I have unrealistic expectations of myself. There, I said it. I expect to be able to work full time, keep my house amazingly clean, make a home-cooked nutritious dinner every night, eat right, exercise, maintain a healthy marriage, keep in touch with my friends, read, spend time praying, studying my bible and find time for my many projects.
Shocker: I can't.
I'm coming to terms with this and realizing that I need to find ways to be able to do what I can. This week I started making "easy meals" for dinner. Instead of thinking I can come home and make a meatloaf, mashed potatoes and asparagus; I come home just saying hey I can make scrambled eggs. Just by giving myself that break I'm usually able to go a bit higher than I expected. I'll add some sauteed spinach and onions in the scrambled eggs and grate some cheese and put it in a pita.
I've noticed this in my weight loss, if I look at the big picture and the whole amount I want to lose I get frustrated and lose my way. If I take it a day at a time and try to make good choices within that day it works better and I feel better about myself in the meantime.
In my house, my goal is to make my bed every morning and put away more than I take out. Everything doesn't need to be spotless all the time I just need to try to do what I can. If I keep on track with it the house can look pretty decent.
So I'm trying to take life a bite at a time. I want to start working at whats at hand, trying to throw away the ridiculous expectations that I place on myself and on others.
2 comments:
You're absolutely right. Think about it, on your tombstone will it say Dirkey, she had the cleanest kitchen floor. Nope! You're right on about the meals too. Basic, easy, healthy, and nutritious are fine. You don't need a big fancy meal. Save that for the weekend and eat the leftovers during the week, lol.
I think most of us do this in some area of our life. It's that perfectionism kicking in.
I have had to really adjust my mindset now that I am home. I thought I would be able to care for the kid and do all those things too. And you just can't most days. And it's OK.
When I was working, all the cooking and household chores were split pretty 50/50. Honestly I found the house MUCH easier to care for when we were both gone all day. We just picked up after ourselves when we were home and spent a couple hours Saturday morning doing the real cleaning.
Now there is the constant messing and straightening and I can't ever seem to get ahead. Not to mention an extra person to clean up after. I just have to take it one day at a time and work on it a little everyday.
Healthy meals can be simple. Somedays dinner is just a big salad with bread or a pot of rice and beans. Or as I said when we were chatting, pancakes or some other breakfast food. I agree with Trace about cooking a big meal a couple times a week and eating the left overs. On my more organized weeks, that's what we do. Oh and the crockpot is a great thing for the cooler weather too.
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