Off white & Ecru do NOT match

I have been so tired lately that I am letting things slip simply due to sheer over-extension. I am one human being who apparently thinks I have superhuman powers and takes on WAY too much work and then nearly drowns in it. I am there right now, sputtering and trying to stay afloat. Anyone got a life ring handy?

The laundry pile in my laundry room is up to the bottom of the window sill.

Bills are stacked up all around my desk, sharing space with Title and Escrow Documents, Legal papers, notes, cards, our State Tax Return - basic things I need to attend to immediately that have already been here 3 weeks. I make a big a dent as often as I can (which translates to as often as I can physically sit down ay my desk during the days I spend being Mommy to 2 kids under 4 and working from home), but there is little evidence of that hard-earned dent within 24 hours. The piles are relentless. If I had a whole day - 24 hours straight - dedicated to getting through all of this, I could do it. But I have not had a whole day to dedicate to ANY ONE THING since I can remember.

Clients and other agents' calls emails, faxed, and pages are attacking me all day long - from my first phone call at home this morning at a little past 7:00 am to my last email, which I sent just moments ago at 1:00 am. No WAY is this healthy.

I wore two different colors of socks today... one was white and the other was clearly not. It was some kind of off white or ecru color. CLEARLY different socks, but I did not perceive that in my tired stupor as I dressed myself this morning. I am frankly feeling quite accomplished that my underwear did not end up on the outside of my clothes because THAT is the kind of capacity I have been operating with of late.

My house is nearing the catastrophic level of messiness in some rooms. In those most commonly used areas, it resembles a "BEFORE" picture you might see on a Home & Garden TV Show about disorganization. Martha Stewart would have a conniption while walking through my home. Then again, her life experience may have allowed her standards to shift a bit, so I might pass the mustard after all.

I have not taken a shower in three days. Three days. I'll be in there as soon as I complete this post, but let me just say it has been rather unpleasant. Yikes.

I am responsible for so much that I find myself unable to do anything smashingly well. I sat down and wrote out a list of everything I do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis - and I found I cannot remember everything I have to do, much less categorize it and accomplish it. Though incomplete, I came up with 12 pages of things actively requiring my attention on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. It is daunting and made me genuinely sick to my stomach. No one person can do all of this without declaring a truce with their mental and physical faculties at some point. No one person should even try to do this sheer volume of work - it is a self-defeating process.

We have eaten take-out for much of the last week because I am simply not able to carve time out to fix a proper meal, and even then, am usually on the phone during dinner. That is NUTS! Cooking a healthy dinner is a special promise I made to myself, Copper, and my darling munchkins. I feel defeated and ashamed to have so badly stretched myself that MEALS are being skimped on.

I have surrendered control of my life to others and to regain it, I must cement myself in my LOVE of being a Godly wife and mother to these precious little one above all else. Everything else is periphery. Nothing is worth regretting when my children's lives are in progress. I am losing my health, my sleep, my peace of mind, my ability to focus, my stamina, my patience, my joy, and my grip. I keep telling myself it will slow down when these current escrows close. And it may. But it may not. If I do not set some serious limits with my work life intruding upon my home life, I am going to reap the whirlwind even more so than I am already.

Which is a frightening thought.

My job depends on my availability to clients. However, people make unreasonable demands on my time every day. I try hard to accommodate everyone and have this inane idea in my head that, somehow, I can miraculously "DO IT ALL". Somehow I can work full time and still be a full time stay at home Mom simultaneously. How EXACTLY can one person do two full time jobs mutually exclusively? The answer is: not well. My participation in this unrelenting bombardment of mine and my family's life by my workload MUST STOP.

How many times do I need to write about this, give it to God in prayer, commit and earnestly try to remedy this problem before it actually HAPPENS?

So, as you all are witnesses, I am hereby taking steps to SLOW THE HECK DOWN and get back to basics. Wife, Mom, Keeper of the House, Realtor. In THAT order. If I lose business, I lose business. I will survive and so will the world, which I am not singlehandedly holding together for my clients, as much as they like to think I am.

Why do I always let it get to the point of absolute inertia and physical sickness before I DO SOMETHING about my workload?? No more of this nonsense. Tomorrow I will screen my calls and will call people back on MY timeframe, not theirs. My pager is getting turned off during meals, I WILL attack this laundry (which I LOVE, so this tells you how bad it's gotten) and the bills. I will spend the time with my babies doing things THEY love tomorrow, no matter how much I have to do.

I will stop letting my life take charge of me. I am taking back charge of my life.

For goodness freaking sake.