The blog I didn't mean to blog

I am so frustrated with feeling--and being--scatterbrained. There are a hundred things I would like to do, and set out to do, with my day, and only about 5 of them get done, and I feel like the 5 that get done don't even get done well, and of the 95 things that didn't get done, I forgot about 75 of them because I was thinking of the other...where are we...25? That's too many numbers for me, and I applaud you for even reading this far, because I'm really just rambling because I couldn't contain the "blah" anymore.

I don't know if it's because I've got too much on my plate, but I was busy all day long today--all day long--and I feel overwhelmed by all the things I didn't do, or didn't do well. And it's not like I was sitting around doing stuff I wanted to do instead of stuff I needed to do. No, I've got a laundry list of stuff I want to do--read a book, lay out, sew Halle's quilt, blog (yes, I realize I'm doing that now, but this is not the blog I meant to blog, and the only reason I'm doing this now is because I can't sleep. In fact, add "get to sleep before midnight or 1 am" to the list). It's just very frustrating. My house is trashed, and that's even after I actually did some housework today. I haven't really spent any quality time with my kids, and I feel like a really bad mom for not utilizing this time better (summer and all). I feel stuck. I feel out of balance. And it's not that I'm unhappy with my life overall, I'm just unhappy with the way I function, or rather, with the way I don't function. And maybe I expect too much of myself. The problem is, I don't really know what it is I expect of myself. A cleaner house? I actually did a load of laundry, and two loads of dishes today, in addition to cleaning off the desk, paying some bills, and getting some forms turned in today, after going to the grocery store and putting up the groceries. So, I shouldn't feel bad about what I didn't accomplish today, right? But I look around and all I see is a huge mess!! Actually, right not all I see is dark, because it's midnight and all the lights are out, but I know the mess is there!

I think maybe it's the mental mess that really gets to me. I lay in bed thinking of all the things that need to be done, or the things I should have done and didn't--I need to fold laundry, I should have given the kids a bath tonight, and didn't, I need to vacuum, there are clothes all over the floor in the bathroom, not to mention they need to be cleaned (the clothes and the bathrooms), Noah's room's a wreck, as is the girls' room, and, come to think of it, I should have made them clean their room this afternoon. Instead, they watched TV while I worked at the desk this afternoon. That wouldn't be so bad, except they've done that this summer much more than I think is good for them. I didn't have a real conversation with the girls today. I didn't play with them. I'M A BAD MOM!!! On the other hand, they did help bring in the groceries, and put them away, and they played on the Slip 'n Slide, and cleaned up their stuff from the living room, and they did their "cat chores" (cleaning out the kitty litter and feeding the cats.) So, maybe I'm not so bad, but I feel like the good things happened by default, not because I took any action to parent my children today. But I also didn't scream at them or beat them or lock them in the basement, so that's something.

I know somebody will probably say (or think), "oh, Amy, you're just being too hard on yourself." And maybe that's true, but to be very honest, there is a problem here (although, obviously, I'm not sure what it is). I'm in a quagmire of unmet expectations and unmet obligations, and mediocre performance as a housewife and a mother, and this is not to mention my laughable copyediting "career" that is a big source of frustration and disappointment at the moment--I have no idea where to go from here, but let's just leave that out of the picture for now.

So, to conclude, I do not understand how this whole thing is supposed to be done, and I think the underlying problem is that I don't know how to effectively juggle all the stuff without dropping something, or forgetting about it altogether.

Okay, I feel a little better now, and maybe I can actually go to sleep now without the line, "Sometimes that Gideon's Bible is your only friend" running through my brain like a broken record.