Taking Baby Steps

Lately I've been feeling like I can hardly hold things together. I feel like I can't do anything well.  I think that a lot of it is our "fresh" start, which feels more difficult than fresh.  I had set all of these goals and guidelines for myself when we moved and I feel as thought I have let my family and myself down.  The very first blog I started reading was Simple Mom and somehow she has managed to post something at the exact time that I needed it.  It is beyond eery the timing of her posts.  I have commented on this to Munchkie's Daddy and close friends several times, and it's happened again.  Tsh (that's her name, interesting isn't it?) recently had a post on Imperfection and discussed how we cannot be perfect, then another blog I read Simple Organic posted The Truth About What I Don't Do inspired by Tsh's post..  I really appreciated reading that someone else, someone who inspires me, isn't as perfect as I picture them in my head. This may sound weird, but it took a huge weight off of my shoulders.

I have been struggling with loneliness in this move, but then I guess I added a bunch of other unneeded stresses to my life as well.  I thought that I would magically love doing dishes, so decided that we could survive without a dishwasher to be "frugal" and "eco friendly."  I thought that somehow I wouldn't mind folding and putting away clothes, which just isn't the case, and it's even more apparent in a two foot square apartment.  I also thought that I would be ok with working in a hospital setting, rotating shifts between days and nights, working weekends and holidays, which is just really difficult.  I thought that taking public transportation would be the easy way to do things, not three to four times longer than actually driving.

I should have realized that the stressors of moving, starting over and flipping my way of life around was enough to deal with.  I shouldn't have added onto myself the need to be perfect as well.  Because that isn't obtainable.  Nobody's perfect, nobody does everything right.  I certainly am the furthest thing from perfect, and I think that the last few weeks have really hit me hard in these respects.  When I don't obtain a goal I set for myself I get so discouraged that I don't think I can obtain any goal I set for myself.  Which then makes me fall further and further from the direction I was going.  I get so overwhelmed by my backtracking that I have a hard time moving forward and this is the place I am in now.  I feel that I have backtracked on my goals and can't quite figure out how to start working on them again. 

As the article on Simple Organic said today, baby steps.  You can only take baby steps.  So I think that my baby step will be to go to bed, since it's late, wake up in a little while and after taking Ana to daycare, do the dishes.  I think that I will also write out my goals so that I have a list and once there's a list, there's a responsibility to cross things off.

• Do the dishes as they get dirty- not put them by the sink for later
• Vacuum several times a week
• Do laundry on a regular basis and
• put the clothes away as they are clean.
• Loose those last 20 pounds
• Exercise (I was going to say exercise more, but then that would be a lie, so we'll just start with exercise)
• Meal plan
• Cut out TV
• Sleep more at night, so I'm not tired and unproductive during the day
• Get out and make friends
• Complete the sewing project that I have all of the supplies for.
• Hang pictures on the walls
• Keep the kitchen counter clutterfree

I think that is a good start for now.  With some baby steps I think that I can get past this funk that I am in right now.