Keepin’ it fresh with a little humor. We’re stepping back in time…

When your day starts like this…

“I don’t have any clean underwear, Mommy!” 15 minutes until the bus comes. Rushing to the dryer, I open the door only to discover that I forgot to turn on the dryer when I changed the load.

Who does that?

Apparently, I do.

Pulling a pair of Cinderella panties out of the dryer, I rush back to my daughter’s room with an unfortunate choice—dirty or damp?

Not much of a choice.

Amid grumbling and complaining, she just happens to remember a clean pair still in her overnight bag from this weekend’s sleepover. Problem solved.

Five minutes until the bus.

This is not the way I wanted to start my day.

Though I’m a reluctant list maker,  have a mental tally of all the tasks that to be done this morning. “How can I multi-task all this?” I wonder aloud. “Get the next load of laundry going, battle the dirty dishes, then get to the other tasks on the list…”

Sha-bam, sounds good, doesn’t it?

Don’t be fooled. It’s just not that easy.

Me and my good intentions.

I enter the house motivated with a foolproof plan for accomplishing too many tasks at once. If Martha Stewart can do it, then surely I can too.

With good intentions, I work fast, determined to multi-task—something that often causes me great frustration. Although many are gifted multi-taskers, I just seem to leave things half done with a trail of broken items behind me.

Today, however, is going to be different. I’m sure of it.

Multi-tasking seems to be working.

The last task for the kitchen is mopping the floor. Soapy water sloshes as I wring out the mop. Back and forth I swipe the mop across the floor, mentally moving on to the next chore.

The floor sparkles with the help of Mr. Clean. In my industrious plan, I overlook the small, but oh-so-important detail of taking the dog, who’s left a yellow trail across the floor.

He gives me the woeful look that says, “Not my fault.” Another go with the mop…

Ready to continue on my productive mission, I begin vacuuming the living room. Plugging the vacuum into the outlet on the kitchen counter, I fail to notice a full container of Vanilla Coffee Creamer. It only takes a few seconds of vacuuming before the movement of the cord has knocked over the creamer, spilling the sugary white liquid.

All over the stove.

I’m trying to not say bad things.

Gritting my teeth and muttering under my breath, I wipe up the creamer, take the stove apart, and wipe it down with yet another round of Mr. Clean.

Cleaning the stove was NOT ON MY LIST.

Then I mop the floor…again.

Mr. Clean is getting quite the workout this morning.

Domestic disasters.

Twisted in knots and feeling aggravated, I stop to play with the dog. His antics never fail to make me laugh as I toss his favorite squeaky mini-soccer ball. Misfiring, the little ball hits my cup of coffee.

I’ll never understand how a 2-inch plastic ball can move a ceramic coffee cup, but it can.

Right off the table.

The cup crashes onto the tile floor below, shattering into pieces. Stunned at the sheer disaster of my multi-tasking, I just stare at the splattered coffee.

I can hardly contain myself as frustration rages. Another mess to clean up, and I’m mopping the same floor for a forth time in two hours—not to mention wiping down the walls and a few spots on the ceiling.

Clearly, multi-tasking is not working for me today.

I wish I could say I’m making this up…but the struggle is real, folks. So what’s a gal to do when you find yourself wanting to rip the wall paper down with your fingernails? It’s not like having a hissy fit is destined to become the next Olympic sport.

There’s no glory in loosing your sanity because attempts to multi-task turn into a disaster. Right?

Feeling more than a little defeated, I wonder how other people make multi-tasking look so easy. What’s wrong with me? Is it a natural klutziness or some organizational malfunction that derails my good intentions?

My mood plummets into a full-scale pity party. Too often, frustration or impatience are an open door for unwanted attitudes, words, actions. Ready to address invitations for my pity party, I grumble to myself, “What possible purpose is there in the frustration of multi-tasking?” Wasted energy and emotion for sure—or is it?

As multi-tasking backfires, I begrudgingly admit that just maybe, frustration can have some useful purposes…on rare occasions.

Details matter.

Frustration creates a need for patience and forces me to solve problems. Sometimes you have to make a few mistakes to get it right.

Considering my multi-tasking and other domestic disasters, I realize that rushing through tasks made it easy for me to miss details. Little things like turning on the dryer, remembering to take the dog out, and realizing the coffee cup is placed too close to the edge of the table.

Multi-tasking has some inherent problems, and learning to work methodically and pay attention to detail is a must for doing multiple things at once. Maybe I’ve equated multi-tasking with beating the clock.

[tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#householdhumor #multi-tasking”]Faster isn’t necessarily better and multi-tasking is more about focus than speed.[/tweetthis]

A few little domestic disasters can ruin a good day if you let them. So let’s not let them…

Here’s to overcoming the dangers of multi-tasking and other domestic disasters.

How do you handle this kind of day? How many times have you had to mop the same floor in one day?

Happy to join with these communities: Coffee For Your Heart and #TellHisStory.