Today was just one of those days. I knew it was going to be crappy when I woke up. I haven’t been feeling great lately and getting out of the bed is no fun to me EVER but this morning I was just dragging. I grabbed a handheld vacuum on my way out the door to take Sadie to school this morning because I’ve been worrying about a carpool teacher calling DHR over my backseat for a while now. After I dropped Sadie off, I pulled over in the parking lot and started cleaning. I sorted into two grocery bags:
1) Socks, Underwear and Things That Needed to go Back in My House, and
2) Trash & Any Unidentifiable Object. (Petrified chicken nuggets fall under this category.)
Once I worked my way through the FIVE winter coats that were piled into the backseat, two unmatching pairs of shoes and other miscellaneous debris I came to THIS.
;
I watermarked it so you wouldn’t try to steal it as your computer wallpaper or Christmas card background.
I then made my way to the doctor’s office where I discovered that despite exercising almost every single day since Thanksgiving (even the week of) I have GAINED six pounds. If you say anything about “muscle mass” I will show up on your doorstep and karate chop you between your eyes.
My husband has apparently felt my crazy creeping in recently, came home and took me to lunch. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
I paused for a second before anwering, “Piles of crap. They are everywhere. And it doesn’t matter how much time I spend cleaning up one pile, the others are multiplying while I do it.”
Zeb: What do you mean?
Me: There are boxes of winter clothes that need to be put up but I can’t put them up until I put up the summer clothes. But every time I get the summer clothes put up the temperature goes back to 80 or Sadie finds them and acts like she’s never seen a sundress before and tries on every outfit in the box.
The Piles-O-Crap are everywhere. My email inbox. My office (empty boxes that Christmas decorations were stored in.) My brain– I don’t know how to turn it off. There are piles there, lurking, waiting for me to get started on one project so they can jump up and down and scream, “LOOK AT ME!! DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME!!!” My first instinct is to sleep. My second is to clean my house like Dexter.
I have a huge writing project I’ve been waiting for feedback on and now that I have the feedback I want to pretend it doesn’t exist because then I have to do the work. And it will be hard. So I went with my first instinct– napping.
Have I mentioned that I have a book signing Thursday night and that I have one million things to do to get ready for that?? I realize these are “First World Problems” but at the moment they are mine. I want to learn how to not worry about stupid stuff like this, how to be all easy-breezy and laid back about life in general but it’s just not in me to chill. The Zoloft Revolution helped (Sweet Baby Jesus was it bad before the Zoloft Revolution!) but it’s still a struggle for me. All I know to do is share my crazy, tackle one Pile-O-Crap at a time and remember what’s important:
1. My husband is a morning person. He makes breakfast for my kids almost every day and takes either the Big Girls or Sadie to school before he goes to work. He occasionally brings me coffee in bed. Hate on, haters.
2. My Momma gives a Hella good pep talk.
3. My best friend is okay with me showing up at her house in tears and loves (for real) picking my kids up from school in the afternoon.
4. I have amazing writer friends that I can call or text who don’t think I’m crazy. (I think.)
5. Every bedroom in my house needs a Hoarders’ level intervention… but my den looks like this…
Imma go sit in there with hot chocolate, stare at twinkly lights and remember that I don’t have any real problems. At all.
What do you do when you get overwhelmed?
Oh my word, I love you. And I grinned deep in my heart when you punctuated “Hate on, haters.” the right way. :}
In my defense Kimberly I still think hate on haters is acceptable. It’s different with the comma BUT I did do that just for you!
Agreed, that comma is necessary! Love your writing, Robin!
At least if you accidentally locked a child in your vehicle, they could find sustenance for a few days.
When it gets bad (the crazy AND the mess) I go buy the biggest box of contractor trash bags Home Depot sells and I toss EVERYTHING. Last spring I freaked out on my basement and as a result I have no Christmas ornaments or decorations and no snow shovel. My Sweetheart couldn’t believe I tossed every. Single. Ornament. But oh boy did I. Upside..this year they are all new and pretty.
How is it that you’re living my life? Only I have four teenagers. And I have to drive them everywhere. All the time. It never ends. The piles-o-crap just get bigger and more complicated. And don’t say they’re old enough to clean up their own crap. HAHA! Right. Did I mention the two old dogs, one who pees on the floor multiple times a day and the one who doesn’t like to go outside so she “holds it” until she poops on the floor? And the cat who has chewed through three phone chargers, two iPod chargers, two Christmas decoration cords and two other cords in the past couple weeks? Thank you, Jesus, for Lexapro and booze. Not together, of course. I think….
Mary-Leah Moore recently posted..Hell in a hand basket………
LOLOL! Little kids little problems, big kids big problems! Cheers! *clinks prescription bottles*
I put the kids to bed early and have a glass if wine.
We all have them honey…Okay I started to say, “We all have piles in our lives.” But we’re from the rural south, and the word “piles” can actually mean something entirely different. Although, I guess it IS still a true statement, because we’ve all had kids. And I’m pretty sure that just goes with the territory there, right?
Wait…what was I talking about? I’m sure I’ll remember soon. Or maybe not.
Anyway, you’re not alone in the crazy. But my new mantra is “When in doubt, throw it out.” I sometimes have to re-buy something, but I can count on one hand how many times that has happened. And it is SO the only way to keep the crazy piles from suffocating you.
Okay, seriously. That last sentence in relation to my earlier piles reference is just gross. I’ll stop now. Love you!
Jodi recently posted..Flashback
When I get overwhelmed? Depends on what. When I am overwhelmed and upset, I start cleaning (no reason to call the authorities, it actually does calm me). When I am just stressed, I go to my bed, close the door and try to take a nap (provided my 7 month old is asleep). When I am just mad and don’t know what to do with myself, a hot shower “cools” me off. Actually, a hot shower helps with everything.
And the piles everywhere… I totally feel you! I clean up a room, move on to the next, go back and can clean up all over. It’s like I have little demons hidden in the vents only waiting for me to leave the room. Also I have dogs, and one of them seems to be too warm and therefore chews all her hair off. Makes. Me. Insane. I tell you!
First time commenter, lured out from under my own piles ‘o crap just to commiserate.
Holy shiz, I’m nurturing a hoarder’s paradise on my dining table at the moment and I just cannot deal with it .. CAN. NOT. Except that there are at least two bills on there that have to be paid today so I might have to get busy.
I also have a Christmas concert tonight at some ungodly hour (I know you know which one) and I’m out of Mummy Juice.
Thanks for your books by the way because as you can see, I have the code words down pat. They do come in very handy. =)
This comment made my whole chatty day better!!! Thank you so much from pulling yourself out of the clutter to comment. While you’re out head on over to amazon and copy and paste what you said over there! It’s a big help to me! And click my FB like in the top right corner of the page so we can chat on FB. Lots of hilarity over there!!
Thank you for this. I’m with you. Crap everywhere. And we moved from a big house to a small farm house. Three boys in one bedroom plus two dogs. Crowded crap. Even worse. And still no tree up:(
Yeah. It’s like one giant whack-a-mole game. The minute you knock one out, it pops up somewhere else.
I’m like you. I have one crap-free spot where I can’t see all those little popping moles.
Sarah Frances Hardy recently posted..Middle School Beauty Review
Thanks. I needed to know I wasn’t alone today in my crazy. Much luck to you and may you find 3 extra hours at the end of every day! One can dream, right?!
stacey recently posted..No kids, animals or circus acts
Love your line “I don’t have any real problems.” So important to remember. I get overwhelmed when I feel I’ve spent too much time working and not enough time bonding with my son and then I obsess over it, attempting to be the perfect mom to make up for it. Which inevitably back fires and worsens the situations. So when things get crazy and I find myself freaking out I take a lazy day with my child, where nothing NEEDS to get down and where the laundry can wait one more day and as long as we hang out in the tidy living room…it’s all good.
Sarah recently posted..Mom Of The Year Award Goes To….Not Me
THANK YOU! I can always count on you to know that I’m not the only crazy one. Piles-O-crap were taking over my house. I have finally tackled the last big one. Now I just have the every day ones of homework, school papers, and laundry. Why in the world did I think it was a good idea to have a garage sale, my 40th (ouch) birthday, Thanksgiving at my house, decorate for Christmas, and have my baby’s 2nd birthday all in a 10 day span. OK, so I didn’t have control over the birthday’s and Thanksgiving but I stupidly chose the garage sale. At least it got rid of a lot of junk and I donated the rest.
So thankful that I made it to 40, have a wonderful husband, and 3 healthy kids. No REAL problems here.
Days like that I repeat my favorite mantra. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. I just has to be better than it was”