I'm Tired of it All!

As you know I have been spending a lot of time going through my old posts to make them more anonymous, replacing the kids' names with initials. I've gone all the way back half-way through 2006 - not bad. As I go through a post looking through specific names to replace I, of course, end up re-reading what I had written. And I've noticed some disturbing themes that keep repeating themselves no matter what year or what month or what is going on in my life:

1) I'm tired. Whether related to depression, narcolepsy, or just my crazy-busy life, I'm forever tired. And I know and freely admit that one thing I have to do is get to bed on time. And yet, year after year, I just don't do it. Plus I end up staying in bed until the latest possible moment, resulting in all of us running around the house like crazy people in an effort to get out the door on time.

2) I'm overwhelmed with everything involved with running the house and am fed up with the clutter that seems to be everywhere. Even when I write how proud I am that I cleaned out ____, several months later I am again fed up with what a mess the same area is. Clearly, I need routines in place that I will stick with.

3) I'm very upset with my weight (close to forty pounds overweight), clearly related to my out-of-control eating and lack of exercise.

I recognize this, I'm tired of this, I need to change this.

I've started a new incentive to get me out of bed on time. DH leaves the house around 6 AM, a time that I've now decided would be good for me to get up and moving. I KNOW if I was up and ready to go earlier than the kids get up it would make a HUGE difference. So for the last two days when DH has come back to our room to say good-bye, I've asked him to turn the shower on for me. If I don't get up immediately I will end up wasting all that water, something the environmentalist in me can't stand. And if I'm too tired to care about that first thing in the morning, then the knowledge that if I don't get up soon I will need to take a cold shower will surely get me moving.

Today I showered, dressed, made my bed, got the kids' breakfast on the table, at my breakfast while quietly reading a book, drank my cup of Chai Tea Latte while checking my e-mail, folded the load of laundry in the dryer and put it away, AND put a new load in the washer. I had the energy to encourage the kids to get dressed and cleaned up (we have a series of to do lists with incentives for completing each list) without yelling or getting stressed.

We will be walking out the door in five minutes. We are all 100% ready (well, I still have to do J's hair, but I'm about to do that) and amazingly, I don't feel as sluggish as when I end up hitting the snooze alarm twenty times.

I think I'm going to work on this goal for a while, and then start focusing more on the others. But as for today, woohoo!