Procrastination Mode

I've got things to do. Important things to do. Yet... here I sit.

For some reason, when my to-do list gets too long, and I have too much time to do the tasks, I get paralyzed. I don't know where to start, so I don't start. I don't let myself do the things that would arguably distract me from the necessary tasks (blogging), and so I do nothing at all. And then when I finally talk myself into starting, there's a glitch. And I suffer dearly for waiting so long. At the moment, that curse is laundry. And the glitch - I have no detergent. And the reason this is a glitch? Other than the normal "I'll never dig my way out of this laundry jam?" glitch?

Rob and I are taking a trip. Soon. Very soon. It's our annual "Marriage Rejuvenation" week, a.k.a. "Do We Still Like Each Other When the Kids Aren't Around," a trip we've taken for the last 5 years. Seems we have short-term memory issues.

I'm happy to report that, thus far, the answer has always come back 'yes.' Sadly, it's at this point in the year, after 12 months sans marriage rejuvenation, when I can't remember that the answer was yes. I recall it might have been yes, but I can't necessarily "feel" it. And I need to find out again. Just to be sure. So we're goin'.

But this week has been filled with stops and idling, fits and starts. My nomination for Mother-of-the-Year was submitted not once, but twice this week - first for not carving pumpkins until the day of Halloween (and that's only with the one kid who is still free from the bonds of school-scheduling), and second, for not taking the kids to pick out new Halloween costumes. I'm really the super-awful-mother on the holiday thang most of the time. I manage alright with birthdays and Christmas, but as for the others? They could pass right by without my making a single mention, if the kids didn't notice all the hoo-ha the other (good) parents put on. I don't put out decorations. We don't do themed crafts. We don't make special foods, or have special traditions, or, obviously, even notice it's a holiday until it's upon us. Oops.

I don't know why I am not more festive. I'm definitely a find-the-beauty-in-every-moment kinda grrl, at least when my hormones aren't in flux (which is, admittedly, quite rare). I just really struggle to create hype where I feel none. It feels... contrived. And I don't know that my boys care all that much, except when it gets to the drastic point it did this time - of no pumpkin carving or mention of costumes. That went a little too far.

So I gave Jonathan a hug and apologized for waiting too long, and things were better. Not fixed, but better. And I promised Brady that we'd still carve his pumpkin, despite the fact that I feel even less moved - if that's possible - to do it than before, now that Halloween is over.

I went to the store today and I bought laundry detergent. And then I fiddled around in the drug store for a long time looking at things I don't need or even want. Then I wandered a resale shop, under the guise that I "need some things for my trip." And then I stopped to take some lovely fall photos on the way home. And now I write on my blog. All in an effort to avoid the mountainous to-do list that must get finished if there is to be any rejuvenation of anything taking place.

Maybe I should go lie down awhile. Maybe then I'll feel better. Maybe then I'll find the gumption to tackle my to-do list.

It could work.