One thing

I'm a little overwhelmed these days. I'm a single mom. I've got a kid in college, one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school. I'm in graduate school and it's getting perilously close to finals week. I work part time.

To top it all off I woke up this morning to 4 inches of snow that needed to be removed from my rather long driveway. (Said driveway doesn't seem so long in the summer, but winter offers a different perspective. The longest part is the last two feet because that's the where the snowplow piles 1,000 pounds of dirty slush every time it whizzes by. Sometimes it does this even when I am standing there, shovel in hand.)

But I digress. In the midst of all this regular stuff, today marks the beginning of Advent. In addition to holiday preparations, I'd like to take some time to actually reflect on the meaning of the season. To bask in the Light of the World.

Oh. And then there's writing. Something I'd like to do a lot more of.

It's enough to make me want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head until summer vacation. But instead, I follow the advice that a wise someone, I don't remember who, once gave me. Just do the next thing that needs to be done.

Trying to do it all at once is both overwhelming and paralyzing. But I can put one foot in front of the other and do one thing. Just the next thing that needs to be done. That's all.

So are you feeling overwhelmed? Like you want to get going on that writing career but don't know where to start?

Just do one thing.