Slightly Off-Balance

Before you all get too excited, no, Madonna is not doing a holiday show.

The Blonde Ambition Holiday Tour is my plan for the next two weeks.  My plan is to make the most of it being quiet at work, as well as having the kids home, in order to start the new year caught up, cleaned up and with some good habits.  It is the Blonde Ambition tour because I am blonde (thanks to my stylist Yvette) and it’s one hell of an ambitious list. 

In order to organize my efforts, I am separating the list into work and home.  I am officially working this week and next week, but next week will be even quieter than this one.  So I plan to focus on work this week and home next week.  The work list is boring, so I won’t share it, but it sounds something like presentation blah blah blah email blah blah blah hire someone blah blah blah.

Home List (brace yourself):

• Make it to the gym at least four days each week to counteract the 12 Pounds of Christmas
• Clean-out my closet and give to charity  – there are some clothes in there that would be better suited for an elf.
• Help my kids with their charity donations.  Before their birthdays and Christmas I make my kids go through their toys and each fill a minimum of a 12 gallon trash bag with toys for charity.  I explain that they have to give to others in order to receive.  It’s a great lesson on helping those less fortunate AND it keeps my home from turning into residential Toys R Us. (When I got to bed at night, I don’t like any toys in plain sight).
• Clean-out my husband’s office – This is frightening.  There is paperwork, empty router boxes and my kids’ school work from the last two years in there.  It’s the embarrassing catch-all room and unfortunately it is in the same hall as the guest bathroom, so we need to make it look less like somebody threw up a recycling bin in there.
• Have at least three playdates for the kids and three “mommy playdates”.
• Upload pictures to Facebook and make discs for people.
• Visit family and friends 3 hours away, 1 hour away and 30 minutes away.
• Host Christmas dinner.  I need a really good dessert recipe that will feed 10 – any ideas?
• Take down already dead tree and Christmas decorations on December 26th.

STOP LAUGHING!  If you think it’s funny or even ludicrous to come up with this list of things to do during the holidays, aside from surviving the holidays, I agree.  But when else can I get it done?  I miss my friends and family, my kids have spent a lot of time at home with each other and organization and tidiness makes me swoon.  Yes, I want to try for supermom despite repeated reminders from the universe that I crash after a couple of days of trying to do it all.  But yet I keep trying.  Why?  Because I’m a fighter? My meds aren’t right? I am a glutton for punishment?  I don’t know, but I am headed straight for completely off-balance in pursuit of balance. 

It’s Monday at 12:30 pm, how am I doing so far?

• I took an hour-long beating in one of those circuit classes today.  I should have known I was screwed when the warm-up was a mile run. (For those that don’t know me, I am not an athlete.  For those that know me, you know that is an understatement).
• My son currently has a playdate and I am taking my daughter to a kids party this afternoon.
• I am going out for dinner with the girls tonight.
• I have a load of laundry in the washer – it should be in the dryer, but one thing at a time.

I am off to a good start.  Now you may be thinking, this is boring, we don’t want to hear about all the good stuff you’re getting done.  But trust me, when I fall on stage (we’re going back to the Madonna analogy), I do it with a bang!

Stay tuned for the pyrotechnics!