As I was gearing up for the weekend and planning how I was going to juggle multiple soccer games, an evening out, and general housekeeping, I realized that essentially I could work 24/7 and still not get everything done. Rather than being discouraged by this, it was actually comforting to know. I have always been of the mind that if I spent just a little more time cleaning this or organizing that, my house would be perfectly neat, my bills would always get paid on time and my family would always still have quality time together. This is so not true. In part, it’s because of our family’s own habits. We aren’t good at putting things where they go or consistently marking things on calendars or giving enough notice for the school bake sale. In part, it’s because we’ve been gradually downsizing our living spaces while accumulating more stuff. In part, it’s because both Mr. Geeky and I put in overtime in our other jobs. All of those things are mutable, but not in the short term. I’ve decided just to accept that it’s likely these things will never change and so I should just work around it.

My feeling that I’d need to be constantly working to keep up with housework increased as I actually tackled some tasks for the weekend. I even made a list. I crossed things off the list and yet still wasn’t that much closer to house perfection. I reorganized some cabinets, washed three loads of dishes, five loads of laundry (and actually put them away), put away the summer clothes (finally), shopped for winter clothes for the kids, and went grocery shopping. I also managed to play board games with the kids, attend two soccer games, take the kids out for breakfast, go out with friends, and watch football, none of which I could do if I were aiming for house perfection.

I could have done more this morning in the hour and a half I’ve already been awake, but then I couldn’t have read the news and blogs or written this blog post. Priorities, priorities. Sure, it’d be nice to look around and see no clutter, but I think my brain would be completely empty at that point.