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Day 202 - Staying in your lane

For long as I can I remember, I have wanted to do it all.   I like the idea of gardening, canning produce, knitting, sewing, cooking, making homemade gifts, & and digitally scrapbooking my family's shenanigans in great detail.

I like to be active, be outside, read, write, visit with my family and my friends.  That is it.  Why do I feel compelled to do all this extra?  It is pretty weird when you think about it.  I think I need to try to stay in my lane.

My house has become a project wasteland.  I look around at the piles taunting me from bins and boxes and corners and think to myself that I have become a collector of random things to do when all I really want to do is drink a cup of tea and read a good book.  I want to enjoy the downtime I deserve, (and frankly need) but I have this nagging voice tickling my brain whenever I do something not productive on my many lists.  

Part of moving past this cycle of starting a project but not finishing it and feeling inadequate is getting to the bottom of why I do it in the first place.  I constantly put the things I like to the end of my list because of a. housework and b. fretting about my unfinished projects.  I wrote earlier about quitting school because I am enough.  Maybe this is a mindset I can apply to this struggle.  

After much introspection and reflection, I realized that this all started when my husband and I bought our house over 20 years ago and I started little "sweat equity" projects to decorate and fix up our home without breaking the bank.  When my kids were born and, embracing my inner Thoreau, I worked less and eventually not at all.  I started fixing up freecycle furniture, making my own curtains, and buying toys from yard sales and fixing them up.  Now, even though I work outside the home again, I continue to refuse to outsource the quiltmaking and the digitizing of videos and I just announced to my family that I will paint two chairs in our entryway.  I think I need some help staying in my lane.  There are literally only 24 hours in a day.

I like the idea of the projects but evidently, I don't actually like doing the projects, (maybe because I work now and don't have the time).   Assuming I am not alone in this quandary so I decided to Google it.  A quick search filled my screen with blogs from work at home people, Reddit posts, and professional articles, (so clearly this is a common issue).  I decided to go with a great website:  Make life easier organising where I downloaded, you guessed it, a list!


Unlike my other lists that include things I need to do that day or in the near future, this list is comprised of all the things that swim around in the back of my brain, the items that used to hang around on my lists until they depressed me so I stopped writing them down.  If you look closely, I managed to complete one item already this morning!  Unfortunately, I have added two since.

My plan is to present this list to my family and see what they think.  Actually, no.  I won't do that.  They already think I am crazy.  Maybe I will just put this list on my list.  Help!



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