Trying to Keep Up

I was outside Wed evening trying to catch up on watering the gardens and various planters around my house. This is the first time in the past few years when I actually managed to do some respectable gardening before the hot weather hit. During all this watering, I started thinking about how many things, like the landscaping, have slipped by me since I came back to school.

There was a time when I always had flowers in the garden by the first of June and the weeds didn't threaten to overtake my yard; when my house was always clean and the laundry wasn't piled up so high. But for the past few years, between working, going to school, and trying to stay sane with two teenage boys, I've become very unorganized. (If it wasn't for my husband, who's a big help and very supportive, I'd probably completely fall apart.)

Determined to break the cycle, every semester I swear that once I'm on break, I'll catch up on the spring cleaning and reorganize all the closets and cabinets. The problem is that by the end of the semester, I'm so mentally exhausted, it takes me weeks to find the energy. And then, it's time to go back and start all over again. It can be discouraging until I take a moment to remember why I'm doing this, and I decide that a few weeds won't carry my family away; the house won't fall down from the weight of a few dust balls; and the laundry will eventually get done even if it means the jeans get washed with the delicates.