tackle-it tuesday.

It's absolutely amazing how the weather can motivate me to be productive. Here's my wish list of tackle-it items:
1. Perfect weather. It's 71 degrees and sunny, so I opened the windows and filled the sinks with hot, soapy bleach water. I love when my kitchen sinks are shiny white.
2. Bloomers. I have flowers on my front porch that need to be planted, so I'm waiting on the shade to arrive in the front yard do to that.
3. Veggie beds. My vegetable gardens are begging to be cleaned up and planted...I'm hoping to do that on Thursday (and probably Friday and Saturday...) when we have friends over for the younger kids.
4. Is it time to clean out the coat closet? It feels like it, but I better wait a few weeks..so technically this item doesn't belong on my list, does it? Just an example of how my mind is working today - I want to attack every nook and cranny with a vacuum cleaner and Clorox wipes.
5. Frig. This sounds big, but it really just takes a half hour or so...I want to clean out my refrigerator! It's almost empty, so it's a good time to do it.
6. Wash bedspreads. Check. I've already started that one!
7. Bake chocolate chip cookies. Yummy-ness for a sweet friend, check. I'm already working on that one, too!
8. Take pictures for ebay items. Okay...I have to admit that I am not excited about this one. The weather is not motivating me and I have been procrastinating with this. But it needs to happen and I know I will be so happy I did it (when it's over and all the stuff is mailed and my paypal account is full!).
9. The Landfill. Yes, the garage is a bit of a mess again. I won't be working in it this week, but this weather makes me want to. (This weather is like a wonderful buffet that makes you want to fill up a plate - or two! - but you realize that you could not possibly eat everything you took.)
10. Mail Doug's broken iPhone back to Apple. This has to happen whether I am motivated or not! (smile)

My mom's in the hospital for the 2nd time in three weeks, so if I have the chance to farm my kids out, I'll drop anything I'm working on and go hang out with her a bit...the girls are so busy so they can't go and the boys are so "active" (the nice way to put it) that they don't exactly promote a healing atmosphere.

In case you are wondering...today's photo is a picture of my baby participating in an activity called mutton bustin'. He rode a sheep at the Houston Livestock Show and "made it flip over." Please note that he is wearing a helmet, face mask, and vest. His number is 24 and he is convinced that he was solely responsible for flipping that sheep onto his head, but I am pretty sure the sheep was flipping Corey onto his head in an effort to rid himself of a little boy on his back. I was not there, otherwise we would have 100 pictures instead of this one. Doug did take a few others with his phone, but they are quite dark.

{Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise. Psalm 79:13}

not my analogy.

I didn't make this up. My friend told me that her husband said it. I don't know if he made it up, either.

But it fits me today, which is actually tomorrow, because I just noticed that it is after midnight...again.

Here it is:

"I feel like I'm in a blender, just waiting for someone to push the stop button so my life can slow down and settle a little bit."

Now. I am sure that it was actually put a little better than that because when I heard it, I didn't visualize myself literally swirling in a blender (ouch and eww) - just the pieces of my life swirling around me, knocking me in the head every once in a while and whirling by so fast I can barely recognize anything...much less enjoy it.

The sermon this morning was about bearing fruit. Any fruit I have going on seems to be turning into a smoothie these days...

{Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:4}

tackling tuesday. and wednesday. and thursday...

I made my list on Tuesday. I should have called it "Tackle-It Tuesday But Only What I Can Tackle While Driving." Is that pretty self explanatory? Lots of driving on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon, I did manage to empty my closet into my bedroom. The plan was to empty the closet, clean everything (dust, mop, etc.) and replace only what should actually be in there. I got it emptied (remembering to take "before" pictures and "during" pictures - yay!) and then got busy dusting. (It's baffling how dusty the inside of a closet can get.)

While dusting the baseboards and making really great time, I smashed my head into a wooden brace that supports a lower rod in the closet. It hurt so much that I actually felt my brain slam into my skull on the other side of my head. The side I hit hurt ("hurt" is such an understatement here) and the the opposite side hurt, but on the inside. Weird. I guess I've never hit my head that hard because I've never felt anything like it.

Skipping the gory details, I'll just say that it slowed me down quite a bit...

I'd have quit the closet-cleaning project right then and there, but the contents of my closet had been emptied into my bedroom and it looked like we were having a multi-family garage sale in my bedroom. I had to persist. No question.

So for the next hour I checked my pupils every few minutes for strange activity and alternately cried while trying to apply ice and wished I could turn back the clock and to the moment when I was deciding whether to clean out my closet. (If I could have turned back the clock, I would have said "no" to closet cleaning and "yes" to Words With Friends in a comfy chair with my phone. But hindsight is 20/20.)

So. No concussion. No scarred-for-life children who unfortunately witnessed the incident and had to be de-briefed afterward because Mommy really didn't deal with the pain well.

The rest of the day and into the evening, I walked around with my head scrunched slightly down into my shoulders because I constantly felt like I was going to hit it on something. Even when I was in the middle of the room.

I got enough put away that we could sleep on the bed Tuesday night and finished most of the rest today with the help of my professional-organizer friend who is merciless and focused and amazingly motivating when faced with a really gross display of closet-I-don't-know-exactly-where-to-put-this stuff.

(This sounds so crazy, but while typing this, the bruise/bump on my head starting tingling and stinging ever so slightly at the memory of that traumatic head crash. Is that normal?)

(Disclaimer on today's verse: this is such an interesting verse, not exactly relevant, but it showed up when I was searching for a good one about head injuries and I decided that it would be just fine. I hope it blesses you. insert smiley face)

{For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. Deuteronomy 19:5}

daily dose.

1. I sure hope the first weeks of March are easier than the last weeks of February! I won't share the details, but I got to a point in February where I had to abandon (temporarily) my blogging plans. Bummer.

2. I think things are normaling out a bit now. Of course, "normal" isn't any kind of easy, but I'll take it!

3. Since it is the first day of March (So long, February! I won't be missing you!), I'll share a link to the Project of the Month - "Daily Dose" - at the new Fiskars Website. Today's project is super cool and every day this month is going to have fresh, creative inspiration! I will have a couple of projects in the mix, but I don't know which days yet. Check back every day in March...and don't forget that it is National Craft Month, so you'll need to be especially crafty this month.

4. Since it is Menu Plan Monday, I will share that I have made no progress in my menu-planning efforts yet, but I'm still thinking about it, and that has to count for something. I've been reading blogs by more experienced menu planners, and they really do motivate and inspire me! There is some freezer cooking going on among some of the bloggers I follow, so if you are interested in saving time as well as money, check some of them out. Here are a few of my very favorites:

Life as a Mom
Money Saving Mom
The Extreme Housewife

5. Tomorrow's Tackle-It Tuesday, and I really, really, really hope to be tackling some stuff on my list!

10.Now, taking people to dance and myself to the gym. My feet (plantar fascitis) have been feeling so much better - as long as I stay away from the flip-flops or bare feet - so I'm hoping to start back to a good walking routine.

It's hard to make a "ten" list when people are wanting to be driven somewhere...pretend that was really 10.

{This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Genesis 6:9}