Restless.

I'm feeling restless and fidgety these days.  Maybe it's early spring and the eagerness to leave winter behind.  Maybe it's competing priorities~ the never-ending sense that there's something that needs to be done thus making it impossible to stay in any one moment.  Maybe it's procrastination and guilt.

It's school vacation week.  Instead of putting the kiddos in camp and working a regular week, I took the week off from work.  And remember how I said what I wished for was a week off to clean my house, but who was I kidding because if I had a week off the last thing I'd do would be to clean?  Well, I spent a large part of Saturday and Sunday cleaning. But I didn't get to any of my piles of things that I desperately need to declutter.  The kids' rooms look fantastic.  The bathrooms sparkle.  The laundry is done and the seasonal "out with the fleece, in with the short sleeves" has happened.  But I am still surrounded by energy-sucking PoS (piles of stuff). 

But it is school vacation week and the kids aren't interested in my issues with clutter.  In part, I want to do some really fun things so we create good memories and enjoy each other (read: so they are distracted enough not to fight).  I don't want to waste the week away.  Then again, we're all so busy with school, after school, work, activities, etc., the rest of the year that I think it's good for them to spend days in their pjs without any concern for a schedule.  Doing fun things, heck, doing anything requires effort.  And if we just hang around the house, the kids can watch tv while I declutter.

Yet I know that is a fantasy.  Home with both kids means every 15 mins I'm interrupted in one way or another.  Someone will want a snack.  Someone will need help reaching something.  There'll be fights to break up and time-outs to supervise.  My frustration will grow because I'm not getting my goals accomplished.  I'll be annoyed and angry at the kids and their fighting, which will quickly lead to guilt that they are fighting out of boredom.

A few minutes ago I asked them what they wanted to do today and the answer was simple~ take a picnic lunch to the local playground.  Excellent.  I have to make them lunch anyway!  We'll go for a couple of hours, come home, they'll take baths (since the bathtub sparkles! and since it's been 4 days since anything but their hands and faces have seen soap and water), and then they'll want to "rest" in front of a dvd.

Maybe then I'll get to some of my piles to organize. But if not, at least one day of school vacation wasn't spent entirely in pjs, in case their teachers ask . . .