31 Days of Reclaiming Life: Day 30

You would think after a month of thinking about reclaiming life I would have it a little more together.  Unfortunately, when you inspect and work on things, you often uncover deeper issues and a bigger mess.

Sort of like when kids "clean" their rooms and shove everything into the closet. 

Or under the bed.  

Sorry Mom.  I now know why you went a little crazy that night and starting digging the toys out from under the bed and threw them across the room

I might be getting better at this from outside appearances, but man oh man, is there still a whole lot more to do.  This morning I'm thinking about my calendar for the next few weeks and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. There are a lot of work and life obligations that are going to keep me hopping.  There will be days when my husband and I will have to do some creative scheduling (and we are fortunate enough to have local family who often step in when we can't make it work).  Because there are so many things going on I'm going to have to say "no" to a whole lot of other things in order to survive. 

I've read this book and maybe it's time to take it out again (you know, in my free time): 

  

I'd like to propose a new initiative for those of you on this same boat to Crazy Town: 

NO-vember. 

A lot of men give up shaving in November, but I'm suggesting that we use November as a month to say "no" to a lot of things that fill up our schedule.  Some no's will be easy, and others will require us to choose between good things that we might even want to do, but seriously don't have time nor the energy to do.  There will be social, work, school, church, and fun things that we might have to politely decline in order to get some sanity back into our lives.  

I also feel like November is our time to be thankful--and no one feels very grateful when we're exhausted.  Exhausted people are miserable and mean and grumpy.

And we cannot reclaim living when we're exhausted.  

Something has to give.