Well, I’ve been slacking off—at least from Blogging.

Haven’t posted here in almost three weeks. But there hasn’t been anything all that interesting going on. I think that’s the hardest thing about single motherhood — the unending slog. Get up, go to work, come home, fix dinner, tuck in the kids, do housework, go to bed. Next day: Get up, go to work, come home, fix dinner, tuck in the kids, do housework, go to bed. Next day: Get up, go to work, come home, fix dinner, tuck in the kids, do housework, go to bed. It’s like walking a treadmill.

However, things are beginning to both come together and fall apart all at the same time. I’m up early three days a week to exercise now. I tried every day, but Thursdays were horrible because of Wednesday madness*, so I decided Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be exercise days, and I won’t feel guilty about skipping Tuesday, Thursday, and weekends. I’m trying to get up by six on non-workout days, so I can do housework. Problem is, if I get up and start doing stuff, the kids wake up and want “Mommy time” and I don’t get anything done. Then I get frustrated and crabby. Oh well. It will work out. It always does somehow.

I have decluttered the house a lot: I’ve overflowed my official garbage bin three weeks in a row now with stuff I’ve culled. The garbagemen have been giving me funny looks. And the utility shed is full of things to sell at the yard sale in April or to list on Ebay. The attic is tidied up and better organized, and I’ve managed to get the reading room (our 7’x9′ “fourth bedroom” — which isn’t big enough to hold a twin bed) to where I can walk into it without having to climb a mountain of stuff.

I’ve also been taking better care of me. A lot of it is “confidence boosting” for doing this vocal solo on Sunday — I’ve been doing Crest Whitestrips all week (blech!) hoping to lighten my teeth a bit (25 years of black tea and coffee, including one nine-month stretch of 40 + cups of black coffee a day — does dreadful things to the teeth), and using mud masks and facial cleanser instead of soap and water on my face, and taking long, hot, soaky baths at night to relax and soften my winter-dry skin. And pouring on lotion after the bath to keep the soft skin. And I’m trying to reach my hairdresser to get a haircut before Sunday, and all three of us (the kids and me) have our semi-annual dentist’s appointment Saturday morning at 9. I’m making sure I get my 8 hours most nights. And I painted my nails last Sunday morning (clear pink shimmery gloss) — just because. I’m going to give myself a French Manicure on Saturday night after the kids are in bed — if I’m not too tired. Otherwise, I’ll just refresh the pink shimmery stuff.

But tax time has got me with piles of papers all over the floor as I try to figure out whether I really have to pay the government more money (last estimate, $400, but I haven’t entered all my deductions yet) or not. And I found out while doing it that a company I used to have “health insurance” from owes me some $500 or more, because they continued to charge my credit card after closing my account. That’ll be nice. Pay off a bit of debt. Anyway, so there’s laundry on the couch again, and papers all over the living room. And I have a CPR class to teach this weekend, so Saturday’s a bust.

But it will all come together in the end. It always does, somehow.

*Wednesday Madness: Wednesdays are Bedlam. Up at 5:30 to exercise, to work by 8:30, pick up kid from guitar lesson at 1:30, back to work by 2, leave work and pick up kids at 5:45, to church by 6:15, kids’ choir from 6:20 to 7:15, adult choir practise from 7:30 to 9, home and get the kids in bed, lay out everything for tomorrow, and get self in bed by 10.

Tags: challenges, Family Life, single parenting, taxes