A New List

Lately, the inside of my head has felt like this:

and while the messes get cleaned up, the kids are fed and happy and we all have been enjoying very pleasant and busy days, I can't shake the feeling that comes each evening: I am no further along than I was when I started this day...

I have a list, as I always do, of small-ish projects that I would like to complete in the next few weeks. They are projects of very little true importance, but accomplishing them would add greatly to my personal sense of completion - sorting boxes, organizing files, yada yada, all my usual favorites. But those sort of projects usually require my full focus, and I have two kidlets that rarely allow my full focus to proceed without interruption. And lately, by this time of night, when the house is quiet and I could get something done, I just. don't. have. the. energy. Not in a whiney, there's-something-wrong-with-me type way, just in a "it's been a long day already, and I would much rather just sit on the couch and read than create a new budget spreadsheet" type way.

So, to combat my mild depression over "what do I do all day, and how come I can never seem to cross anything off my list" I decided this morning to write a new kind of list. And this is what it looked like by the time I took its picture about 15 minutes ago:

So there, I do accomplish quite a bit in my days, even if my obsessive-compulsive List of Things to Organize doesn't say so.

I feel much better now.