Is the middle of January a little too late to "settle into" a new year? I don't think so. I think there's a period of adjustment that had to take place for me. I'm still doing the single-parent thing while my husband's all over the country driving. I have 3 teenagers who all have unique personalities, interests, and activities that somehow always tend to involve my time, gas, and vehicle. I now work 3 to 6 days a week doing Mystery Shops. I put at least a few hours every week into my couponing so I can save 50 to 100% on our groceries. I have bills and budgets to juggle. I've got a house to take care of and keep up with, and did I mention my three teenagers?! Then there's the homeschooling with two of them, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 AM until lunchtime. And the planning, and grading, and preparing for ACT testing, next year applications for city classes, college groundwork, scheduling, and all the reading I have to do to stay ahead of what they're doing. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I'm also starting up again in my bible study where I'm a student, and my second study where I'm the facilitator/teacher. No wonder I haven't slept in 2 weeks!
The good news is, I took a different approach this year. Instead of jumping in, like usual, I decided to ease into my Mystery Shops, focus on only what's really important for school, update and streamline my coupons, and change a class for one of my kids to ease our schedule a bit every other week. Instead of handling all the above stuff at once, then feeling guilty about all the exercise I haven't had time to do - I'm easing into all of it. I add what I can to each day but I PRIORITIZE much better than I used to do. I make sure all the important things get done FIRST. Then I do all the "should do" things. After that, I do the "better get an early start on these" things. Last, and I do mean the very last things, I do the short bursts of recreational and rest things. I actually planned to go nowhere today so I could try to take a nap to make up for the 4 hours of sleep I've been getting. Normally I could do okay on 4 hours, but they aren't in a row. I'm building in things like a "field trip" to the zoo so I can get in a couple of miles on walking in the nicer weather. I don't have time for Facebook games like I did when we lived in isolation. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I don't really miss it. I play now and then while I'm waiting on something, or grabbing a snack where I actually sit down for a few minutes. Nothing more than that.
By the end of this month, I believe I will have accomplished many of the things I was hoping to do. I've already got a pretty good start. No more guilt over all the things others say I should be doing. Just making sure what's most important gets done first. The rest I simply let go of. If it's still important tomorrow, it'll make that list. If it turns out to be less important than I originally thought, it gets reprioritized further down the list.
And you know what? I'm happy.
