“How do you do it all?”
I get asked this question a lot. Simple fact of the matter is I don’t. No one can. While I may have many, many balls in the air, it’s inevitable one…or two…or all of them will eventually drop.
That about describes last week. I have a lot of travels in December, several writing deadlines, all the regular frenzies associated with the holidays and my commitment do quality daily activities with my kids.
And so I tried to cram them all in at the same time.
It started with my Christmas baking for neighbors and visiting teachees.
This year’s menu included chocolate caramel squares, almond rocha, whipped shortbread, swirled snowball cookies and eggnog snickerdoodles.
I think I gained 10 pounds just looking at this list.
Then, I cranked out some pretty major articles back-to-back and returned the favor of my friend Monica by watching her kids. In the midst of this frenzy, I learned the Young Women at church were in charge of our ward’s Christmas party decorations and we had zero budget. So, I volunteered to take the kids up to the mountains to pick pine cones.
You know, in my spare time.
Jamie staged an intervention around The Pine Cone Incident, “You are taking on too much. You need to stop opening your mouth because you can’t do it all.”
He was right. That very week, there was some ball dropage when I forgot I was supposed to volunteer in Haddie’s class. I was home with sick Bode that day so couldn’t have gone anyway but the simple fact is I hadn’t written it on the calendar. And I hadn’t called to cancel until I realized my error the day after.
I emailed Haddie’s teacher and apologized profusely. I never heard back.
Evidently, she’s a more accomplished juggler than I.
I think I just figured out my 2011 New Year’s resolution.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 