Balance? Wazzat?

Around 4 pm I fell into bed and slept for a solid 2 hours. I was exhausted. The real estate agent had just left the house after taking a series of pictures for the listing on her website. Fuzz and I, with the help of a few dear friends, had just spent every spare moment of the last few weeks preparing: packing, painting, cleaning cleaning cleaning what hasn't been cleaned for years, drywalling, patching wallpaper, mowing, planting planterswrestling The China Cabinet of Doom into a storage unit, I even spent Sunday laying ceramic tile on two countertops... one of those jobs I just never "got around to" for 2 years.

But it worked. The house looks great. Kind of like I always dreamed it could but never felt able to make happen. Now, I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning every spare moment, but hey, it's not bad exercise. How do I integrate some of this into my daily life without it taking over? The last few weeks I haven't journalled much, gotten to the gym, nor spent much time in the studio. And I don't even have kids. I don't want to be busy busy all the time. I know I know, it's the old story, I want it all, but, yes, I do want more. I want to have friends in my next house without cringeing about how it looks. I like being able to see outside without gunge on the windows. I like the look of a clean countertop with some open space so I can work on it without having to shove piles of stuff (usually paper) to the side.

Can this be a part of my life? I'm already feeling overwhelmed by the concept. I think that may be a sign that I need to spend less time dwelling on the concept, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And granted, right now is a particularly hectic time. This isn't just housekeeping, it's moving! (I can hear the collective "ugh!" from here.

When it all seems like too much, I recall how I felt the last couple of months when I was finishing grad school. One day I wrote out a list of all the projects I had to accomplish before the end of the semester, and I went into shock! "No way can I do all of this!" I thought. Then I got rid of the list and went back to work. It all got done, maybe not as perfectly as I desired, but it went remarkably well given how intimidating that list looked.

Except, right now I feel like another nap!