To Do:

I once read that a good way to make yourself feel better about yourself is to make a To Do list everyday that only has things on it that you absolutely know you will be able to accomplish that day.  You should never put things on a To Do list like "clean out closets," "lose five pounds," "finish writing thank you notes," because the failure to get through these tasks will just make you feel worse about yourself.  Those are "Goals," and should properly be relegated to another list.  Of course, it would also be sad to have a list of goals with those things on it, as one would ideally have slightly higher and more exciting goals, but the point is just to keep things off the To Do list that you have any chance of not doing.  If, at the end of the day, you can reflect with satisfaction that you have done everything you set out to do that day - and perhaps even more (!) - you will feel like a big fat winner.  Does this little self-deception really work?  I'm not sure, but it can't hurt.

So today I think my To Do list would look like this:
Get out of bed.  Check
Make and drink coffee.  Check
Short blog.  Check
Deliver children to school.
Change diapers as needed.
Shower.  I had to strike that, because there have been days when that is an unattainable goal.
Feed children and self, inform Matt of sandwich fixings if he requires sustenance.
Watch Lost.

See, I didn't even include crazy things like exercise, stimulating activities for the children, reading, cleaning, catching up on email, paying bills, dealing with this one corner of the room I'm in right now where there are several weeks worth of papers and bills and general things I need to deal with piled up before Ruby completely destroys everything in it.  And I certainly didn't include anything like try to be a better mother, don't spend money on non-essentials, fold the laundry, organize pictures of the children from the past 7 years, and drink less coffee, diet coke and wine.

So, I'm looking forward to an awesome day of reaching for the stars and actually getting there.  I'll let you know how it works and you might want to try it yourself ...

Update at 4 pm:
I'm adding the following to my List, since I've already done them & therefore can feel even better with a longer list:
Fold significant amount of laundry & get most of it put away before Ruby woke up from morning nap, whereupon she unfolded the remainder.  Check
Exercise and shower (including shave legs).  Check, although this was done unsafely, as I instructed Gus to watch Ruby and come get me if "anything" happened while I was in the shower, but at least I did it.
Help Gus overcome 3 days of constipation by spending a long time with him in the bathroom.  Check

Update at 4:44 pm:
Clean up horrifying accident Gus had on the stairs.  Check (Apparently, I should not have congratulated myself previously, as I was punished when he called up the stairs to tell me that he had pooped and peed in his pants and it had "fallen out."  Yes, indeed, it had.)