Somewhere, somehow, back in January or early February I stumbled over a blog. Occasionally I come across a blog and scan a few posts and move on. It is rare that I identify and connect with, admire, feel inspired by, feel encouraged in all three areas of my life (relationship with Christ, and roles of wife and mama), and feel a kindred-spirit connection with a total blogger-stranger. But this lady's blog drew me in like walking into that place that is so familiar feeling you just KNOW you are going to feel at home even though it's not your own home. Anyway... to avoid further rabbit trailing, Abby at M is for Mama has a wonderful blog through which I have been reading post-by-post back through her archives.
At some point she had a series going on, while deeeeep in the motherhood trenches (shoot, she still IS with 7 littles now!), and she called it "Project Elephant". Basically the whole list of projects she wanted/needed to work on was much too big, but one bite at a time she worked on it.
Sound familiar much?? Hmm. Maybe there's a reason I identify with her so!
I feel like this mini-series could easily be called "Project Elephant". I didn't accomplish anywhere near everything on my list, but!! I'm not giving up! I worked as best I could, when I could, and bit by bit forward progress WAS made.
So, back to Thursday, my last day of last week to do anything on the list. Throw in some real curveballs and well, we all survived!
The day started off with Charity waking up not feeling well. It was piano lesson morning and I was thinking Charity was just extra hungry since our dinner the day before had been considerably earlier than usual. I zoomed around barking orders giving instructions for the girls to be getting ready for the day so we could eat breakfast and leave. I got breakfast made and coaxed Charity to eat a few bites. She ate 2 bites of egg and a nibble or toast. She had zero appetite. Zilch. Nada. Hunger wasn't the issue. I felt her forehead and thought she was maybe running a fever. I pulled out my handy dandy thermometer and sure enough, 101.ish read on the screen. A quick text off to the piano teacher alerting her of our highly-likely cancellation and began to quiz Charity on her stomach. {Pleasepleasepleaseplease don't have a stomach virus! Or the dreadful flu that has been going around like vultures swarming over roadkill.}
All she wanted to do was sleep. She wanted her pillow, her ducky quilt, her blankie, and my rocking chair. I slathered her up well with oils that would support her body's immune system as it worked, and let her sleep.
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| Essential oils and rest, excellent wellness support! |
So now suddenly my morning was free. I got the bigger 2 started on school (after a lesson on Plans Change And We Must Be Flexible, geared mostly towards my firstborn who wanted to know every single how, when, where, why, what ifs and buts about the cancelled piano lesson) and ... I don't knpw what I did next. I think I started the Day of Laundry That Never Ended.
Silas is a bundle of mischief that never ends! One of the things he did Thursday was find his way into the office, where he managed to swipe the wireless mouse and Daniel's pocketknife from Daniel's desk! He was meandering the hallway clicking the mouse (which was still speaking to the computer; all kinds of things were happening on the screen!) and quite pleased to have a knife. #lifeisnotdull
As I alluded to in my previous posts, we had a busy weekend ahead. Daniel and I were going on a weekend getaway for our 14th anniversary, and all 4 littles were staying with Daniel's parents. That meant two things had to happen: the house needed cleaned (I so dislike coming home to a not clean house) and everyone needed clean clothes. I was beyond scraping the bottom oc the barrel for some of my clothes so I started with mine.
Between load after load after load of laundry (skipping 2 days earlier in the week did not help!!), keeping Silas properly entertained instead of trying to poke Charity's eyeballs or pester her, keeping people fed, wiped, changed, oiled, checking temps, encouraging juice and crackers, passing out drinks, making meals, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and so on, we also did school. With the whole day turned on end, it wasn't the most motivated school day but it happened and was accomplished. #pushingtotheend
At one point I found Sylvia doing spelling on her bed with Elizabeth. She said she was teaching Elizabeth how to spell. :)
During afternoon naptime I finally got to one of the elephant projects. It helped that I was working on the girls' laundry and this heap was the hide-out for many socks that had abandoned their mates over time. There were also random odds and ends of things that just needed put away. I started with those and eventually whittled through the whole pile. Some were clothes waiting for the thrift store so those went into a bag. Others were out of season clothes that needed put away until later. I even *gasp* threw some things into the trash!!
By the time I had been through the entire pile, this was what was left. A definite improvement but the pile was still not annihilated. I suspected this would be the case as the missing sock club has an always revolving door at our house.
So, by the end of all my laundering, in which I tried to gather up allll the random bits and pieces from the girls' rooms, the sock pile had diminished even more. There is one more place we have missing socks, so another day I will pull out all the socks from every crack and cranny and basket and do a real matching and purging.
In all, I didn't make that much grand headway on my initial list, but progress is progress no matter how small! I certainly don't plan to give up on the list. I plan to keep it around and keep whittling away at it. I might just keep posting updates about it now and then too!
Do you ever feel like you could tackle a huge project when reality seems to laugh in your face and say "no way"? Don't give up!!
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