Another Day

So, I may be straying from normal crafting, photo-filled posts for this week at least, while I get back on my feet.  Yesterday, I washed Round 2 of the Mountain of Dishes (one more to go, I think), cleaned up my living room, vacuumed, tidied my kitchen (it still needs more), and made a fruit-fly trap.

I also hung Christmas lights outside, which is something I've never done before.  That was kind of fun, and mostly a reminder that we need to clean our gutters.  And by 'we', I mean Caleb.

Something else I've been doing this school year is learning Dutch with Rosetta Stone.  My sister is learning it for her foreign language for high school, and I wanted to learn, too.  I unintentionally took a week and a half off from that (I use my husband's computer and he had to take his microphone into work), so I did my first lesson back yesterday.  Because it had been so long, I had three review lessons before I could even start back up with the new stuff.  But I learned a lot of new words - like toilet, bathroom, kitchen, sink, and house, to name a few.

I also started working on Christmas ornaments.  You may recall from years past that I make one ornament in mass to attach with all my Cookie List gifts (and also give to family members).  Well, I'm not sure this year's ornament is as quick as previous years', but it sure is cute.  I've made four so far, and I've almost perfected the technique, so I'm sure I'll get quicker as I go along.  The good news is that it doesn't require tons of focus, so I can watch a movie or something while I'm working.

Well, I have more life to live today.  I'll write again later.

Love and Silver Thread,
Leah Joy

We Do Too Much

You might be wondering where I've been for the past three weeks.  If you didn't notice, don't worry about it.  You've probably just been busy.  That's where I've been, too.  Caleb and I had two weeks straight where we had something going on every day (I held up until Tuesday of the first week, then gave up blogging).  The third week, we had a major event at the end of the week for which I prepped most of the week (I also was trying to recover from the previous two weeks).  And then yesterday, I cleaned my kitchen.  Yes, it took nearly all day, because I hadn't cleaned it in two weeks.  Slight exaggeration?  Hardly.  I washed dishes once in two weeks.  I know.  So much shame.  I wouldn't even let my mother in the house because I was so ashamed.  And I know some people have very judgmental mothers, but I do not. I figure my mom raised me and has seen my worst (stressful times in high school and college - my room would slowly leak out until it covered half the living room).  But this was awful, and not how I wanted my mom to remember me.

So today, my kitchen is slightly cleaner (I have Round 2 of the Mountain of Dishes to wash and there are fruit flies hovering around my sink, but still, it's cleaner than it was) and I tidied a bit around my living room, and I can think again.

And it's not okay to do that to myself ever again.  I know that sometimes life happens, but it's not okay for that to happen for three weeks.  Everything to which I committed myself was a good thing.  But good things for three weeks straight is too many things.  If I don't have the energy to even wipe down my toilet seat with a Clorox wipe, something is wrong.  Very wrong.

I think a lot of us do this.  Someone asks us to do something, and we're technically free that day, so we say yes.  We need to learn to say no sometimes.  We're really good at saying no when we already have something scheduled that day, because, really, that's our only option.  But when the day is free, but we were actually planning on relaxing that day?  We need to learn to say no.

I guess that's the good thing that came out of this last month.  I never want to go through this again.

So, I don't know when I'll be back. I want to write more and post about Christmas stuff and work on my 101 Things project (which, yes, I have hardly touched in the last month), but I'm also going to be practical.  This week is far less busy than the last three, so we'll see.

Love and A Clear Schedule,
Leah Joy