Completing 3 daily tasks every day will bring about a sense of simplicity and accomplishment to even the most hectic of days.
At times my life gets really weighed down by the “should do’s” or the “you’re not doing enough” or even the “YOU are not enough” and it’s quite paralyzing.
I’m really a nut job, and probably certifiable, but you may have figured that out.
We had a rough weekend at the Yellow Cottage!
Don’t get me wrong, I love my house and am grateful for it, but being in a new neighborhood has afforded us some challenges we didn’t have on Quarter Ln!
We live in a culdesac with a couple of empty lots, a house that’s for sale and the people are moving out of today, and an older couple lives across the street from us.
There aren’t many kids in close proximity to us.
There are deer, though, and we consider them our friends!
In order for the blonde child to play with friends, he has to ride his bike a half-mile or so away, which is really no big deal, except for the fact that he NEVER comes home when he’s supposed to come home!
Like never!
He’s spent a lot of time without his tablet and crying buckets while he bore the responsibility of unloading the dishwasher all alone for a couple of weeks.
I kept telling him that the 20 minutes he was spending doing the dishwasher is the same 20 minutes he has come home late every time he’s left the house.
It doesn’t really take 20 minutes to unload the dishwasher and sometimes his lateness was 20 minutes times 10 or so!
The other two big kids NEVER leave the house!
Like never!
As many times as we’ve been to the pool over here, JB has yet to find a girl her age that she knows from school.
Crazy!
B-Bop is not particularly social, or at least doesn’t initiate friendships at all.
So he’s not really found anyone to hang out with over here.
On Quarter Ln, the kids walked out the door to kids their age!
At any given time, there could be 10 kids in my backyard playing baseball.
Well, not really playing, but arguing about which rules they were going to play by.
I never imagined I would miss that!
JB had about 5 different girls she could play with within about a 2 block radius.
And when I needed any of them to come home, I just walked outside and yelled or sent whoever may be home to go and get them.
The dynamics here aren’t so simple, and to be honest, on Saturday I was ready to put a For Sale sign in my front yard and start packing.
There are 3 houses for rent on our old street, including the one we just moved out of! Being the sole adult here 24/7 complicates things, too.
I can’t just get in the car and go to the grocery store on a whim or run a quick errand.
I need to have my people at the house to watch out for each other just to sneak away for a few minutes.
I say all that to say that this week I am resolved to embrace the Live Simply motto on the sign above my kitchen sink!
I’m tired of being bogged down by all the things that are going wrong, or maybe just not according to plan.
When I signed up for this year, I kept saying this wasn’t my first rodeo. I can do this!
Well, it’s been far from a cakewalk.
I mean, I’ve eaten lots of cake and that causes a whole other batch of issues.
Instead of beating myself up constantly by how much I’m losing at this whole thing called my life, I’m going to focus on the things that I can do and can accomplish every day.
Years ago, I blogged about my Big 3…3 things I can do every day to make me feel like I accomplished something. Here they are…You ready…
- Make my bed
- Do one load of laundry – washer to drawers/hangers
- Run the dishwasher and wake up with an empty sink
These are things I can do every day, regardless of my schedule and regardless of any other chaos that may erupt within the 4 walls, or outside of the 4 walls, of this yellow house.
I can’t change the fact that JB’s, the social butterfly, lifestyle has been drastically changed by this move.
I can’t force blonde kid to come home at the right time every day, though I can punish the heck out of him and hope he gets the message.
I can’t force kids to be friends with B-bop or make him go knock on doors.
He’s never going to do that!
I can’t change Harper’s irrational arguments about what is a skirt and what isn’t, or the difference between Wednesday and Friday.
But I can make my bed, do laundry and run the dishwasher.
Trust me, just these 3 tasks cut down on a ton of chaos in my overwhelmed little mind.
I know it sounds so elementary, but keeping these things under control makes a huge difference in my perspective and my outlook on my days.
Some days, if that’s all I get done or the only things that I do well, I am going to celebrate that.
Live Simply – That’s gotta be the focus of every day!
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