Who needs a plan?

By: Melanie


I didn't get the ice cream. 


But it's not what you think. I made brownies instead. Ridiculously decadent brownies full of marshmallows and candy bars and caramel and all things ooey gooey. They were delicious. Technically speaking, they were for my husband's birthday. But between you and me, they were my reward for a week of hard work.


Initially, it was my goal to pick up the slack and make up for several weeks in one. But then it felt like I would just be skipping over several tasks in the blog, so I decided to go a different way. The month of February has seen a lot of traveling, two birthdays, and lots of make-up classes and last-minute laundry trips. The time that I have had has been in little chunks, ten minutes here or there to see what I can get done. 


I did some purging. I walked around and randomly, without any system or plan in mind, grabbed things that didn't belong and tossed them. Receipts, packaging, worn out socks and underwear, broken toys, expired food...you name it. I did it a few times over the week, and never spent more than ten minutes at it, but it made a big difference.


I did some tidying. Again, without any real method to my ever-growing madness, I picked up anything that caught my eye and put it back in its place. If picking up a pair of jeans led me to the closet, I would pick up the next thing I saw and deliver it to its home, wherever that may be. Efficient? No. But each item that I replaced felt like a big checkmark off of my enormous to-do list, and it felt good. 


I cleaned out the fridge. The actual soap-and-water cleaning took place just a couple of weeks ago, but things are always accumulating in that thing. I removed the rock hard lemons, the leftover thai food from two weeks ago, the excessively stale bread. I also made a mental note of things that needed to be used imminently and made a meal plan for the next few days.


I washed the coffee maker. Such a little thing, but boy do those machines get neglected. Coffee grounds, smudges, dried up drips of coffee...gone! And if that doesn't make you smile, you're a tough nut to crack.


This is how I spent my week. Accomplishing much in little chunks of time. At least in my mind. My take home message today is that you don't need a lot of time, but even more importantly, you don't always need a PLAN either. (This, coming from an obsessive compulsive planning junkie.) So often I decide not to embark on a task because I haven't thought it all the way through. And when you have kids, you just have to realize that you will never again have time to both think things through AND do them. You might not always be able to do things well, but can get them done. Mostly. Besides, when they grow up and move out you can be as organized as you like.