Work Work Work

I am not a big fan of complaining, so I'm just going to call this "reality". Today is "deck staining" day. Ugh... move all the plants, move all the furniture, get all stainy and gross, take all day and work work work. That's nothing new to me. It seems all I ever do is work work work. And yet, never seem to get done done done! Am I singing your tune?

Last week I spent a day washing windows. We have A LOT of windows...I actually enjoy that, except for the streaking situation, but it was okay. Well, the girls had to keep coming to tell me that birds kept hitting the windows. Now, come ON, the windows were NOT that dirty beforehand!! Of course, now I have feathers at the very top of the window where I can't reach without going to get the ladder. Work work work.

I mopped the kitchen floor yesterday, as a mysterious substance had splashed all over it and went undiscovered until the sun came through the window. No one knows what it is or where it came from. Hmmm...Mr. Nobody strikes again. So, I mopped and mopped. My kitchen floor is huge, but who's complaining? Not me. Anyway, my dog decided that she was NOT going to move off the floor, so I mopped around her. When she finally moved, I mopped the Sophie size spot where she had been sleeping. She's not always willing to help, but she's good company. A pain in the mop too. Work work work. That floor will be dirty again in 2 days if not sooner....

My closet has seen better days, so I tackled that this week, as well as the basement, which was still cluttered with garage sale stuff. I finally found the ping pong table, sucked up the lady bugs and spiders (eek!), put everything away, and whew.....sat down for 5 minutes to check on my to do list. work work work.

I swiffered under the furniture, dusted the staircase, polished the wood and cleaned the glass in the pictures, cleaned out the fridge, made my own laundry soap (thank you, Hannah!), hung clothes on the line, weeded the flowers, fed the birds, swept the driveway and the porch, cleaned out the birdbath, made dinner, organized all the bills and paperwork, cleaned the bathroom, and cleaned yet another dog pee mess........work work work.

See, the reason I'm not "complaining" is that I understand this is my "ministry" and work doesn't scare me. In fact, being idle scares me, and I am never bored because boredom would probably kill me! I just can't seem to figure out how to relax and enjoy life too!! I don't know how to "take a day off". I don't know how to not work work work!! I don't want my kids to look back and say all I ever did was work, but right now they probably would. We do fun stuff, for sure, and I'm always here, but I do tend to put work first, as playing makes me nervous when I know I have a ton of things I should be doing. This is why one of my former favorite hobbies took a back burner when we built the house (scrapbooking), because this house and the work involved nearly consumed every waking moment. So now I'm learning to maintain it all and still be an attentive mom. I have to work at being impulsive and carefree, which will hopefully one day not be work at all.

I know, I know....there is more to life than work and keeping everything shipshape and clean. Believe me, I haven't even achieved that with all of my working. It's like being on the hamster wheel! Since there is a part of me that is fun and impulsive and carefree, I just need to see it come out more so that life doesn't feel like such a job.

I know I am to be doing everything as if I was doing it for the Lord, and sometimes I do feel that way. Other times I am just overwhelmed with responsibility. See, I'm not complaining. I think most people would agree that it's just reality, but that there needs to be a greater amount of joy in what we do. Otherwise, we shouldn't bother doing it at all.

Work work work.....it's important, but shouldn't be joyless....I think my "job" for the day should be pondering that further.....while I'm staining the deck.

Be blessed, whatever you're working on today!