Partners.

Every once in a while, a moment will stop me in my tracks. I'll be rushing to get a load of laundry in before leaving for work, for example, and I'll open the basement door, arms full of dirty clothes, and I'll smell my beloved late grandmother's perfume. Faintly floral, faintly musty, with a slightly salty undertone - like flowers on the beach. I'll suck in my breath, gathering as much of the smell as I can, and then for the rest of the day I'll have images of her in my mind.

I had one of those moments this morning. I was coming awake slowly, relishing the last few minutes of sleep on a Saturday morning. I could hear my husband unloading the dishwasher, clinking plates together as he stacked them in the cabinet. My fluffy Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix was curled up next to me, pressed against the crook of my knees. When my husband came back to bed, he had my childhood photo album with him. I'd unearthed the album last week during our house reorganization and he was fascinated.

He started flipping the pages, pointing out how young my parents looked, how cute I was as a baby. Sleepily, I narrated the prints, identifying family members, birthday parties, childhood friends. When we turned to the pages with pictures of my first birthday, the shot of my mother and I and my new rocking horse struck me with an odd realization.

"She's younger in this picture than I am now," I said. And it's true. My mom was 27 years old when I turned one. I'm 28 now, careening towards 29. I can't fathom being a parent at my age - I'm not ready and I'm not sure I ever will be.

In the picture, my mother was fully absorbed in playing with me. My dad was the photographer, and I can imagine them, sitting on the hardwood floor in my childhood home, surrounded by colorful ripped wrapping paper and new toys. He had no doubt worked long hours that day (as he had every day) at their fledgling business, and she had dinner waiting when he got home.

In my current self reflective state of mind, the teamwork of my parents has an interesting symmetry with my husband and I. Having both taken the past week off work, we spent the time moving furniture, remodeling, and reorganizing our home. It's easy to forget, during the business of day to day living, how satisfying it is to work together to better our environment.

It's nice to be reminded that though I'm working hard to "make over" my life, I'm not the only one on my team. And I think my 27 year old mother - the one from the picture - would be proud.

The List.

I don't get overwhelmed easily, generally speaking.  I can manage a 15 car police perimeter with a K9 tracking a suspect without blinking an eye.  I've talked people through delivering babies on 911 calls.  I'm good in an emergency - calm, effective, and detail oriented.  Plus I make really good To Do Lists.  So when I had the I Can Be One Of The Perfect Women revelation, I thought, "No problem!  I can handle this! Bring it on!"

But then I made The List.  Of all the facets of my life that needed tending.  Appearance.  Financial.  Household Organization.  Health.  Fitness.  Pets.  Professional.  Marriage.  Relationships.  Communication.  Education.  And then I started detailing all the tasks within each category.  And then my palms got sweaty, my heart started pounding, and my vision got blurry.  I had to dash to Starbucks and buy a triple shot nonfat peppermint white mocha to stave off my panic attack (#4 on the Health list: stop buying Starbucks).

I was tempted to crawl back into my comfy lounge pants and sweatshirt, scrape my hair into a ponytail and hide out under my down comforter.  And maybe emerge only to watch The Bachelorette.  Clearly, I needed help.  This List was beyond my capabilities as a List Maker.  And if I couldn't even write the dang list, how would I ever complete the tasks on it?

Enter The Life and Goal Organizer from www.getorganizedwizard.com.  In a brilliant stroke of luck, I happened upon this site while researching life organization.  It's made up of interactive .pdf lists for every element of one's life.  I was immediately enamored.  I can detail specific goals within a life category, how I'll accomplish them, obstacles I may face and how I'll conquer them, rewards, stressors, energizers, you name it.  

A very smart quiz at the beginning of the program had me rating all the life categories in order of importance and Health/Fitness got the top score.  In my next post I'll share some of my Health goals, strategies, and what I'm learning as I research how to better my eating and fitness habits.  For example, do you really know exactly which vitamins/nutrients you need every day and how much?  And from what foods?  Neither do I.  But I will!  And then I'll share it with you.

And I won't even be in my stretchy pants under my down comforter when I do it.  How's that for progress.

Beginnings.

For some, beginnings are scary.  Change is uncomfortable.  I am not one of those people.  I love new beginnings and sometimes I even crave change.  In fact, I'm at my most efficient, most motivated, on the cusp of a new project.  That's why I'm here, joining the blogosphere: I need to change.  

I feel, lately, like I'm straddling the fence between true adulthood and....well, the no man's land of my early twenties.  Ridiculous, right?  I'm 28 years old (approaching 29, ouch), I've been married almost four years and my husband and I have been together almost seven.  We own a house. We've raised two cats from kittens and two dogs from puppies.  I have arguably one of the most difficult jobs to excel at: police and fire dispatcher (and I do excel at it).  And yet...I seem to be surrounded by women my age who have it all together.  You know the kind.  They're sleek, beautiful, and well dressed.  Their cars are clean, bills paid, houses decorated, organized and spotless.  They buy their organic produce from the farmer's market and their husband helps them cook dinner every night over a glass of wine.   I'm exaggerating a bit, perhaps,  but you get the idea.  

And then there's me.  I work graveyard shift.  Which means when the Perfect Women are outside enjoying their lovely backyards at 5pm after work,  I'm standing on my deck in my pajamas, hair messily piled atop my head, glasses askew, watching my dogs careen around the yard.  I have piles of mail, magazines, files, and work stacked on my desk.  I'm eating peanut butter for dinner at midnight at work.  While wearing jeans and a fire department t-shirt. With a ponytail.  Again.  I do not have it all together.   

Maintenance is a bitch, so the saying goes, and it just gets harder the older I get.  I no longer have perfect skin without religious use of night cream, eye cream, serum, and weekly glycolic peels.  French fries immediately glom onto my hips with no grace period to burn them off.  If I don't get 7-8 hours of sleep a day I resemble a cast member from Night of the Living Dead.  

After much contemplation (ok, and a lot of envy aimed at the Perfect Women) I had an epiphany: these women aren't perfect.  They work at it.  It's hard work, and they're committed to it.  I realized that if I wanted to look, feel, act and function like a true adult, I'd have to work hard at it, too.  Basically, I'd have to "renovate" every part of my life: my health, financial habits, appearance, communication skills, education.  I am grateful for my life, don't get me wrong.  I love my husband, family, friends, pets, and even my job.  I just feel inefficient, unorganized, and frumpy.  Which in turn makes me edgy, snappish, and fatigued.  What I want  to feel is centered, efficient, calmer, prettier, more confident.  

It's going to be a difficult journey - changing yourself is never easy.  I have no doubt it will be humorous as well, and my hunch is that you, my new reader, will be able to relate.  My plan is to share it all with you as I learn it: new organization tips, healthful tasty recipes, decorating projects, beauty products.  Hopefully we can all learn something along the way.