Which are you – scheduled or spontaneous? Or are you a little bit of both.

I think I’m a little bit of both with leanings more toward the scheduled side of things, especially now that I have to keep track of all those extra people (gah, kids – get it together). I thrive more in a schedule – I feel like I get more certainly at work but also at home. Clearly, it’s the controlling Type A person in me.

That’s not to say that I don’t love the spontaneous night out (just gotta find that babysitter first) or planning something on the fly. It’s just that I can keep the anxiety at bay when I know what’s coming. When my schedule is out of whack, I fall behind on work projects, things over here on the blog and way too much stuff at home. All anxiety inducing for a variety of reasons.

Usually, the start of the year is just the time to get it all together. Get caught up at work, get rid of the stacks of nonsense that gather up at the year and get back on track with living right. Which basically just means getting back into the gym and purging the remains of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory that assembled from Halloween to Christmas.

This year though, we kicked things off t with our trip to Key West (which I am DEFINITELY not complaining about) and now I am off to a quick work trip to Washington D.C. And while I will love the chance to watch TV for 15 minutes consecutively without hearing “Mommy” 36 times, it has thrown me off.

Here’s the thing – I’m not necessarily running a well-oiled machine at home – it’s still being held together with duck tape and push pins. And certainly always between 5 and 15 minutes late. But at least then I’m there to remember where things are, where people need to be and when they need to get there. That whole trying to be in two places at once thing doesn’t work although it would be great if they could figure it out.

I guess it all just comes with the territory of trying to balance it all, dealing with the inevitable guilt and learning to let go of the little stuff. This mixture of chaos motivates me to live more spontaneously, enjoy the mess while also encouraging me to get it all together so I can enjoy those moments more. Although when it comes to that last one,  I’m sure we all know that’s unlikely at best.

What it all really boils down to though, is the laundry. I think the whole battle between the two extremes in my mind can be waged in my laundry room.  This weekend when I finished the giant pile it felt like I’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon (yes, it really is the little things in life). But I know when I get back, I’m going to be back at the starting line. So what I’m saying is that we could all be way more spontaneous if someone would just come and do our laundry.

Okay, I guess it’s not that simple, but it certainly would be a start.