I feel like this right now....

except I'm not standing on the ball, but laying prostrate on the floor with the spilled milk in my hair, desperately trying to save the fish, and if it's my house, the dog is peeing in the corner.  And my family is just milling around as if nothing is amiss.  Why?  Because I've been this way for so long that it's my normal.

Except it's really getting to me now, and I'm becoming increasingly discontent in my imbalance.  I can't get it together and it's really driving me just a little bit mad.  At school, my place where I am always organized and together, I'm drowning.  My desk is a pile of unfiled paperwork, unwritten curriculum maps and lesson plans,  ungraded reading units.  At home, where I am never organized, it is beyond the point I consider "no return."  Laundry baskets full of clothes--washed and unwashed.  Baskets full of random toys.  Unfinished homework, unmatched socks, entire rooms devoted to piles of things that we haven't put away and needed somewhere to stash.  Weight loss?  Stalled.  Taking time to exercise means having a free afternoon without a dr. appointment, parent meeting, practice.  Eating right means making the time and finding the money to buy the right things and denying myself the quick fix for the hunger of my stomach and my soul.

I don't really know the solution.  I think women who have it all together must never sleep, never relax, never get lost in a book, never sit down to snuggle with their little ones or listen to a Barbie show, never blog or facebook.  And when do they find time for their husbands?

I'm trying this weekend, as I do every weekend, to regain some of that balance.  We've a rare weekend where we have nowhere to go and nothing to do except stay at home, go to church and to Nanny's for lunch.  I have great plans to get the laundry done and put away, Hannah's homework that we forgot to do this week done, school work completed (I brought home two big bags of it.ugh) Spent a nice evening with the family last night eating what I wanted, vegging on the couch with my babies and big kids watching a good movie (Courageous), ignoring everything but the most important things--my family and my faith.  Today it's time to try to get up off the floor, wipee (for those not mothers, it's when you clean yourself or your child up using a wipee because you are too busy/lazy/or not at home) the milk out of my hair, and climb back on my ball.

Happy Weekend, and Happy Balancing to you all!