Overwhelmed: My to-do list

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of things on your to-do list? I feel like I've been running a million miles a mile lately and instead of crossing things off my list, I'm adding to them.

Last week Nate came down with a stomach bug on Tuesday. He was better by the afternoon, but passed it on to me. I was down Wednesday and Thursday with it (why do kids only share germs?!?). Friday Pete got stung by a bee on the face, and as he's mildly allergic, he was out of commission that afternoon. Saturday morning I woke up with a bit of the stomach bug again, Paige was throwing up, Nate's allergies were all over the place, Pete's face was even more swollen, and Ryan had a nasty fever that didn't break until Sunday early afternoon. Thankfully we're all better (Pete's still slightly swollen, but it's improved greatly!), but I feel more behind than ever now.

My house is a disaster. I'm behind on creating decorations for our church's vacation Bible school (VBS) that is in 2 weeks. I have a birthday party to start planning. I have a house project list that's a mile long. My garden is full of weeds, and half of it needs replanting. Paige's room smells like pee and I can't get the smell out of it, which means we may have to replace the carpet in there.

My wonderful husband can see how stressed I am, so he took all three kids to swim lessons this morning so I could do whatever I wanted. I told him I was going to clean, and he said if I just wanted to sleep or watch a movie, I could do that instead. My goal is to get the dining room and kitchen done; for some reason those two rooms never get cleaned, just things dumped in them. I think if I can get those done while they're gone, I'll feel less stressed and can start tackling other things.

I'm starting to wonder if we'll get our project list completed this year. Every summer we try to take advantage of the time we have to get some projects done around the house. Last year included building frames for raised garden beds and painting the deck. This year's list is much longer and a bit more complicated:

• Refinish the kitchen counter tops.

• Replace or fix the front sidewalk.

• Replace or fix the front porch stairs.  
• Refinish the dining room table.

• Finish weeding the rocks by the driveway.  
• Finish putting in the flower garden by the driveway fence.

• Finish the new garden around the pool.

• Build the new bed and headboard for our bedroom.

• Help the kids accomplish their summer goals.

Some of it has to be done for safety reasons, others are things we're finally getting around to doing. We've narrowed the list down, and this final list is probably only about half of what we originally planned. We've been spending a lot of time as a family, which has been wonderful and amazing and definitely a priority, but just knowing I have a to-do list just nags at me. Anyone else have that problem? I have other things that I'd like to get done as well, like finish organizing the basement and other yard jobs, but if those don't get done this summer, we can wait until the fall when it's cooler :)

Do you have a super long to-do list too? What kinds of things are on your list?