TOO MUCH

Happy Monday morning my lovelies!

Got a pop quiz for y'all today, are you ready?

Q: How do you know when it's TOO MUCH?

The answer of course is, it depends on the situation, but generally speaking it's when the good feelings start to seep away and the bad feelings start to make their presence known - you know, not all at once or anything, but they just threaten at the sidelines. Ever gone too long without seeing your in-laws? And you know that you're going to have to do it pretty soon but you just can't make your hand grab the phone, even though you know that if you wait long enough for them to call YOU you'll never hear the end of it? And then the more you think about it the guiltier you feel? You've waited too long, 'cause at this point nothing's going to fix it now except squeezing your eyes shut and doing it.

That's too much time that has passed, my friends! And if that's never happened to you because you just can't get enough of your in-laws, well, good for you. But you know what I mean. (I should note here that really I love my in-law's too, but there has to be the right amount of space for the relationship to work.)

So that's kind of an extreme example. Let's bring it closer to home, shall we? Ever make a to-do list? I freakin' LOVE to-do lists, they calm me right down when I start feeling overwhelmed and panicky because I know there's stuff I'm supposed to be doing but I can't remember what it is.

And of course, there's an app for that: my favorite is called Clear and it is ALMOST as awesome as writing down your to-do list on the back of an old envelope...but there's a kind of beautiful tactility about violently scratching out tasks on your to-do lists with a stumpy old pencil. And then, when all you have left is an old envelope with a column of scratched-out stuff, taking that bitch and tearing it to bits and chucking it out feels GREAT. Ain't no app for that!

But today? Today that will not be happening. It didn't yesterday, either. Because, while Sunday is usually my peaceful day to get organized for the week, sometimes life puts a stick in your spokes and all you can do is roll on as best you can. Saturday evening while I was starting the preliminary stages of getting the kids to bed (which in my house invariably sounds like this: "Ok girlies, 5 minutes - finish up and turn the screens off!" "But Moooooooom, I'm in a battle!"), I started seeing squiggly lines around the periphery of my field of vision, which meant that an ocular migraine was coming and anything that I had planned to get done this weekend was going to damn well wait until my eyeballs were ready to work again.

So here we are, it's Monday morning (my absolute favorite time of the week), my head still hurts, and I have this to-do list that has TOO MUCH on it. I know it has TOO MUCH because I'm kind of afraid of it. I can't even start it. I can't even LOOK at it. If I'm not really careful I'll bumble around all day and get nothing done and then tomorrow will be even worse...but never fear - Tomorrow Girl can take care of anything!!

But instead of putting it all on Tomorrow Girl, even though she's pretty awesome, here are my strategies for getting at that TOO LONG to-do list...

1. Add some stuff to the list. I'm serious. First, add some stuff that you've ALREADY DONE. Next, add some stuff that you KNOW you can do, and do on a daily basis. Now go do some of that stuff.

2. Go back to your list and scratch that stuff out! Doesn't that feel great? Get out of bed? Check. Brush teeth? Check. Wake up kids? Feed'em breakfast? Boot their little tushies out the door to school? Check, check, check. Hell yes, you're a machine today! Work out? Check. Take the dog out for a run? Check. (See how the tasks are getting bigger? And you're a third of the way through the list already! Whoop whoop!)

3. Multi-task: my list always has phone calls to make on it...and I hate the phone. HATE IT. I will do just about anything to avoid calling people, because a) I'm actually super shy and b) I hate it when people call me because no matter what else I'm doing, I'm doing something else and don't care to be interrupted, and c) there's like a 1 in 3 chance that once I've dropped what I'm doing, found the ringing phone, and answered it, it'll actually be someone I care to talk to...which means that 2 out of three times it'll be some automated service informing me that I've won a free cruise and all I have to do is cut off my bottom lip and mail it to somewhere and thus claim my prize...anyway. Which is a long way of saying that usually, when the phone rings, I don't even bother searching for it. Where was I? Oh yeah, multitasking! So I make a deal with myself: I'll do something that involves a small time commitment and then I can leave, like a crock pot meal or laundry...THEN I'll tackle the phone calls and emails.

4. Now the big stuff. How many big projects are on your list? If there are more than two, pick two for today and put the rest on Tomorrow Girl's to-do list.

5. Take it easy. Is anyone going to die if you don't get the dishes done or your project doesn't get submitted today? If the answer is yes, better just get it done but if the answer is no, take a breather, pour a cup of coffee, and go outside and enjoy the sunshine for a little while.

Blog post: check.