Permission granted, madam.

I have made a discovery - nay, a breakthrough in my parenting/personal life. I have learned to give myself permission to not get everything done in a day. Going deeper, I've learned that when I can give myself permission to say for example I'm not go to the gym today, it is such a relief because with my new planning techniques I have worked in enough gym days for the month that it's OK to not go on the days I say I am not going. Or, it's ok to not go to run an errand today because I have planned for two days from now to be an errand day. In short, my deck of cards that I referenced in earlier blogs has worked!  I'll quickly recap in small, short bullet points. (God, I love bullet points!)

*I created a "card" for every type of day I can possibly have.
*Example: Day at home with LJ where I run errand in the AM.
*I mapped out the entire month of February.
*I worked in an "errand day" "15 gym days" "grocery days" and, GASP!  a FREE DAY!!!
*It is flexible but gives me a structure to my week
*In short - it works for me!

Since the roadmap has been created, I now have to put the pedal to the metal and do the damn thing. So, the goals for this week are to stick with my plan for each day, to stick with my cleaning schedule (more on this in a future blog) and to journal what I am eating. I am failing miserable on that last goal - who really wants to see on paper all of the crap they ate on Super Bowl Sunday and Big Monday of this week?  (Rock Chalk!!!)

So far, it's working. I went to the gym today and swam 300 yards. Ha - who ever thought that a swimmer would every be proud of a measly 300 yards!!! Well, this girl is b/c that is 300 yards more than I swam for the entire month of January.

So, for all of you moms out there - give yourself permission to (fill in the blank here)......find the vices you hold on to at the end of the day and allow yourself to say it's ok. I certainly don't have everything figured out and feel that I would hate to be someone who has a firm grip on life. It is in these small moments of craziness and chaos that I see the things that I need to change for the time being so that I still can look at myself proudly in the mirror and know that I am taking care of myself.  I am hoping that I can keep the flexibility I was born with so that as my life continues to transform I can recognize when to scrap these tools and find new ones. Until then, I'm excited and it feels good to have semi-control of my days.