Escape!

Image courtesy of Meliha Gojak, rgbstock. com

This morning I fell asleep in my cereal.

Yes, it's true. I was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book and eating my Special K, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up with my head in the bowl and milk spilling into my lap.

Classy, no?

So after I dried myself off, cleaned the table, mopped the floor, and made myself something a little less messy to eat (toast--no jam), I realized two things: I'm tired (obviously), and I'm overwhelmed.

More and more I'm discovering that there are too few hours in the day. My house looks like a hurricane tore through it. Our most-used room is the kitchen, and sometimes it seems almost as bad as this by the end of the day:

Image courtesy of Michal Zacharzewski, rgbstock.com

Yikes!

And it's not just the kitchen. Many of the other rooms are the same, and no matter what I do, I just can't seem to keep up. Most days I feel like I'm spinning my wheels as I do certain tasks over and over again--dishes, laundry, meal prep--and never seem to find the time for the other things that need to be done, like dusting and vacuuming and cleaning up the piles of random stuff that just seem to accumulate overnight.

By the way, I blame this guy for the towering piles:

Image courtesy of Marja Flick-Buijs,
rgbstock.com

Sure, he looks innocent and all (easy to do when you don't have a face, I suppose), but he's really the biggest pack rat around--although he must be collecting stuff by using magic because I just noticed he has no arms. Whatever. He's the culprit. Definitely.

Peace!
Photo by Fran Hogan,
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Anyway, I've decided that what I really need is a vacation--and not just any vacation. I want to spend a day or two on a desert island. I want to be completely alone--no messes to clean up, no errands to run, no meals to cook. I'll pack a bag with some books (any recommendations?) and some of the goodies I keep hidden around the house, like the Nutella I mentioned here and a huge bag of chocolate. (I suppose I should also take something healthy, like an apple, but this is a vacation.) After I throw in a blanket, some sunglasses, plenty of stuff to drink, and the sunscreen, I think I'll have the perfect, rejuvenating escape.

And maybe when I return, that little armless gnome will have used his magic to clean up the house.

Yes--doubtful, but a girl can dream!



What would you take to your desert island getaway?

"Had we but world enough, and time..."*

I was thinking this morning about how hard it is to do all the things I need to do each day. My to-do list is often left unfinished, as everyday chores, like cooking and laundry and cleaning and running after children, take up most of my time, leaving little for the other things that really need to be done around here, like organizing and weeding out clothes that no longer fit and attempting to unpack more of the boxes I put in the basement when I moved here years ago. Fitting in writing time is sometimes an even bigger challenge, but it's an important one--and also the topic of today's 100 words:

As a writer and a mom, one of the things I struggle most with is finding the time to write. I stay at home with my two very young kids, something I wouldn't trade for anything. I do some writing early in the morning before they get up and some late at night after they're in their beds; however, in both cases, I'm pretty tired and often unfocused. But to paraphrase Tim Gunn on Project Runway, I make it work. I have to. If I have to sacrifice something--sleep--to follow my dream, that's what I'll do.

*Opening lines of "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

No time to say hello, good-bye...

This will be a short post, as today has thus far been the day from hell, and I still have so much to do. I promised my sister-in-law that I would have her manuscript back to her by the end of the week, which is, well, today. I've read through it twice now and am working on my final comments, and I would be fine timewise if I didn't also have to make lunch, serve lunch, chase the kids, make dinner, serve dinner, go grocery shopping, etc. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night, and I'll be spending most of it with my metaphorical red pen.