This is really only a drop in the bucket, people.

I am sensing you are like me, and thrive with a full plate? What is your secret to making it all come together? How about a few tips on laundry? Chores? Meal time?

Well, I’ll admit. I typed that out and realized that my husband will probably get a good chuckle out of reading my response. The truth is… I don’t have it all under control. Not even close!

As of this second, I have one load of laundry in the dryer right now, that I {might} get around to folding when I get home. There are 4 more loads that need to be washed/dried in addition to that. My biggest tip that I can share is something I need to follow as well. I can’t remember where I read this at, but here goes:

Do one load of laundry every single day, Wednesday through Sunday. If your household has more than four people, do two loads on Mondays and Tuesdays.

I have a chore chart on the bulletin board in our kitchen that has: 1) daily chores; and 2)other chores. The daily chores are the usual stuff, like making beds, feeding the dogs, cleaning rooms, etc. The weekly chore chart changes each week, and I have it on a rotation– this includes dusting, vaccuuming, and cleaning the bathrooms. I will admit, though, that I have a hard time sticking to it.

I write a lot of notes to myself in my planner, which I carry with me religiously. I leave myself reminders about changing the furnace filter, checking the batteries in the smoke alarms, etc.

Bottom line, I don’t have the perfect solution to making it all work. I like to TRY, but I am just not the type of person that is a stickler for an immaculate house. I am guilty of having to re-wash a load of clothes because they sat in the washing machine for too long. I am guilty of not making my bed, except on the weekends. And really? I could probably live out of a laundry basket.

We have piles of papers and mail on our kitchen table that we have to move out of the way to make room for dinner. We have a basket on our stairs that is pretty much always FULL of things that need to get taken upstairs and put away. I can walk through my house at any given time and find at least one dirty glass, plate or bowl that needs to be taken to the dishwasher. And, I would DIE if someone performed the “white glove test” on anything in my house.

So, if anyone out there happens to stumble onto the solution to making it all come together, please share!

My Christmas music is playing, I have my gifts wrapped, my trees are decorated, school is almost out for Christmas break.

But I’m not feeling it this year. I can’t put my finger on it, but things are different. Maybe it’s the lack of snow, the prospect of knowing we won’t have a White Christmas. Heck, we might not even have a White New Year’s. While I certainly love the dry roads and lack of white stuff, things aren’t the same.

I didn’t get excited about Christmas shopping this year like I usually do, either. The items on my children’s Christmas lists are getting more expensive each year, so there are far fewer gifts under the tree than usual.

I opted not to send out Christmas cards this year, and I haven’t baked one single treat– no cookies, no fudge, no almond-bark pretzels, nothing.

What is it going to take to get me in the Christmas spirit?

Last time I checked, December falls at the same time every year. It’s always on the same page of the calendar, always the 12th month of the year. So I really don’t know why it creeped up on me this year. I feel like I flipped the page from November to December, and I was completely caught off guard. I wasn’t prepared for Christmas, I wasn’t prepared for winter, I wasn’t prepared for anything.

I am, in one word, overwhelmed.

I have to-do lists that are not getting accomplished. The kids are busy with basketball season, and husband is working overtime 6 days a week. Also, he’s going to school two nights a week. Then there’s our weekly adoption classes, which thankfully– we only have two left of.

That leaves me with lists of things to do, gifts to buy, cards that probably will not get mailed out AGAIN (2nd year in a row, FTW!), a house to keep clean, a full-time job, and it leaves me frazzled.

I look at my calendar and see that Christmas is 16 days away, and I have only purchased a small handful of our gifts so far. This is so unlike, as I usually have most of my shopping done around Thanksgiving weekend. I have a home study to prepare for next Friday, which means more housework, husband is studying for finals, and all I want to do is lie down and put my feet up.

I know… cry me a river. Right?

And then I witness something that makes me put everything back into perspective.

Yesterday, I rode along to deliver gifts to Children & Families of Iowa. The employees at the company I work for adopted FIFTY families in need this holiday season, and loaded up a delivery truck with gifts for parents and children. It was incredible. Seeing the people at the organization when this truck pulled and watching the boxes and boxes and boxes and BOXES of gifts being unloaded for FIFTY FAMILIES, y’all!

Now THAT was OVERWHELMING.

I think I can handle my holiday stress for a little while longer.

Some of you might remember this post I wrote back in early September where I mentioned that I needed to clean out our home office upstairs and turn it back into a bedroom.

Well, we finally got it done. It’s cleaned out. Repainted.  New furniture bought. Carpet cleaned.

To refresh your memory, here are the BEFORE pictures:

BEFORE: My side of the home office.

BEFORE: Husband's side of the home office

BEFORE: The messy closet

And now, my friends, I’d like to present… the *mostly* finished bedroom:

AFTER: Now it's a bedroom again!

AFTER: Desk, hutch and dresser

AFTER: The *much cleaner* closet

Once we get closer to being matched with a child, we will obviously do more decorating. Then we will let our son (“our son”- I LOVE saying that!) pick out stuff HE likes for the walls, and his own bedding, posters for the walls, etc. The stuff on the bed now is just temporary and only for show while our home-study is being done.

The details, in case anyone is interested:
Paint: Lowe’s Olympic Paint + Primer – Satin “Puppy Paws”
Furniture: Homemakers Kids Collection
Toys & Stuffed Animals: Donated by future big sister Courtney

Don’t we all want to be *that* mom? That “Supermom” that can do it all? Keeps a clean house, gets her kids to school and every activity, clean and impeccably dressed–and ON TIME– always? That mom that cooks a homemade meal every night and has a sparkling clean kitchen sink, and still makes time to read her Bible in the morning, write in her journal in the evening and even squeeze in a morning 5k run with her friends? That mom that can handle a career and a family and still whip up a mean pot roast?

That mom who never has to frantically throw clutter into a closet when the doorbell rings for fear of a visitor seeing how she “really” lives? That mom whose home could pass the white glove test at any random time? That mom fortunate enough to have given birth to wonderful perfect children who have never done anything wrong, get straight A’s in school, are perfect at everything, have straight teeth, are future homecoming queens/Harvard graduates/nuclear physicists/whatevers, and could never take a bad picture to save their life?

That mom whose hair is always perfect thanks to a $50 salon product, makeup flawless, clothes with nary a wrinkle and always stylish?

Newsflash: Those Supermoms don’t really exist.

I’ve tried over the years to be that kind of mom. I’ve tried to be even a tiny bit *close* to that kind of mom. I’ve written before that I’m far from being this type of Mom. My house is very rarely in a state of being ready for visitors to stop in unannounced.

Actually, I will just go out on a limb and say my house is NEVER like that. If someone rang my doorbell right this second, and stopped over unannounced, I would literally have a heart attack on the spot.

Someone might take a look at my life and think I am managing it all– a job, a family, a marriage, and a home. I am woman, hear me roar!

In reality, I am just keeping my head above water each and every day. You won’t see an immaculate house when you come over. There is usually a laundry basket of  clothes sitting on my family room couch that may or may not need to be folded. I tend to always have at least a few loads of laundry always taunting me from the laundry room. My bed never gets made except {maybe} on the weekends.

And someone PLEASE tell me I’m not the only Mom out there who has had to perform the “sniff test” on an article of clothing to check to see if it’s clean. And even if its not, it might get worn anyways.

I’m just sayin’.

When we ever get around to grocery shopping, we purge our kitchen pantry and refrigerator of lots of expired food. We simply aren’t home enough to eat what we buy.

I don’t carry around a bottle of hand sanitizer and I don’t make my kids wash their hands all the time.   I have never remembered to get my kids (or myself) a flu shot.  EVER.      I often get several reminders in the mail about scheduling them for a bi-annual dentist appointment before I get around to actually DOING IT. 

My kids’ sports uniforms get washed the night before a game, because I usually forget about them until the kids start hunting them down. My house would never ever ever ever pass a white glove test, and you could probably buy yourself a McDonalds Value Meal {or two} with the change you’d find under my couch cushions.  Heck, you just might FIND a McDonald’s Value Meal under my couch cushions. You just never know. You’d at least probably find a french fry or two three.  It might come with a side of dog hair, but still — protein!!  Woot!!

And my kids? Yes I write about how fantastic they are, and what great friends they are, what good choices they make… and yes, they do get straight A’s–usually. But I don’t tell you about the arguments we have, the drama that raising girls causes in our house. I don’t write about the yelling or the fighting or the bickering about who lets the dogs out more than the other, or who’s turn it is to unload the dishwasher, or who did what to who…

I don’t dare mention what it’s like when there is more than one menstruating female in the house (oh yes, husband.  I WENT THERE.)  I don’t mention that I can get all Mama Bear crazy up in this HIZZAY, just because sometimes– it’s all overwhelming.   Really, we’re just real life here, people.   We’re not perfect.  We’re NORMAL.   Or God help me, I certainly hope this is normal. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is I may not be perfect, and I’m done trying to be. I’m raising my kids and managing my family as best as I can. Someone asked me yesterday “Are you sure you’re ready to add another child to your family? That’s going to make you guys really busy!”

And my answer is YES. One hundred and ten percent, YES.

You want to know why?  Because despite the messy house, despite the fact that I am way overscheduled, I know my kids will will grow up with some hilarious stories to tell their own kids someday.     My kids will remember that their mom may not have made a home-cooked meal every single night, but she sure never missed a soccer game or a music program.   They will remember that laundry wasn’t exactly my favorite chore to do, but NEVER did a single day go by that they didn’t hear the words “I Love you.”

Now that’s what I call being a Supermom.

Well, I sat down the other day and started pencilling in all of the girls’ basketball practices and games and realized November will be just as busy as every month in our lives. I like that its busy, because I want time to be moving quickly right now.

I’m ready for the holidays, and I ready for this next chapter of our lives to begin. We’re in the midst of something awesome, and I am waiting in joyful anticipation as I flip each day on the calendar. I think back to when we were counting down the months, weeks and days until we could start our adotion classes, and now we are already getting ready to complete our third class tomorrow night. We have 50 days left until our classes are completed. Tomorrow night, we will be scheduling our first of three homestudy appointments with our caseworker. I am so anxious and excited, I just am overwhelmed this is really happening to us.

We spent the weekend doing some much-needed deep cleaning around the house. Friday afternoon, I made a list of things we needed to get done around the house before we had our homestudy done. We got a lot accomplished.

We purchased a new fire extinguiser and outlet covers for the house. Mark also added a lock on our kitchen cabinet under the sink and is putting cabinet latches on the bathroom cabinets as well. We had to put all of our over-the-counter and prescription medications in a locked container, so we bought a toolbox and a padlock. It serves the purpose, but we have no idea where we will store it.

Tonight is Trick-or-Treat night in our small town, but its also football playoffs for our high school. We’re thinking we won’t have too many trick-or-treaters, since even our own kids will be at the football game tonight. We’re opting to stay home and continue plugging away on the getting into tip-top shape. Next on the list: Cleaning the carpet while watching 3 dogs and answering the doors for some (maybe) trick-or-treaters.

My side of the messy home office.

Husband's side of the messy office.

It’s a decent-sized room, and I know exactly what I want this room to look like for a little boy. The problem? WHERE IN THE HELL TO PUT ALL OF THIS STUFF. We still each need a space for our desks, so our only feasible option is the basement. The unfinished basement that is currently home to my laundry room and the exercise equipment that I keep telling myself we will use someday. Lastly, our basement is home to the cat litter box, which only gets cleaned out when there is either 1) a lunar eclipse or 2) Haley’s Comet makes an appearance—whichever happens first.

Bottom line,there just isn’t room for any more stuff in the basement. So we are left with either buying a bigger house (not gonna happen), getting rid of some of our crap, or finally, draw straws to see who will be the one sleeping in the garage from now on.

The closet that I already "cleaned out" a week ago. Don't judge me.

I want to just snap my fingers and make it all go away. Close my eyes and when I wake up, the office will be a bedroom. The basement will be an office. And the litter box will be cleaned out.

Where do we even start?

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 30: Make a list of things you want to accomplish by the week from now until the end of the year (your gameplan).

Didn’t I already answer this once before? Maybe not quite the exact same question, but pretty similar.

My to-do list is always a mile long, and I don’t see that ever changing. So here, in a nutshel, is a list of to-dos that I would like to accomplish before the end of the year.

My gameplan, so to speak.

1. Paint my living room and upstairs hallway.
2. Remodel home office back into a bedroom.
3. Clean out my basement and make room for our home office.
4. Finish out 10 weeks of PS-MAPP classes.
5. Have our adoption homestudy (all stages) completed.

For now, these are the only big goals I want to accomplish. I don’t want to take on more than I can handle.

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 24: Biggest project you’d like to do that can be completed by the end of the year.

We moved into our house in May 2008. When we moved in, we knew that “sometime in the next several months” we would need to paint almost of the rooms in our house.

Now I sit here in August of 2011… and the only rooms I’ve painted is the two bathrooms. The two smallest rooms in the house, but I got them done!

I keep putting off the painting because that would mean moving furniture and taping things off, and you know… I already explained that I have no ambition anymore. Living in a split level house means that there are not many stopping points between my living room, family room, hallways and stairways. And when I can’t see the end of a painting job in sight, it makes me not even want to start it.

So, here are my two biggest projects that I CAN complete by the end of the year:

1. Our home office needs to be turned into a bedroom sometime before our adoption homestudy is completed.

2. Living room and upstairs hallway needs to be painted.

Here goes nothin’.

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 18: How do you prepare for the holidays?

To be honest, I don’t do much preparation until the last few weeks.  I get my shopping done early, but as far as planning meals and stuff, I don’t much planning at all.   We never seem to know from on year to the next where we will be spending the holidays, and so sometimes plans change quickly in the last couple weeks.  I guess I always just try to be prepared for anything!