Today was a lovely quiet day. I was sitting here in front of the computer and thought I would leaf through other people's blogs and ended up feeling terribly intimidated.
Those of you that know me, know that I am creatively challenged and craft/sewing phobic. There are so many blogs that are really beautifully designed. The lives of the people writing them sound idyllic, organized, filled with love and perfect. The ladies represent the "virtuous woman" that Solomon wrote about in the bible. They do so many things, it makes my mind spin. I also feel like such a failure that my life is not so virtuous. I decided that I would take stock of what I do and then make some goals to try to make my home better.
From being an accountant for 22 years, I realize that time is a finite resource. I have work that takes up a chunk of time. I help run my Mom's convenience store which requires about 18 hours per week of telephone calls. I also work when employees are not available but that is thankfully intermittent now. I have my accounting clients that I brought with me to Oklahoma from California and doing their work and consulting on the phone takes 15 hours per week on average. I have my passion serving God, designing and administrating a new children's bible study which takes 18 hours per week on average. Feeding and caring for my animals and property takes about 10 hours per week on average. So lets see, doing my daily work takes 61 hours per week on average. These responsibilities cannot be compressed so I need to take this chunk of time out first.
I will be honest about what I need to do. My Mom passed away in December 2009. I am living in her house and I have not done a thing to sort through her massive amounts of stuff. I also have not brought my stuff into her house. I have not repainted. I have not boxed and shipped stuff to my brothers and sister that I think they should have. It is overwhelming to think about tackling the magnitude of stuff that is here. I NEED TO TACKLE IT. My nesting instinct got broken when I was married. I was not allowed to even unpack the wedding presents, buy a rug, hang a picture yada yada. I need to find a way to rekindle that desire in me. Yesterday my friend Judy and I went into this store that had the most adorable stuff in it. My house in California was exactly how I wanted it and I loved it. Much of what I had to decorate with is here, just boxed away. This store had cute stuff and they are going out of business and I want to go shop their 50-75% off sale for Will's house but it seems shameful when I already have so much stuff.
I would love to be like the women in these blogs. They have perfect families. Their lawns and gardens are picture perfect. They have homes with lovely porches. Their homes are clean, organized and outdoors not one thing is out of place judging by their photos they post. They can what they grow, bake bread from scratch weekly, make yummy food and baked goods everyday. They write amazing blogs complete with creative backgrounds and photos of all kinds of stuff. They make rugs, pillows....all kinds of stuff. I asked my Mom when she wanted me to have her fancy sewing machine that the only thing I could accomplish well with it is to club a burglar over the head with it. I do well to do the stuff that I MUST do to keep life going, but I want to organize my time and energy to tackle this. I am going to ponder this and if anyone has any suggestions, I think i fixed my blog so that anyone and everyone can leave comments or fb me and give me a next thing to do. Thank you for reading. I am not sure if hardly any people read this but I enjoy writing it. Have a wonderful weekend. Will is off!!!!! The weather is perfect, I get to mow the lawn, I get to be outside. It will be wonderful.
I think when you first start blogging, it is like that to be overwhelmed and sit and say, " What the heck have I been doing with my life." But then it passes and you realize that you are you and the things that you do are special and no one can do them like you do and people like that. They like to read about chickens, if you will notice I always get the most comments about chicken stories.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shock though. I felt like such a slacker for the longest time. You will get over it and just make friends.
It is a great place once you get over the shock.
I have made the sweetest friends.
Just remember to be who you are and you will be fine. You have lots of things to share with others. Not to mention just have fun. :)