All About Mama

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your to-do list?  Well, I know I do.  I love to plan, but my plans seem to take on a life of their own.  I plan BIG!  Due to my big plans, they frequently become overwhelming and I find that I lose my self-esteem before I even get started or I get started and get discouraged or lose interest in the middle of the task at hand.  I have had trouble breaking my plans into smaller, bite-sized pieces to make them more likely to be accomplished.  On top of that I get distracted easily.
 Earlier this month I read about Mama Jenn and her challenge to her fellow blog readers to join her in Mama's Mission of the Month.  What is this you ask?  Well, Mama Jenn started this to hold herself accountable for the goals she had set for herself.  Many find that if they post something about something they are going to do it helps them accomplish their goal -- as they feel they are being held accountable for that job.  Mama Jenn decided to challenge others by starting Mama's Mission of the Month.  

I am taking the challenge, and joining Mama Jenn {and many others} in their Mission of the Month, but what do I choose as my first mission?  My to-do list is enormous!  As I said before, the goals I set for myself are radiculous.  In order to accomplish any of these goals I need to start by breaking them down from gigantic projects to bite sized pieces.

Like so many other people I want to de-clutter, reorganize, redecorate, and just simplify my home and my life.  It would be fantastic if someone from the many HGTV shows would show up and get rid of everything in my house and help me start from scratch, but until then I have to do this on my own.  My ultimate goal is to completely organize my home.  Yep, that's what I said -- completely organize my home.  *sigh*  Now that is a BIG task and just saying it discourages me.  It would be easy if we were moving -- I could purge as we went, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.  So I have to take it into my own hands.  I know that it is not something that will happen overnight or in one month, probably not even tow so i must break it down.  I keep telling myself one room at a time, but even that sometimes feels overwhelming and I often use the excuse that I need my husband to help {but then again sometimes I do need his help.}

Before I even heard about this Mission of the Month idea, I made a goal for myself to organize all of our school stuff -- books, workbooks, office supplies, art supplies, games, flashcards, etc. before we started school.  Well. . . I started. But I just kinda stashed things in various places so I don't have to look at them.  The old outta sight outta mind.  Our home is small and we really lack storage.  What I have organized has helped with the frequent question of 'Mommy, where is. . .?' which typically resulted in 'I don't know.  Go look for it.'  We all know what that is followed by. . .'I can't find it!'  You then stop whatever you are doing and go look for it yourself.  I have tamed the beast {for now} by using the Workbox Program, but I know that the dragon will burst through those doors rearing its ugly head and once again I will find myself discouraged.  On top of the various homeschooling supplies and activities, I have a one terabite of homeschool stuff I have downloaded from various websites that offer free homeschool items.  Unfortunately due to my lack of organization, I have not been able to use {or find} items I could really use.  {I think you are beginning to see my situation here.}

I have started to organize my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom which have also managed to find themselves tossed to the abandoned list.  There is not much to do in either room, it is just doing it.  Since I already began in my daughter's room this month, I am going to continue that goal through the month of September.  I have 21 days to complete my goal.

This will include but is not limited to:

1. Cleaning out the closet.
2. Buy a rod to hang clothes on.
3. Clean out the storage above the closet.
4. Buy curtain tiebacks and hang them.
5. Hang lights and clock.
6. Find pictures, print pictures, and hang pictures on wall for the Family Photo Wall.
7. Buy and paint plywood for the game closet doors.
8. Take toy box.
9. Go through clothes -- donate or take to storage.    

Now for a personal goal I want to lose 10 lbs by November.  I know you shouldn't plan a diet on or around the holidays, but more of just watching the amount of food I intake, but also to start getting back in shape.  I have started by doing 10 sit-ups a day for the last week and my goal is to increase that by 10 each week.   

There we go.  That was easy.  Mission set {here's hoping that I can use the mission accomplished tag at the end of September!!!!}

I promise most posts will not be this long!  

UPDATE:  As I am still learning about this bloggin' thing (and apparently still don't understand about pages.) Please follow my post at the primary page http://newriverlearning.blogspot.com/.