WHAT was I Thinking?

My internal stress barometer is pointing at "in danger of explosion" this morning. Usually I work "better" if I have a little bit of stress in my life. I remember when I was at school and tertiary study, the essays that wouldn't flow would suddenly start to on the night before they were due. I think I only ever once pulled an all-nighter though and that was the night before one of my year 12 Maths CATS was due (they were each worth 25% of my final mark). Problem was, staring at the page at 3am in the morning didn't actually make the answer magically appear. LOL.

Aaaaahhhhhhh....... why does my typing like to self delete part-way through a paragraph??????? That wasn't what I needed this morning.

Anyway, what I WAS saying was that since my breakdown I have been overly sensitive to even the smallest amounts of stress so we've worked hard to reduce any stress in my life to enable my recovery.

BUT, at some point I need to rejoin the "real world" and that has been slowly happening.

What's going on this week that's making my stress levels rise?

* Nablopomo final week. I've made it this far. I am NOT going to give up now. It's been interesting though. I tend to pretty much blog daily anyway BUT the pressure of *having* to do a blog post has changed the freedom dynamic just a little. I love the exposure (I have had a number of *hits* from the nablopomo randomiser) and the sense of community it brings. I've enjoyed meeting new bloggers and making some new friends. It's only a tiny amount of stress adding the "have to" factor BUT those tiny amounts can add up. Oh and can someone please tell me WHY I had this desire to start up 2 NEW blogs during November??????? At least I didn't register them for the Nablopomo challenge.

* Nanowrimo. I've hit another brick wall. Thankfully the email I received this morning tells me that this is quite normal. Only 9,000 words to go which *should* be a piece of cake. I just need some discipline to get the next couple of thousand words written and then I think the rest will flow. However, I feel acutely aware that I cannot simply procrastinate on this because it's the LAST week. There'll be no more racing to catch up next week like I've been doing the rest of the month. LOL. I'm aiming to get as close to finished as possible by the end of tomorrow to alleviate the pressure on the rest of the week.

* My baby turns 4 on Saturday. Waaaaahhhhhh!!!!! I am SO not ready for him to grow up. Once they start kindy it feels like the beginning of the end (of their "little" years anyway). I still need to finalise his presents, buy him something yummy to eat (like a bag of freddo frogs) and wrap the presents. Oh, and find the card I made for him back in around February. LOL.

* "Baby" is having a Lightning McQueen birthday party on Monday. At some stage I need to finish off all the preparations for that. Fill the party bags etc etc. It also means I need to make 2 birthday cakes. One for Saturday and one for the party on Monday. AND remember to shop for the party food. AND remember to buy something fun to eat Saturday night. Last night I had a dream that everyone turned up TODAY instead of next Monday and I hadn't baked the birthday cake yet! It's was a NIGHTMARE. LOL. There isn't heaps to do - just the awareness of it coming up is causing my stress levels to rise.

* Today is my cleaning day and Saturday I was busy helping the kids do some fun stuff so I didn't get anything done then (I usually split the cleaning between Saturday and Monday) so I have MORE than the usual amount of cleaning to do. Actually, that could be a *good* thing as the physical exertion of cleaning will help with the stress. :-) Planning to alternate a cleaning task with writing 500 words on my novel.

* This week of all week's I really NEED to have a menu plan. But I have a sad case of the "don't wannas" (yeah, there's resident 2 year old inside of me lol).

* DS has decided to make today a whingy-whiny kind of day. So kind of him. Kids have great timing with these kinds of things don't they? LOL. All he's wanted to do so far this morning is EAT, EAT, EAT. Who am I kidding? That's what he does most mornings. It's just that I'm finding it hard to disuade him from the things he wants to eat that mumma don't want him to eat. *sigh* I wonder if he's absorbing some of my stress and that's upsetting him a little.

*DEEP SIGH* Apparently they are great for releasing stress. Whenever I sigh during a counselling session my counsellor tells me I should have another one. Oh yeah, have a counselling session tonight too and so far this week I have written just 1 journal entry. Ooops.

Gotta stop whinging now and go and start cleaning. LOL. It does help to get it all out on "paper" though. Well, virtual paper anyway. At least then it's not all rolling around in my head driving me crazy and making novel writing all but impossible!!!!

Hope you're all having a great Monday and that your week is a little more relaxing than mine feels. :-)