Minimum Days, Maximum Effort

Sweating out the last days of July, I pictured my life with three kids in school a little bit differently.  My mind's Jenny was organized, disciplined, and had all sorts of time to exercise, and cook glorious meals from scratch.  She also dressed in coordinated, accessorized outfits.  That Jenny.  Wow.  Girlfriend knew how do get things done.  Mmm-hmm.

As it stands, I haven't done any 'real' exercise in two weeks (and maybe more) and I'm completely scattered.  I've been eating well enough, but there hasn't been any glamorous presentations around here.  For dinner tonight, I ate a sliced green apple, some sliced swiss cheese and a hunk of pugliese bread.  Which suited me just fine. 

Here's the thing... my two older kids have been on this odd schedule with different drop-offs and pickups.  When you add my preschooler into the mix, I am spending at least an hour a day running around in the car.  Which should be fine, except after the dropoffs and before the pickups, I have about 1 solitary hour.  You know what I've been doing?  Showering.  Which means I've been doing the dropoffs with bad hair and ugly sweats.

This was not the plan.

I've become the cliche of the mother in the sweats with her hair in a ponytail, wearing sunglasses and a hat instead of makeup, shoving the kids out of the still moving minivan in the bus circle.  And I hate it.

All it would take for me to get a good six miles of walking in a day is to walk the kids to and from school.  There is nothing preventing me from doing it, except my own lack of organization.  Ten minutes of preparation before bed would have us out the door on time in the morning.  I've just been so lazy that I have been slacking on the laying out the clothes, packing up the backpacks, filling out the forms and writing the checks.

I don't know about your kids' schools... it seems like I'm writing a check every day for something.  Class newsletters.  Book orders.  PFA membership.  Fundraisers.  Pasta Feeds.  School photos...

Anyway, point being, I could spend just 10 minutes doing all this the night before, and our mornings would be blissfully unencumbered.  I will admit that spending 10 frantic minutes scrambling around on my stomach looking under the couch and beds for matching shoes is a great workout.  Very aerobic. And that's just MY shoes we're talking about.

All this week has been minimum days, for Parent-Teacher conferences.  I've barely gotten them to class when I have to turn around and fetch them again.  I haven't managed to get anything done this week, but I cannot place the blame at the kids' feet.  They are perfectly capable of walking, heck, running all the way to school.  They get enough sleep.  They wear cute outfits.  It's MY lack of motivation that is keeping me from getting it done.

I'm off to lay out my clothes for the morning.  I'm putting a water bottle in my purse, and I'm setting the clock for a 15 minutes earlier wake up time.  I'm walking the walk tomorrow my friends.  Six miles, no excuses. 

Who's with me?

Comments

[Shrinkingmom]

You go, girl!

[Rae]

I'm always with you on your challenges! Tonight I'm running 3K and then taking it easy until my 10K run that I do on Sunday. I'm so scared yet so pumped to do it. All these weeks of training should pay off. I don't even care if I'm the last one through the finish line. As long as I make it to the end :D

[GraceD]

I'm always with you, my dear Jenny. Always and always.

xoxox

[Carmen]

I'm late to the party - it's the next day, but I walked 6 miles today. I'm right there with you, all the way.

You rock, btw.

[Susanne]

Of course I'm late, and of course there won't be six miles for me, but I just did a 55 minutes workout. (It's Sunday.)

I found that the 10 minute walks to kindergarten really sum up. On the days I don't work that means 40 minutes of walking. (No fat burning though.)

I really hope that you stuck to your plan, though.

You can do it!