Ugh, I have just felt in a little bit of a funk lately. I touched on it in my time frustrations post the other day. That’s part of it, I think- just the constant sensation of things not quite fitting right. It’s… annoying! Kind of an underlying persistent stressor.
But more than that, I have just felt a bit “blah”. I just don’t feel super enthusiastic about DOING stuff right now, and I’m not really sure why.
I have chalked it up to being busy with work, and then when I’m not busy with work, I’m usually busy with home stuff or there’s a big list of chores. I feel like everywhere I look in my house or yard something is broken, needs cleaning or decluttering, or needs some sort of attention.
(I mean, this sounds worse than it is; my house is generally fine. But there just seems to always be SOMETHING, and I can’t “not” see them. Ivan is generally less bothered by certain things than I am, and also literally does not always see things the same way I do, either. Like I swear sometimes he literally does not notice things. We need to replace a living room desk that is old and chipped and just looks crappy. Our sunroom glider cushions are stained and I can’t get them clean and I think we just need a new one. A couple spots of chipped paint on the wall need touch ups. Our deck stairs can use paint touch up. The yard needs all the spring stuff done. (Ivan did start addressing some of those this weekend, thankfully.) The grass under a big tree in the front yard won’t grow and it looks like a mud pile there and I hate it. A couple other spots need re-seeding. My storage room still needs cleaning out. Some kitchen drawers I cleaned out last summer are all messy again. Etc etc. On the surface, no one else would probably pay much attention, but I see it all every day and it just grates on me.)
The “regular” chores like basic cleaning and laundry and changing sheets and washing towels and getting groceries never stop, either.
It’s not like I spend all my time just working + cleaning my house. We go out to dinner usually a couple times a week, I exercise, I walk the dog, I blog, I go in the hot tub, I watch a little bit of TV or a movie each week usually. I drive Asher around, try and spend some time with the boys, cook dinner, do dishes.
But besides that, I have just felt really….. blah. I feel guilty if I’m not “getting more done” from the list above, but I’m just… tired. Mentally? I don’t know. I vacillate between feeling like I’m “really busy” and then also some days feeling “really lazy”, if I am not actively addressing these “to do’s”. But by the time I get done with the basic to dos (the regular household maintenance stuff), I always end up feeling like I no longer really have energy for the other stuff…. and even worse, I don’t really want to do anything fun!
I have been feeling like we don’t really “do” anything that much anymore! When the boys were little, we went out and about all the time. To the zoo, parks, local events, bike rides, etc. Then they got older and we started going to swim meets and soccer games and stuff constantly. It was a lot, but it at least provided structure to the weekends. And it was built-in quality time, really!
Now everything feels like it’s just sort of …. aimless. I still feel like we’re busy, but I’m not always sure with what! There are fewer “anchor events” in our weekends these days, at least right now. But yet when the weekend rolls around, I feel like the days kind of slip past me. I do things, obviously. But I often feel that by the time I get done with what I “have to do”, I just don’t really want to do anything else.
It crosses my mind, “We could go try a new coffee shop this weekend. We could go to some local event. We could go for a hike.” But then I always feel like, Well, if I do that, then I’m not doing this stuff at the house, and then the workweek will start and I’ll feel even more stressed out that this stuff isn’t done. OR, I’ll just flat out feel uninspired. Like, ehh, I don’t really even feel like going anywhere.
I just feel a little sad about this! I don’t want to become some boring, sullen person who just sits around her house all the time. Ha. We also have such limited time left with the boys at home- they’re finishing freshman and sophomore years! This feels like PRESSURE in a way, too, and I keep feeling like I’m failing here, too. 😩
I wish I could have just like, a week off work to just stay home and get caught up and to just BREATHE a little. But I can’t, because my PTO is all spoken for. 
(My fault/ choice, obviously, and I also.. don’t want to not travel….).
I also feel guilty right now because I had absolutely zero desire to “do Easter” this year. So, we basically didn’t. Which I guess is fine, but I still feel guilty. Seeing other people’s photos of everyone in the pastel colors, with Easter baskets and dying eggs and family dinners…. makes me feel bad, because I just didn’t feel like going through all that effort.
In fairness, we had a nice enough day. I walked Charlie in the sunshine before rain moved in. Asher, Ivan and I went out to lunch. (Ethan forgot to request off work, anyway, so I guess it’s good we didn’t make big plans.) Ivan and I went in the hot tub in late afternoon when it was sprinkling light rain and it felt so good. We finished watching Harry Potter #2 (with the boys; we started it Saturday night). It was a nice day! But not very Easter-y at all. 🤷♀️ Oh well. There is no law that we must make a ham or wear pastel clothes or do a certain something on Easter. Right? We have done that. Many times, when boys were younger. Maybe it’s okay to put that to rest now, if it’s not something I get really excited about anymore. Right? I think? (Or am I being a “lazy mom”?? Other people with older kids still do the whole Easter celebration…. See, the guilt never stops. 😩)
Alright, I think I’ll close this very uplifting post up now. Haha. Sorry for the brain dump. Maybe I’m just having a case of the Mondays over here. I don’t know! Thanks for listening. 🙂
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for a pretty Easter morning walk, at least. The geese and ducks were all out and it had major “Easter morning/ spring” vibes.
GRATEFUL KAE 
First, I’m really, really sorry you are feeling this way. It sucks. Second, I can empathize with so much of this, especially the feeling that there’s always something to be done around the house, and the feeling that we never “do” anything anymore (even though there is So Much Driving), and the feeling that I’m either over-busy or over-lazy. It’s not a fun place to be, and clearly I have no solution, but I see you and I hope for both our sakes that this phase of life quickly shifts into a more pleasant one!
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Thanks Suzanne! 🙂 I hate to complain, because overall this is a GOOD phase of life, in so many ways! But some times things just feel hard/overwhelming, despite our best efforts!
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Well, you already got my play by play 🙂 but in summary, I think you do a lot more than you give yourself credit for, and I also think some of this is just bittersweet pangs of being out of the little kid years (and almost . . headed towards empty nest land! crazy but true!). sending positive weekend vibes and happy to co-plan next weekend with you!!!
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Thanks for all your thoughts and ideas and support! 💗
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You have done Easter with little kids, great point. Also, I feel that your family is busier than the average family, and sometimes you have FOMO. Maybe this is your JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) season! Have a good week.
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Yes, good point! I suppose I could just try and lean into some missing out, recognizing that I’ve “been there, done that” on some things, and some things don’t have to go on forever! Thanks. I hope you all have a great week too. 🙂
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I wonder if some of your mood is related to the weather? It’s been such a cold and windy spring. The weather really affects my mood!!
We celebrated Easter but the boys did not wear pastels. I have never bought them Easter outfits actually because they would never wear the clothes again! You’re likely seeing the highlight reel of people’s Easters instead of the reality. Ours looks great on paper/the blog and it was nice overall, but there was a lot of crappy behavior, fighting, bickering, etc.
It might help to make a punch list of all the things you want to do around the house and figure out who is the point person for those tasks. We’ve done that in the past and used an excel spreadsheet. We assigned a color for the urgency (red was immediate, yellow was near term, green was very low priority/would be nice but not essential). We did that right after we moved in after going through the inspection report and settling into the house so it was more of a focus and it’s kind of dropped off as the things left are big things we don’t want to deal with like replacing the retaining wall and fence which are expensive/not fun projects we keep kicking down the road! Anyways, there are so many little nagging things to deal with as a home owner and since you WFH, you see them more than anyone else! So it’s easier for Ivan to ignore them since he’s out of the house 40+ hours/week!
Hang in there! We all have our “meh” phases of life. Hopefully with better weather and more sun and warmth, that will make you feel a bit better?
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Good ideas! I did make a long “punch list” of sorts a while back, and we really should/could be better at reviewing that together. I think what happens is that there’s just so many different things going on, and there’s only so much time, and we end up sort of just putting out immediate fires, if that makes sense. I like your stoplight idea!! I really think we just need to schedule and plan a little better, together, in general. Definitely agree that maybe weather a factor as well! I just REALLY do not like spring in Wisconsin!
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So many thoughts but I’ll try to keep it short 🙂
As for Easter, my kids have never once received an Easter basket, and most years they don’t even get any chocolate. This year I bought two bags of chocolate eggs so I could get a points deal at the store and today my husband hid a few of them for the kids but they haven’t even gone looking for them yet (they’re outside playing with friends instead). We didn’t dress up, take a single family picture, put up anything by way of decoration…and they will be fine! Celebrating holidays (outside of Christmas) with gifts/special clothes is one place I give myself a complete pass.
Kae, you take your kids to London and Hawaii and Costa Rica and climb volcanoes and go on chartered plane rides and jump off cliffs into the ocean and go see professional soccer games and tube down rivers and swim under waterfalls. We can’t do all the things for our kids and don’t need to! And you do oh-so-much!!! ❤
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I really dislike spring weather, too! It’s just annoying! I also think in springtime I struggle coming off the crazy holiday season. I love the holidays, but they are a LOT (actually September- December is always just a full, busy, fun season that I do like to really lean into!) but then I feel like from ~January to April I just want to hibernate and I never feel like doing anything! So I guess 4 months up, 4 months down? haha.
And thank you for that final paragraph- that’s so eye opening! I am so guilty of trying to “do it all”. Like I told you by text, I think I see other people doing X,Y, or Z, but I don’t take into account that they are NOT doing A, B, or C that I AM doing.
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I hope this isn’t too personal but is there any chance this is hormonal/perimenopause? A general feeling of discontent is not uncommon.
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Oh, maybe! Could be! I have just been feeling a general sense of unease or “discontent” and don’t have a great explanation!
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It sounds like you are a lot of transitions at once (work responsibilities, kid activities and ages and seasonal). Transitions are hard even if the reasons behind them are good or neutral.
Sarah mentioned this on her podcast episode today but give yourself a time block for chores and house stuff and let it be when the time block is over. I find this to be helpful to make progress on household tasks but not feel a nagging sense that I should be doing housework all the time.
I hope this feeling passes for you soon. You do a lot already.
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Sarah’s episode had so many great ideas! I do definitely think being more intentional and planning more will help. I feel like that can sound counter-intuitive, but I do think that sometimes part of the issue is that we have LESS plans right now on the weekends, which makes it very easy for the time to just sort of float away. Or, re: chores, I will feel like, Well, technically I have an open day, so there’s no rush to get going. And then I squander away a few hours in the morning, finally get going on chores mid day… and then by the time it’s done, it’s like the day is over and I “feel” like I did nothing. Probably being more intentional and actually getting up, getting moving, getting things done in a set amount of time, and then moving on to something else might actually really suit my personality more! Another issue though can be that the boys, especially Asher, who can’t drive yet, seems to need rides or things that I was not necessarily planning on! Like he’ll suddenly ask for a ride to the golf course, which then can eat up 10-15 minutes, then another 10-15 minutes later to pick him up… just makes things feel wonky and hard to plan.
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Hey there. I don’t comment much but I always read. I just wanted to say that I feel you so hard on this. There is always something around my house I could be working on. ALWAYS. If I add in my garage or the back year? Fuggitaboutit. It’s nuts. It’s makes it so hard to relax and do something fun. And I think, if you don’t have help with the day-to-day chores (like having a cleaning service come on), the bigger stuff is always going to get pushed back and you’re always going to feel underwater. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I just wanted to let you know you’re not alone.
Also, there has to be an element of “post-vacation blahs” at work here. I was in a bummer mood during my spring break, and I didn’t even go anywhere. But I knew that it was my last break of the school year and I felt so much pressure to really take advantage of that time. You had something big and fun to look forward and now that is trip is over and there isn’t a specific fun thing to anticipate. It makes total sense that you’re feeling blah.
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Yes, 100% about the cleaning! I constantly say that… like, by the time I get done with the ‘real’ cleaning, I now no longer have time or energy to dive into the ‘projects’, like cleaning out a closet or some yard project, etc. I do often think if maybe we had a cleaning service, then instead, I could spend my “chore time” doing those projecty type things!! I have been resistant to hiring cleaners, just because it always feels like with 4 of us and not THAT big of a house, it should be do-able, and I don’t love idea of adding yet another fixed expense if we don’t need to. But maybe it would be worth it… In the past when my schedule was different, I feel like I was more able to fit in some cleaning in the afternoons, or when boys were little I often cleaned on Friday nights while they had video game time. But now, between their ages and my job changes etc, our lives just look really different, and cleaning does not seem to fit in as well!
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I can definitely relate. I see things all the time (scuffs and scratches on the walls), things to be decluttered, kids’ rooms… March was very blah for me. I am feeling better in April. This could be related to the weather and hormones. I am almost 44 (in May) and have been dealing with perimenopause issues for a while… Moods and a feeling of flat pancake is familiar to me.
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I know you’ve posted about some mood changes! That is definitely interesting to consider. I am hoping that maybe better weather will help, too. I just really dislike spring here in the midwest- it’s so cold and windy and I find it very frustrating! It “looks” nice out, but then it’s not…. ha.
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YES!!! Feels the feels and let it out!!!
I am most certainly not killing it in the dinner or house cleaning/maintenance department because I need a break from those things. Our house isn’t going anywhere, and it will always be up for a deep clean the next time I’m in the mood. On the other hand, there is a window for my solo travel activities (one side of the opening is that Hubs is still busy with kids/scouts and and the other side of the opening is that right now my parents are in great health which will hopefully continue for many more years but will not continue indefinitely). It’s also very hard to stay bright and sunny when work is hard – ask me how I know.
Anyway, thanks for sharing “the Mondays” because it makes me feel better that I’m not alone. Here is to all of the good things that are mixed into the blahs and happier times ahead.
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Good point about the chores always being there waiting… doesn’t mean we ALWAYS need to give them our precious attention! 😉 I think that some better planning and being more intentional on certain things could definitely help me. My issue is that I will often say I’m going to do something, or I know what WOULD help, but when push comes to shove, I can be highly mood-dependent. Like I had said in the new year that I’d clean out my fridge every Thursday, meal plan Friday, and grocery shop Saturdays, but sometimes on Thursday night, I’ll just be like, “nope!” I don’t feel like cleaning out the fridge tonight. And then I don’t…. sort of shooting myself in the foot, because I know that if I just stuck to my “plan” it WOULD work well….
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I can see that you’re in a little bit of a funk lately, Kae, and that you felt a bit “blah” while also feeling aimless. Unfortunately, if you’re not really sure why, then I’m not really sure why either. Nevertheless, I’ll check with you again this time next month to see how you’re feeling.
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sorry Kae to hear that you’ve been feeling bah lately. It happens and we all go through them. depending on the cause, it takes longer or less. is it the routine? is it the expectation you have on your self? is it comparison with others? I also prefer to take at home and have super chill weekends. I do feel that others do way much more than us, even with our kids age, but i come to the conclusion is that’s how i like to recharge and maybe a good family value to pass to the kids.
i hope you figure out what matters to you the most, and be gentle at yourself to do few things at the time and leave the rest for later. this is what I’ve been telling myself when looking at the to do list, they are so long and I feel behind, but then my energy level is not there to tackle them and it’s okay.
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Thanks Coco. I’ve had a few ideas of things that I could scale back, at least temporarily. I sometimes get stuck in the idea that things have to be “just so”, and it doesn’t always do me any favors!
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I’m wondering (along with Lisa) if some of this is weather-related. April can still be a very gray month up there, and it can definitely affect your mood and motivation. And… I think you are in an “in between” phase with the kids. I’ll bet those Easter posts you’re seeing where people are decorating eggs and wearing pastel clothes, are people with younger kids. My daughter did get an Easter basket (she would never pass up the opportunity to get some loot) but we didn’t do much else. I didn’t put up most of my Easter decs- it seemed like too much trouble, and I realized no one else in the family cares.
Anyway… summer is coming. I’m thinking you’ll have more time, at least a little? I know my schedule eases up when there’s no school. Hang in there… as our wise blogger friends tell us, “there will be a time after this.”
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Right, I do like the idea of reminding myself that we DID the Easter Bunny thing for many, many years! We colored eggs, and hid eggs and baskets and did all of that. It doesn’t mean we have to do it FOREVER…. We did it when it really matter most. 🙂 Now I’m sure the boys would be happy to open a bunch of goodies but in reality, it felt a little “forced” and like, do they even need a bunch of candy? They often don’t even really eat it!!! Kind of felt like a waste of money, honestly, and we spend so much on the boys in so many other ways…
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Ugh I can soooooo relate to this, and I DO think the weather is making everything yuckier.
Can you outsource anything? Housecleaner every week to free up more time on the weekends
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I can see that you’re in a little bit of a funk lately, Kae, and that you felt a bit “blah” while also feeling aimless. Unfortunately, if you’re not really sure why, then I’m not really sure why either. Nevertheless, I’ll check with you again this time next month to see how you’re feeling.
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I feel like so many of us can commiserate with you! While I “just” rent an apartment, I still ALWAYS think of things I can do to improve it – I’ve got a handful of photos I’ve bought while traveling that I need to hang up but they have been sitting in the closet for YEARS. Ugh.
I literally did NOTHING for Easter. I was going to do brunch with my mom and stepdad but decided to make it a solo day for me, which was so nice but felt really weird, too.
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