Crunched

I have been so crunched for time this week. It's been run, run, run, for my appointments/classes, Mabel's gymnastics, piano lessons. Running to the grocery store, submitting Mabel's artwork to the community fair. Not to mention the constant vigilance I have to keep in my house to keep it from turning into a garbage dump. I swear, how many socks can one family litter all over a house? It's mind boggling.

There are so many things I have to keep track of, mainly because no one else seems able to, for one reason or another. At home it's getting the garbage out on Mondays, watering the plants, where we need to be. In the mornings I remind Hubby what's in the refrigerator for breakfast and his lunch (it's like there's some cloaking device in the refrigerator that renders everything invisible to him), help him find his phone, keys, sunglasses, etc., and ask him what he wants to make for supper. This morning I asked him and he replied for the millionth time, "I didn't even think about it." We have dinner every night, and he cooks 9 days out of 10. How can he forget?

After that I have to follow Mabel around and hound her to get dressed, brush her hair, pick out an outfit that remotely matches, make sure everything's in her book bag and keep her from sneaking out of the house without her eyeglasses.

That's just the morning. I need to start documenting how many times a day one of them asks me where something is. They both get so angry, stomping around throwing toddler fits, until I find it within 20 seconds and hand it to them. How did I become such a master of finding things? I suppose it's because I learned not to rely on someone else to do it for me.

And let's not forget my job. I've bailed one woman out twice this week, taking time out of my day to do things at the last minute that she either forgot about or lost that had to be done before Sunday. It's my job to remind people about meetings, about getting information to me, to make schedules and make sure all the supplies are ordered.

There are a seemingly endless list of things that everyone relies on me to take care of. There have been many times in my life that resentment has built up about this. Fortunately, right now I'm not feeling that. Instead I'm actually finding it kind of self-validating. "Look how needed I am. People rely on me, and for the most part I fulfill their needs. I do a good job and I'm proud of what I accomplish on a day-to-day basis."

I suppose part of me worries what will happen when I leave for a week in January. Not at work: I have become the master of getting work done ahead of time, making things easy not only for my fill-in, but also for myself when I return.

It's home that concerns me. I know how quickly my family can decimate our house. In a 48-hour weekend our home can go from clean and tidy on Friday afternoon to a cluttered shambles on Monday morning. Granted, no one is going to die in a week's time. However, my family will probably walk around in a daze (actually, probably stumbling through piles of shoes and socks), then roll around in the floor in a tizzy when they can't find anything, and they'll have to eat out every night because no one will remember to make supper plans.

I don't even want to think about the mess I'm going to come back to. But I'm not letting it keep me from going. I'll just have to slug through it and deal with it.

Another busy weekend coming up. I'll try to post if I can.