It's just another manic birthday...but does it have to be?

  I can't believe it either.  The timing is going to be one mad scramble.  Brace yourself. Where did we put the Cuervo?? I am on the trail of arranging another birthday party. Our princess is turning 8 soon and, spoiled bunny that she is, we are having a party at a local arcade.  I am less than thrilled about this but it couldn't be helped.  While I never had my act together, I do try to plan ahead at least a little for our daughter's birthday.
  This year mom's car accident threw me for a loop.  I forgot all about planning for a party once my mom called and said she was in the hospital.  Long story short, she had a bad car accident and totaled her car.  It was an honest mistake, I think, but mom was pretty shaken up. It only took a week or two for the worst of the dust to settle but my focus got shifted and I just wasn't thinking about party plans.  What we wanted to do, have people at our house, was no longer going to work because the entertainment we wanted to rent was no longer available.
  As we say at our house, bologna happens.  I now need to move forward and accept help from a party place.  On the upside, I get to focus on the grown up family party - yes,  there's 2 gatherings. This means a lot fewer people at my house.  This is a plus since our house is too small to have people indoors so I keep everyone in our garage. The family crowd is also quite helpful since the inlaws and close friends ask 'what can we bring?'.  My house also gets a good cleaning since company's coming. That's about as much fun as a fork in the eye but at least I end up with a clean house.
  I also need to work getting ready for a consignment sale.  I registered to sell so I need to start getting my stuff together.  The problem is keeping ahead of things so I'm not behind the eight ball and killing myself to get it all done.
  A friend recently asked me a great question.  'Do you have to have a birthday party for her?' This got me thinking - again.  Why are we going through all this as if it was some sort of 'requirement'? I mentioned this to our girl. 'You know, I said, not everyone has birthday parties.'  She looked at me as if I had asked if she wanted to be disemboweled.
  Here's a biggie for the mommy to do list.  How do we instill some gratitude in a daughter who is incredibly blessed? I'm guessing this is going to take baby steps, possibly billions. We struggle as it is to keep our girl from getting greedy.  Unfortunately, I've seen that overstimulated look of a kid tearing through gifts, barely acknowledging one before the next one gets opened.  I plan to call on the cavalry for this one.  I plan to ask our family therapist for some ideas. In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions from you, dear reader.  

For the love of God, slow down!

  Recently, I saw a friend post on Facebook that he saw pumpkin spice coffee at WaWa in August.  I thought, 'don't worry, in ten minutes it'll be Christmas'.  I think the retail after summer sling shot to the holidays is really bad for a mommy who feels overwhelmed already.  For me, they're just heaping on more s**t I'm not ready for- and in a shameless money grab to boot.
   I'm amazed like everyone else how fast the summer flew by. Funny to think how I was worried about how I was going to keep our girl busy all summer and now she started third grade this month! It still feels like I just brought her home from the hospital. Tempus fugit does not need any help.
   I look forward to the weekend for obvious reasons but is that really such a bright idea? Most people don't have the luxury of either a job they love or independent wealth. How do you find pieces at least of your week to enjoy so you're not 'looking forward' past your whole life? I don't want my week to be something to 'kill off' at least not completely.
  So how do I pull out of my personal vortex?  My week blurs by in a to do list of household crap.  I find this funny in the sense that I'm a stay at home mom.  You'd think I'd have free time.  I haven't been bored since I was 8.  I would be baffled as to why the house isn't immaculate but that's a wall of pudding because of the 2 children I clean up after, ages 8 and 53. There's plenty I would like to do but it seems I don't often make it past the brussels sprouts portion of the list, at least not during the day.
  Getting it all done so you won't be sorry is a big cattle prod but is it really such a bright idea?  How important is this really?  What's the worst that will happen if it doesn't all get done?  Will something explode?  
  It seems odd to me that the things I journal about always end up resolving themselves.  Every single time I go back through those hand written pages of worries they always turn out fine.  I wish I had a grip on that fact from the beginning.  If there is objective evidence that worrying is a waste of time, why do I keep doing it? I can only surmise it must be a deeply ingrained habit.
  Maybe the problem is my vision.  My eyes are way bigger than my stomach when it comes to all the things I want to get done.  There's no way I can pull it all off, not without a cape and phone booth.  Some things simply will not get done and I have trouble accepting that sometimes.  It would also help me to keep my eyes on myself, too.  I am not the Martha Stewart type.  When I am lucky enough to come up with something creative, it's usually in response to an emergency.  There will never be a birthday party with homemade perfectly decorated anything in our future.
   Those close to me also know that I am notoriously late for everything.  Maybe the way to get ahead is to take a step back.  I'll settle for baby steps on this one since we know what a basket of sunshine I am early in the morning.  I'm trying to get up a few extra minutes early to allow more time for the harassment campaign known as getting my daughter ready for school.  Once during the first week of school I fell asleep and was late to go get our girl.  Baby steps apparently came back to kick me in the butt.