And I was off...in the wrong direction

Since the holidays ended and the Steelers lost school started I have been at a loss for the most part. I told myself that I would jump right out of bed each day in January and hit the floor running. There have maybe been two or three days where that has happened, but I just can't seem to get into the groove. I want to get myself on a routine where I spend a couple of hours exercising, a couple of hours at my desk, a couple of hours doing the normal household chores. It all sounded easy enough when I thought it up, but then other things jumped in among my hours messing it up and throwing me off track. Now it is the 16th of January and I'm still out of whack and wandering aimlessly. Here are some of my good intentions and the issues I am facing:

1. Meal planning - I printed out a calendar and marked down what meals I would serve on what days. I was quite proud that I finished this chore and figured my life was full speed ahead in organization. The only thing I hadn't taken into consideration was activities. The first week I had to make an appointment in another city that turned into two appointments and the only times said appointments could be made were late afternoon. The meal I had planned was not crockpot worthy and could not be made ahead of time and thus dinner wasn't until almost 8:30 pm. Which is a terrible time to eat. 
2. Chores - This was the year that I got back into flying. I was going to concentrate on a different area in each day in my home and get that chore done. No more trying to clean everything in one day. But I have a dog with hair in the winter who roams behind me shedding in the places that I have just cleaned. I have children who insist upon changing outfits every time they step into their bedrooms and who dump any item of clothing that has touched their bodies into the hamper. I have a dog who insists on chasing the vacuum cleaner, barking extremely LOUDLY while doing so. I have children who can mess up a beautifully cleaned bathroom in under five minutes just by washing their hands. I have a bad back and an Ipad with new games that consume much time out of my day. 
3. Blogging daily - I was going to carve out time each day to sit down at my desk and write. But now that my girls are older newsy note worthy happenings are few and far between. And once I sit down at my desk I think how nice it would be to catch up on other people's blogs, and Yahoo news, and my email, and since I'm doing all of that mundane stuff I should put up on my other monitor the episode of Grimm that I forgot to record. 
4. Desk work - This is stuff like bill paying, estate work, filing of receipts and paperwork, going through mail. My desk always looks like waste dump the day after I clean it because I do what my mother called, "shifting the shit". Today's mail? Oh, put that on my desk. Grocery receipts? Put that on my desk. Newspaper articles that need sending to people who have requested it? That letter telling me that Honda needs to fix something on my van because a fire could occur when I drive it? Put it all on my desk. So then I go sit down at my desk to get through the pile and #3 comes into play and before I know it I've caught up on Grimm.
5. The Condo - It is still sitting there full of my mother's things. I have sifted through some of it, but the rest I told myself I was waiting for my brother. It has now been eight months and my brother has yet to return to it. Meanwhile I have relatives that would love to use it and frankly, the place needs people in it. It needs the dishwasher run. It needs laundry run. It needs the garbage disposal, the one I thought was broken, but turned out to just need a cranking, run. So my new year plan was to get moving on tiding up at The Condo. First on the list was replacing her dishes. She never had china and so one day she went out and got china and insisted on using it daily. It had to be hand washed and was not microwave friendly. Not a good fit for people on vacation. My bright idea was to bring the china into my cabinet, buying myself new dishes, and taking my old ones up to The Condo. Only I can't find the dishes I want. And since I can't find that the idea is stalled. Until I find dishes. Which is now going to require a trip south to Sarasota to an outlet mall that carries the dishes I want. 

And the list goes on and on. I seem to have a lot of ideas, a lot of excuses and not a lot of get up and go. I have seven hours to accomplish what I need to do, but one thing seems to creep into the first item on my list to change my entire day. Exercising today? Great, but I am on this diet where I need to eat every hour and a half and exercising after I eat makes me miserable. No worries. Make a smoothie and eat when you get home. But then I think how I could exercise and stop at the grocery on my way home and then my diet and eating is thrown off.

This week I decided to start off slow. Start with a daily plan. Make a list for Monday and stick to it; exercise, grocery shop, blogging, Flylady chore.

Darcy: "You do realize we don't have school on Monday, right? And Daddy doesn't have work."

I rest my case.