Delusions of "What Shan Can Do."

Today was my first non-working Monday... I kept waiting for someone to catch me playing hooky and call my Mom!  All this freedom is a little unsettling for me.

I had such big plans for today. I hate to admit it, but I suffer from a terrible condition I like to call "Delusions of What Shan Can Do."  Every night as I'm lying there in bed I think of all I want to accomplish the next day and the list is incredibly long. This is what I had planned last night for today:

Get up at 5 am
Work out for at least an hour
Finish cleaning/organizing the "exercise room"
Have Devotions
Make a drop at Goodwill
Go grocery shopping
Cook dinner

Now let me tell you what really happened.  I didn't get up at 5 am. I think maybe I've goten up that early twice in my life and I'm pretty sure I was forced or tricked.  Today my eyelids were barely open at 9! The day hadn't even started and I was already disappointed in myself.

Now here's the real problem. I am not a morning person. Never have been, probably never will be. And getting up at 5 in the morning is so totally unrealistic. I have the best of intentions laying there in the dark, but come morning snuggled there in my nice warm bed, all rational thought flees. Another problem with mornings is the stiffness. My body seems to "freeze" over night and those first few movements are incredibly painful and so I put them off as long as I possibly can.

I did finally push and pull myself out of bed and made my way to the treadmill. I was able to put in a good 36 minutes! Why 36 minutes you might wonder? Well I have this weird thing with myself. I want to do a mile in less than 15 minutes. Not really all that ambitious I know, but that's my goal right now. I also want to do at least 2 miles. This morning that first mile was pretty slow. So I pushed myself for the second one and was able to finish 2 miles in 29 minutes and 45 seconds. The last 5 minutes and 15 seconds was just for good measure!  I'll take my wins where ever I can get them.

After that I did spend a good couple of hours in the exercise room.  I went through my closet again and then tackled a small desk and some portable storage files. I still have 2 file cabinets that are calling my name.
So far I've managed to go though and make piles of what I want to keep, what's garbage and what's going to Goodwill. I plan to use this room as my staging/go-through everything area. I think I will need to probably go back through more than once if you know what I mean. There are probably things that made the first cut that won't make the second. I might even need to do a third!

I finally was exhausted and hadn't eaten yet so at noon I took a break. I ate some leftover sausage, egg, hashbrown casserole and felt some renewed energy. I couldn't believe how late it had gotten so after a quick shower I was ready for the grocery store.

I'd made my list and it was going to require three different stores. One of which was Costco - that's never a quick trip! By the time I'd finished at all the stores and made it home it was almost 4:45. So instead of putting dinner in the oven at 5 pm, I was trying to clear enough space off the counters to get dinner started. Arrghhh..... my dinner plan was the Barefoot Contessa's Turkey Meatloaf. Something I hadn't made in a while and had forgotten it takes 1 1/2 hours to bake! Still I was determined and pressed on. So between all the half put away groceries, cookbook, and ingredients I got that meatloaf in the oven by 5:20. I bumped up the temp and it was ready by 6:30pm (and it was well worth all the trouble).

During all of this chaos I realized that I'm going to have to change my cleaning plans for the upstairs and focus on the laundry/pantry so I can put the groceries away!  My husband would refer to this as a "sequential vortex." Having to do one thing before you can do something else. Man, I am always falling into those!

I never did have my devotions today...another disappointment. I really need to stop over planning my day - the night before!
"Delusions of What Shan Can Do." strikes again! I'm sure I'm not the only one who suffers from this ailment - trying to stuff too much into to few hours. I think it's a symptom of our culture. You can't just read of book or talk to a friend. No you have to be text, check your email, update your facebook status, load the dishwasher or washing machine! I'm so guilty of this. I always feel like I need to be doing more than one thing at a time - rarely do I give my full attention to what I should. I think that's why I put Live intentionally - in the moment on my list for 2013. I need to slow down. I need to focus. I need to pay attention. Maybe tonight when I'm laying there in my bed and my mind starts in with all the planning for tomorrow, I'll just tell myself to shut the (pardon my language here) hell up! Maybe I'll even be paying close enough attention to hear myself.

Here's to a fresh start tomorrow,
Shan