31 Days of Words for the Daily Dash-Day 18

Two words that would accurately describe my life right now are dog paddling. And I am barely keeping my head above water. Or, more accurately, laundry and other housework. I feel like this is so same song second verse -ish, but I figure that a lot of you may be singing the same song and the same second verse. I have not been home much lately, running kids to and from activities. And then there was my daughter's soccer tournament this weekend plus my son's basketball games - all 25 miles away from our home. When I got home Sunday night about 8:30 p.m., I was tired and discouraged. I wasn't even sure where to start. Everywhere I looked I could see 15 things that needed doing yesterday. Thankfully, before I started hyperventilating, I remembered another Elisabeth Elliot saying.

Do the next thing.

On Sunday nights, at 8:30, the next thing is watching the Amazing Race with my family.

That was actually kind of hard to do with everything else screaming at me, but I can't pass up that time with the ones I love. By the time that was over, it was pushing 10 p.m. Doing the next thing, I made the kitchen semi tolerable for the morning, started one load of laundry, and hit the hay. 

After the alarm went off Monday morning, I rolled out of bed, and started immediately reminding myself to just keep plugging away at the next thing. Little by little, I began to see small improvements. Since Monday is the day I teach at Classical Conversations of Bolivar, I'm away from the house from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., so it's not like I was able to get the house to a presentable state. I was just able to see that I had made progress. I had just been doing the next thing that I was able to do - and I was pleased with that. Again, let me say that this was/is an exercise in focusing. Any time I wasn't focused, and my mind started listening to the cacophony of chaos that is my house right now, it was basically paralyzing. The next thing done became the no thing done.

Well something, albeit small, is getting done (thank you, Elisabeth Elliot). I might still be dog paddling a bit, but I'm not heading out into deeper waters now, where I might drown. I'm heading for the shore...at least for today - by doing the next thing.

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My laundry room 10/18/11
"Breathe, and do the next load"