How not to schedule your day

Follow-up to the red velvet cake is coming - we aren't going to get to eat it until tomorrow afternoon, so I'll be able to discuss it better then.  Cream cheese frosting licked from bowl gets an 'A', though.

So in the meantime, I'm on Mission: Figure Out My Mission.

In broad strokes, it's really simple - I want to have fun.

I also work full time and have a preschooler and a husband, so if I expect to do anything besides work, laundry and sleep, I need to be organized about it.  I tend to sign up for everything I think would be fun, and cram in all my responsibilities and then end up having to cancel what I wanted to do b/c I'm overcommitted.  It's awesome.  So I want to have fun, and make time to do fun things.

For example, tonight after working all day I have a parents meeting at day care 5-6, the dog has a vet appointment at 6:15, dinner, and I have a craft group at 7.  Seems like with two adults we can handle it, right?

Wellllll....I have to leave work early if I want to go to parents' group (Bob's not interested), but if I go to that, he has to take the dog to the vet.  I want to take the dog to the vet b/c our vet does all this unecessary stuff to the dog that I refuse, but Bob won't argue w/ the vet.  I can't get home to get the dog before the meeting, and I can't get home and to the vet in time if I pick him up after the meeting.  It's not that easy to take our son to either of those activities, especially at dinner time.  Deuce would eat a Happy Meal but Bob and I don't like fast food and if we order a pizza someone's going to end up eating it cold.  Oh and we ate up the leftovers last night.  Craft group is at someone's house so I can come late, but one of the reasons it's on Thursday night is b/c I can't go on Wednesday so I feel guilty blowing it off when everyone alternates days of the week for me.

At this point I have been known to fake a stomach bug and cancel everything.

Instead, I'm blowing off the parents meeting (his daycare is awesome, and I participate in the activities, I just obviously can be a leader too).  If I leave work when I would have for the meeting, we can all eat hot food together, I can take the dog to the vet and still make craft night at a reasonable time.  Assuming Bob had nothing he wanted to do this evening.

Not too shabby, but if I had the parents group and craft night on my calendar, I would not have schedule the vet the first Thursday of the month.


I'm thinking the best way to tackle this is (are you ready to groan?  I'll wait), with scheduling and some ground rules.  (cue the groan)


It won't be too bad though really!  Scheduling like "putting commitments on the calendar" and "looking at the calendar" isn't a huge stretch.  And for ground rules, I'm thinking "take at least one evening off each week."    I mean, I'll never get anything done if I'm running all over town every night!

Before I started writing this, I looked at the calendar, and noticed one meeting and 4 activities Friday, but there is nothing on there on Saturday...  Maybe there's something wrong with my computer...  That's the only logical explanation.  I should probably block it off and keep it that way!