*Cottonwood trees looking really orange against the darkening sky as the sun set
*Sandhill Cranes calling from the river after dark

Before the program, my weekends would be very stressful. I used to have a long list of chores to do. I would get up early and attack them with frantic energy, refusing to allow myself to relax and enjoy life until everything was done. Of course, there was always more on the list than I could possibly do, so that meant that I never got to relax. As the day wore on, I would turn into a crazy person. I would be working on one task and get distracted by another, dashing from task to task like the cartoon Tasmanian devil. By the end of the day, I would be exhausted and cranky. I'm sure I wasn't much fun to live with!

Over the years I have learned to have more realistic task lists. I've learned to prioritize. I start with what has to be done, and what will give me the most pleasure to have completed (for instance, decluttering an area that is really bugging me, or sweeping up drifting clumps of dog hair from our 3 big, furry dogs.) I leave time for relaxing, because I know I need down time in order to be sane.

On Sunday, I stayed home while my husband went to his office for a few hours. I wanted to clean the house, do laundry and do some cooking chores. (Bake a pumpkin, roast pumpkin seeds, and making yam bars and oat bars, which involved toasting pecans and roasting sweet potatoes in the oven before I could make the bars.) I knew I would need to do a certain amount of multitasking, so I figured out what was the most logical way to do the chores, including making efficient use of the oven so multiple things could bake at once wherever possible. It was a lot of stuff to do, but I took some breaks, ate a good lunch, and I quit in the late afternoon because even though I had hoped to connect some things to the back of our stereo receiver (more complicated than it sounds because it is hard to access the back and see what the different things are - I can't get behind it so I have to pull it out and tip it to try to see), I knew that could wait, and it needed to be done when I was relaxed and not rushing. I had hoped to give the room my parrots are in a good sweeping, but I knew I could do that on Monday night. I did complete the most important task on my list that was related to the parrots. I spent the evening relaxing so I could be prepared to go back to work.

Life is so much more pleasant now that I am not manic and compulsive when I am doing chores, and it's the program that has made the difference. Once I was eating the right food, and enough food, I mellowed out.

Allison