right now.  After last week's flurry of blog-posts, and general feeling of creativity and action that they seemed to generate within me, I'm just kind of treading water this week.  I think it is partly that I got struck down by some lurgy or other on Saturday night and, despite feeling much better yesterday, I seem to be having a bit of a relapse today and so am feeling tired, sluggish and just generally unwell.  I think it is partly that the list of "work-like" things that I have to do has grown significantly since Thursday night's committee meeting (I can't remember if I mentioned that I have just started chairing a local children's group) and I came out of the meeting feeling pretty deflated by how much there was to do.  I think it is partly that it is month end for Hubby and so I'm spending large amounts of time on my own (never a good thing when you are sick).  I suspect the ever-growing list of things that need doing around the house doesn't help: the general feeling that we are back-sliding horribly; a sixth of the year gone and little, if anything, ticked off the long-term list of things to do as the short-term list keeps spiralling further and further out of control; and we're about to hit spring (assuming I can delude myself that it hasn't already arrived) and I still haven't quite made it out into the garden to clear up the mess from last year...

Gosh, just writing it down feels depressing.

I've spent most of the week picking stuff up, looking at it, sighing and putting it back down again.  Do you ever get days or weeks like that?  When you know you should be doing something, but everything feels a little bit too difficult and you can't quite figure out where to start.  Or where you dive in with initial gusto and work and work at something, only to look back several hours later and wonder what you've actually achieved.  Saturday was like that - Baby Bird took a two and a half hour nap, Hubby went to get a haircut (which took considerably less time than that, I hasten to add) and I headed up to the Temple of Doom, as our attic floor is currently known.  I folded laundry. I sorted piles of clothes that no longer fit.  I put things away in the loft.  I rearranged.  I made notes of things that need to be done, storage that needs to be bought, projects that need to be completed.  I sat down for lunch feeling like I had spent a really productive morning.  It felt great to be finally making a dent in some of the many, many "to-dos" that have been nagging away inside my brain for months now.  I went back upstairs after lunch to survey my work and figure out what to tackle next.  You couldn't even tell I'd done anything.  I'd barely made a dent.  I couldn't figure out what to do next or what would make the biggest impression on the general mess that lurks up there.  Feeling deflated, I trudged downstairs and made myself a cup of tea, reached for the biscuits and wondered why I bothered.

A walk in the park with my lovely little family, and watching Baby Bird chase her football around did perk me up a bit that afternoon, but all the same, I am left with the overwhelming feeling that, at best, I am treading water with stuff right now, and, looking at the chaos into which our home seems to be descending, that seems rather charitable.  Not quite sure what to do about it.  Anyone got any suggestions for some easy wins?