Writing on the Wall

Just when you think your head is about to explode, suddenly, everything just seems to work itself out.
With deadlines looming, I was beginning to think I had bitten off more than I could chew.  Writing deadlines, appointments, programs in the planning stage, presentations and...homework, eek, I didn't know how I was going to balance everything and still take care of my daughter and be there for husband.  It all seemed to be spiralling out of control.  To make matters worse, when I get like this (it's not the first time I have let things pile and pile until I can't recognize the beginning from the end) I start to get confused, disoriented, forget simple things like paying the bills and block out little snippets of conversations that may have been important at the time.  Kind of funny actually.  Well the latter, at least.  Two nights ago, I was sitting in the living room, probably watching the Olympics, but lost in my own thoughts.  My husband was in the dining room playing with our daughter.  He asked me something, which I didn't respond to at the time, it went right past, but somewhere in my subconcious I heard him, just didn't react.  Last night I was cooking dinner, he was playing again with Julianne and all of a sudden, I looked at them and started laughing.  At that exact moment I suddenly remembered that Arie had asked me if I wanted coffee the day before.  Of course he thought I was nuts for laughing for no particular reason.  I proceeded to explain what had just struck me as funny, to which he replied, "And I am still waiting for an answer."

At that moment, I realized I had to find a balance.  To develop a strategy to accomplish all I want or need to get done.  And in a reasonable time frame.  I am usually pretty good at prioritizing, check off the items that need to get done now, by a certain deadline, and get them done sooner rather than later so as to leave enough room to get the other things done without rushing at the last minute.

To this end, I got the presentation I had to do over and done with.  Reviewed the few manuscripts that needed to be done by this coming Thursday, prepped for a meeting tonight, took Julianne for a walk and played with her for awhile.  On top of that, I spent several hours last night working on my novel and actually added another 10 pages to it.  I still have some manuscripts to review before next Monday and a couple of short stories to get completed and sent off but at this point I am finally ahead of schedule and feeling pretty zen.

How do you balance life and work?  Any specific strategies you have found work better than others? Especially if you are a stay at home mom that works from home 90% of the time.