Busy Thursday

Wednesday night was spent at my daughter's house because of the storms.  All the news of bad tornadoes had me spooked along with a lot of other people.  I decided it best to be on the safe side and not stay home.  There is truly no safe place in my house if a tornado were to come through.

 Ladybug and I had a slumber party in the basement.  Mommie had to work the next day so she went into another room to sleep.  I started reading a book to Ladybug and within 10 minutes she was sound asleep.

When I came home Thursday morning it suddenly got very active around here.  The guy came to fix the flower box around the porch.  Yippie!  He then leveled the garden boxes in the back yard.  The boxes were lower at on end and I was afraid rain would wash out the dirt over time.   Now I can start filling up the boxes and start planting.  

I managed to do a little weeding in the garden boxes on the side of the house while he worked in the back.  Another storm came through and we quit for the day. 

My brother and SIL are cleaning out their own house so they brought back the baby crib they had borrowed from me.  Their great grand daughter is now too big for it.  I will store it at my daughter's house for whoever needs a crib next.  She has a storage shed not being used. 

While they were here we decided to go to the thrift store.  It was 25 percent off day.  I was tempted to purchase several things but in the end I bought only these for myself.   I'm proud of myself for not bringing home more stuff when I'm working so hard to get stuff out of here.   These will be used when I make charity quilts.

I did make one other purchase at the thrift store but it's not for me.  My neighbor mentioned that she would like to learn latch hooking.  She thought it would be neat to do and easy.  It would be something for her to do on lunch break at work.  I'm going to teach her how it's done and  show her the way to create her own design on the canvas.  The canvas in this kit is high school theme and I don't think she will want it in her house.  There might not be enough yarn in the bags to do the whole thing so I'll teach her how to make her own with some of the scrap yarns I plan to get rid of.

It's slowly changing around here.  My house is still ragged looking and still full of stuff.  I can do only so much at a time.  Some things cost money and some require only my time.  I work at it steadily but there's no rush.  I'm not trying to win a contest in how fast to turn around one's life.  Being rushed is what got me into this mess in the first place.  Being rushed is how the house started looking so bad.  Being rushed is how my house got filled with so much stuff. 

There was a time when I was under constant pressure to.... do more.... be perfect..... have more.... be more.... and the list goes on.  I lived by my "to do" list.  Each year, or maybe it was each month, the daily to do list got longer and longer.  After awhile the things to do became less about doing them well and more about just moving on to the next item of the list. 

There was a time when I would spend all the time needed doing a great job on a quilt, or making a rug, or fixing dinner, or sewing an outfit, or making cardboard furniture, or cleaning a room.  My life back then had some stress but the stress was manageable.  As I took on more and more to do's the stress became more of a daily feeling.  The stress became a part of me as I learned to live with it.  I kept telling myself I just needed to work faster and more efficiently. 

I kept telling myself I just needed to be more organized so I could get more done.  I figured out ways to organize so I could do more in a shorter time.  True, the new organizing did speed things up.  BUT, did I use the extra time to enjoy myself?  Heck no, I filled up the extra time with more to do's. 

Well anyway, this is getting to be a pretty winded post, my point is that.....  Life is much more important than a to do list.  I'm reminded of something my Grandma Mama said when I was a first time Mother.  She said "Cleaning and dusting can wait until tomorrow because children grow up we learn to our sorrow."   I should have listened to her advice.