Life is like laundry!

This is a long one...... if you are a man reading this you might not make it through the 1st paragraph!

Self Reflection time.....I have been thinking about me a little bit lately! I think that if you are a woman you know what I am talking about...the time in your life when you stop and wonder what in the world am I doing with my life? Have I really made a difference? Am I lazy and unmotivated because I would rather look at a blog of an inspiring woman that has a million talents than to actually discover any hidden talents of my own??? I think I have discovered my problem.....I am not unmotivated or uninspiring I am simply scared right out of my mind.

Let me explain....the kids go to bed and Rand is busy on the computer looking up the next amazing hunt that will be the most exciting adventure of the year. In his mind I am sure he is dying for the day when Jake and Braden will accompany him on these hunts and the three of them together will take over my house and I will walk into my home only to realize that it has been taken over by the heads of dead animals that have brought years of happiness to the boys in my family. (Wow, went a little off subject there). Back to what I do when the kids go to bed, first I go around picking up thousands of paper airplanes(Jake is obsessed at the moment which means Braden also has a strong passion of paper aviation), I then throw in a load of laundry and start the dishwasher, talk to Rand about how I really am so happy he loves hunting and look at a few maps of where he would like to hunt in 8 months(you know you can never prepare to much). After all this is done I find myself cozy on the couch, laptop in hand, watching American Idol and reading a few blogs. Here is where the absolute scared part fits in.

Right now I am totally addicted to blogs that teach me how to build things or reupholster or repaint or redo (thanks ShaRee and Lara). I look at the millions of projects that I could be doing and instead I just keep reading. I start thinking about the end table that is half done in my garage waiting to be painted black because the gold and brown glaze job I did....well, it ended up looking like newborn baby poop. I think to myself honestly how do these woman do this? I then start reading a few blogs about woman who have posted craft ideas or family home evenings that are so well done they could keep even the craziest kids attentive. I am sure these woman have never had a family home evening where they just set up army guys pretending it is the war in heaven. (Jake's favorite lesson to teach) (The board game RISK comes in handy for visual aids). I then read a few blogs of woman who have overcome tremendous obstacles in their life and set a goal in my mind that I will be a better person (I am also addicted to the Nie Nie Dialogues at the moment, this woman's strength floors me). I then find myself inwardly committing that tomorrow morning during breakfast I will have secret notes for my children to read letting them know how much I love them, I will send Rand off to work with a kiss as I am running on my treadmill and when Jake is off to school with a nutritious lunch packed I will play with Braden teaching him to read by the time he is 3 and when he goes down for a nap I will finish sanding a dresser, start writing a book and planning an adventure for Jake when he returns home from school.

That never happens.... the goals I set every night seem to vanish every morning when Braden is eating a frozen waffle in front of Dragon Tales, Jake and I are working on homework that could have been done the night before and I can't run on the treadmill because I didn't put the laundry away last night. I have talked about this before and one quote keeps coming to my mind. "If you keep doing the same thing you will get the same result". Have any of you felt like goals were more like laundry? Never quite done and always piling up?


Continuing with the analogy that goals are like laundry I have decided to set a new goal. With laundry you have to sort first. Sorting in my house means everyone brings the dirty clothes into my closet and dumps them in a huge pile. I then sit there sorting with stain stick in hand.(Any one who has boys knows that stain stick caked on grass stains will eventually make grass stains come out). I sort and sort and when I am done one load usually gets put in right away. 1st step of goal setting.... I must sort and sort through all of my goals and choose the one I really want to achieve (not get overwhelmed with the long list of goals I eventually want to accomplish). After sorting laundry into lovely piles of colors, whites, levis, etc I come back from putting the laundry in to realize that Braden has also sorted the clothes and they are no longer in the piles I left them in. 2nd step of goal setting...Realize it will not always be perfect at first or the way I planned it. That first load of laundry usually gets put in the dryer and sometimes another load gets put in the washer. Step 3 when starting out with a new goal I am usually gusto with excitement and motivated to complete it. Through out the rest of laundry day life happens..the clothes usually sit in the washer to long and the clothes from the dryer get piled on my bed, by the end of the day I realize that the clothes did get washed but I now have 32 loads of laundry sitting wrinkly on my bed waiting to be folded. No worries I have Oprah, American Idol and the Bachelor on my DVR so I turn the TV on and start to fold the laundry! Step 4 I need to realize that just because I didn't achieve the goal the first day or even week, don't give up. The laundry always gets put away even though it wasn't folded right out of the dryer and my kids have never had to wear something dirty out of necessity... sometimes by choice but not because clean clothes were not available. Step 5 Be flexible in the way I approach goal, most importantly ACHIEVE goal, don't give up!

I may not refinish, craft and create a spiritual atmosphere in my home all in one day but that end table in my garage might get done before summer. Besides, just to make myself feel better I bet all those blogger women out there have something they don't do perfect, right???? Maybe they can sand a dresser and make it beautiful but if you opened their fridge it might have mold or something in it. Maybe those crafters out there that can make anything look cute have kids rooms that have dried toast in the corners or piled up laundry on their bed. Tonight instead of reading a blog about inspiring woman I just might start to be inspiring. JUST LIKE FOLDED LAUNDRY!