I did not pace myself. That's all I can tell you.

OK. Not really. I'll tell you more.

Yesterday the kids went back to school and I got busy right-quick with all of my putting the house back together, keeping all of my New Year's Resolutions, PLUS, searching high and low for two missing birth certificates.....

For some reason I never ended up with BCs for 2 of my kids. I needed them for school, of course, and had to special order the documents. And so they came in October or November, I carried them around with me several days thinking I would stop by the school and have them copied, but I never did. And now......I can't find them. Wouldn't I be the biggest dork to have to order yet another 2 birth certificates?

It's obvious to me that one of my new habits needs to be an efficient filing system and habit. My hunt for the birth certifs went like this:

Look where you think it will be. Don't find it there. But go through every paper in that stack just in case, sorting and piling and throwing away as you go.

Clear said space of all it's paperly clutter and set up a nice cards-and-addresses area in that cabinet. hooray! Good job. Looks great.

But still no Birth Certificates.

So, onto the next most logical place: A medium sized plastic container with many papers put into it and hidden from some time in the past several months when somebody was coming over and I was trying to make my counters look like I don't pile papers on them.

So, dig through all the papers, continue with the sorting, piling, throwing away.

Eliminate almost all of the mess from this container. Continue eliminating all clutter from this entire cabinet shelf. Then set up new shelf paper, put new things on this shelf (a change I had been planning, so this was a good time). Put the stuff that had been on that shelf onto a different shelf.

But still, no Birth Certificates.

It went on like this through several clutter areas. I made great strides on the decluttering. I have a fresh pile of papers to file (that will be ignored). But I still don't have the darn Birth Certificates.

So, I went on like this non stop, except for when I caught up on all the laundry, did a 45 minute Joyce Vedral workout, did phone calling (chores, not pleasure, I assure you), miscellaneous paperwork, and so on. I stopped for nothing except lunch.

By the time the kids got home I realized I had not paced myself very well. I forgot! After I work the first shift, I still have to work the second shift. (Hubby was at work, too. So I was on my own.)

So, I kept right on going.

I had planned my meals! Yes! Because I am an organized New Year kind of woman. That's why. So, I got going on making my healthy and delicious applesauce bread. I made Potato Cheese Soup. I did all those parental things like look through 4 backpacks worth of papers and school notes, heard about everybody's day, and attempted to have the kids clean their areas.

My feet were killing. My body was getting sore. (but not as sore as today!! Yow! At least I know my workout did something for me...) The homework and kitchen cleaning and bedtime routine were waiting...... UGH!

So, I did what any sane mother would do.

I went and hid at the computer for a little R&R.

We didn't get much accomplished after that. I was still sending people off to bed at 10:30 (my oldest and my youngest), and then proceeded to be an even bigger fool by staying on the computer chatting with my mom until 1 am.

So, 5 hours later I got to start all over again. Except today...I'm going to pace myself.

(and I think that might be one of the most boring posts I ever made. Sorry.)