Super Ima Sunday Check-In: Big Fat Failure Edition

Remember last week, when I said my goal was to spend one hour a day working on semi-professional-ish activities?

Guess how many days I achieved that goal this week?

Zero.

I mean, I guess I did finally sign up for Blogcritics, and I finally put my Google Adsense ID in Technorati. And speaking of Google Adsense, they did send me a postcard in the mail saying I had to give them my address so they could mail me the $6.50 I have earned in ad revenues since December. Which is kind of a sad amount, except, I kid you not, it's the most I've earned since quitting my full-time job in October 2008. Anyway, I spent 20 minutes getting my Adsense account straightened out, and I spent maybe another 20 on careerbuilder.com looking at job listings. So, figuring generously, I maybe spent an hour this entire week on professional-ish tasks, and many of those were just because the Adsense interface wasn't all that compatible with Firefox and it took me many minutes of frustration before I figured out I might as well switch over to Explorer.

The thing is, I just didn't feel like I had that much time this week for professional-ish activities. And I mean, it was a big week for time- and energy-consuming tasks. I went to the gym five times. Three of those days I swam, for a total of 5 miles swum this week! Twice I did a run/walk interval program on the treadmill, also for a total of 5 miles. Plus I did two good weight workouts with Trainer Jill.

And getting back into Weight Watchers for serious, that was time-consuming, too. I swear, I felt like I spent at least an hour per day cooking or measuring out portions.

Plus my parents came, which necessitated clean-up and a lot of extra time and effort to make sure people got fed.

And it was Easter, so there were eggs to dye, baskets to fill, and a big fat meal that seemed like a lot of extra work.

Then there's just all the usual stuff -- preschool and playdates and the library -- that all seems to add up to long days where I'm outside the house and/or otherwise occupied. In the end, I just don't find the time to do anything professional.

Or so I like to tell myself. In actuality, I'm scared and overwhelmed when it comes to the idea of dipping back into professional life, and when forced to confront some sort of foray-into-professional-activity, I find some other task to distract me. I just have no idea what I want to do or how in the hell to go about doing it. Like all moms, I'd like to find a part-time job that is flexible, fulfilling, and well-paying. You know, something that allows me to be creative, like perhaps taking artistic photographs of those pigs flying by outside the windows.

So, I have failed on the professional front this week. This failure, of course, makes me feel very guilty. I just have the one kid, I mean come on, I should be able to find time to make some extra money on the side, have a career, blah, blah, blah.

Except, lately when I get down about not doing more or not having it all, I have started to focus on all the stuff I am doing. I do all the laundry, cook homemade dinners most nights of the week (with separate items for each person to accommodate food preferences), clean my own house, care for my kid 24/7 (or, okay, when he isn't at preschool or his high school or whatever ... or sleeping), and work out at the gym most days.

The thing is, cleaning my own house and making from-scratch meals are not necessarily my top priorities, and I'm not typing this to be one of those holier-than-thou sanctimommy types who espouses traditional gender roles or brags about how much better she is than other moms. I used to have a cleaning person when I worked. I loved the cleaning person, and I love the idea of cleaning people. It's just that the cleaning person seemed like a logical expense to cut when I quit working, and of course no longer working meant that I now had time to clean more.

I make the from-scratch meals largely for health and dieting reasons. Otherwise we'd probably eat mac 'n cheese most nights.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that if I were to work more in a professional capacity, I would give up a lot in terms of cooking and housework. And I'd be fine with giving those things up in favor of working for money (as I said, they aren't my top priorities), but I just need to remind myself that I would have to give something(s) up, which means that even if I were working more I wouldn't be having it all or doing it all. I could either do all of this or all of that, or some of this and some of that, but I can't do all of this and all of that.

Did that make any sense?

But anyway, all alleged personal enlightenment aside, I have come out of this week with no clear direction or any answers on the career front. I don't know where to go from here in terms of this week's goals. So, once again, I'm not really going to set any. I think I'm just going to work on reflection and self-awareness and all those stupid Oprah-esque buzzwords. I'm going to try to become more comfortable with myself and my decisions. None of this reflection and acceptance stuff constitutes an actual goal, because there's nothing really measurable involved. But, you know, that's a summary of the general path I want my week to take when it comes to taking care of myself.

Don't forget to go over and visit the original Super Ima, Leigh Ann!