Whenever I sit down in my easy chair to kick back and relax, I can’t help but look around me and study my surroundings. It doesn’t take me long to see how surprisingly dirty my house can become. I see dingy fingerprints and smears on the wall where little hands always seem to touch. I see sticky light switch plates and doorknobs, dusty floor boards, grimy stained carpet and children’s artwork on the walls. I see splatters of juice, yogurt and who knows what else dripped down the cupboards. I can’t help wonder “how it the world did THAT get there?”

My husband doesn’t notice these things. Whenever I merely vacuum the house he says “Everything looks great.”

So now he wonders why, in all the stress of planning and packing for our spring break, do I start scrubbing, spackaling and painting. He wonders why I add on all this undue stress into my day. He says “It’s hard enough just taking care of Leah. Why do you want to repaint her room this week? Can’t it wait?”

Well, perhaps I’m going a bit overboard but the truth is that I feel motivated. Why not get things done when I have the desire to do it.

And then he realizes why I’m feeling so motivated.

I’m hosting book club the day after we get back from our trip.

Do you women now understand?

Imagine trying to unpack and make the house sparkle at the same time. I want to get as much done as I can right now.

I’m having 12 or so women come to my house and sit upon my couch and will, no doubt, be casting their eyes about. I love these women and can, almost, honestly say that do not care so much about how they feel about me or my housekeeping. Perhaps they will not notice the dusty floor boards or the dings in my wall but I see them. I know they are there. And that makes me want to fix them and make everything look perfect.

I tell myself that I am not doing it for these women but because I want my house to feel clean and well taken care of. That’s not a crime. It’s just motivation, right?

So here is a little story…

Yesterday during Leah’s nap, I was able to touch up and paint a good deal of dings and scratches in my walls, some of which were located downstairs in the family room/playroom. I couldn’t believe how beat up one particular wall was. It looked so good and fresh when I was done with it. It gave me such a feeling of accomplishment. I gave it a couple hours to dry and checked it before the kids went down to play.

Then, last night when I came down to do my nightly pumping (argg) I turned the corner and right before me on my freshly painted wall were 6 huge bashed in holes and laying on the floor was the obvious choice of weapon, a paint roller extending handle stick thing. My heart started beating, my throat was gasping, and the heat in my head went off like one of those cartoons. I grabbed the stick and when up stairs to my almost asleep kids and demanded to know who did it.

It was the neighbor boy.

He used my wall as if he were at the batting cages.

I was near tears. I was so upset I couldn’t even say anything. The fury I felt for this neighbor boy. I already had reasons not to like him. I already couldn’t stand the brat stinker. The anger. The disrepect for my house! OooooHHHH!

I wanted to yell out into the night, “I HATE YOU, NEIGHBOR BOY!!”

But I didn’t. I went to bed and sobbed. All my hard work. I felt awful. I talked to Jer to make sure I wasn’t over reacting. A little bit, yes. But I was tired. I was exhausted and overwhelmed.

I’m definitely going to march down the street with that stick in hand and talk to that boy and his parent.

I just better make sure I’m feeling calm when I do it.

If you downloaded my lucky card before 11:30 pm Monday night then you may discover that the file inside isn’t a PSD. You wont be able to open it in photoshop. Somehow I saved it wrong. Woops.

The download has been fixed now and you’ll have to download it again.

Sorry ya’ll. Thanks so much.

We showed up an hour late to church today. We were running about 5 minutes late anyway so when we walked in and sat down to a full meeting, I couldn’t figure out why my friend from across the room turned and laughed at me.

We still had no clue that it was daylight savings when everyone was singing the closing hymn. I just couldn’t figure out what hymn we were on. I thought that the chorister or organist had mixed up the numbers on the board. But how did everyone else know what to sing?

Then, during the closing prayer, which I still thought was the opening prayer, the person said something about the speakers and their wonderful messages. Jer turned to me and said “It’s daylight Saving!”

What?!

Afterward I laughed so hard I cried.

During classes everyone was talking about how they were so tired and missing that extra hour of sleep. Not me. I felt very refreshed. Ha.

Emma has been wanting to make a post, or “website” as she calls it, of her own for a while. She keeps asking me if we can work on it. So I had her tell me some things she wanted to say and I typed them up. She then wanted to make a video, which I think is the funniest part. And because I have nothing other than Leah’s small baby accomplishments to post about I thought I’d allow this little darling daughter of mine to go public.

We had several different shoots. Most of them were garbage because she was distracted by the tv or I busted up laughing. This one is my fav…

*** *** ***
Hi, my name is Star Struck. My mom let me do this just because she loves me.

I like Hannah Montana. She is awsome. Do you? She sings really good. I like this picture and picked it out. It’s a book about keeping secrets. I’ve read it. I can read.

So lets get the point… I like Awesome and Lego Boys posts so I wanted to do one myself.

My little sister is crazy. She keeps hurting herself so it’s making this hard to do this. She wants to play with the computer and needs a nap. She cries all the time. My mom says it’s because she secretly wants nummies.

I want to tell Lego boy that I have some Legos now and I like them. I would like to have more even though I’m a girl.

I think this will be cool to have “a website.” This is a picture I made on mom’s computer. I really like art.

I am 6 and a half. I love the first grade. My favorite thing to do at school is do math, play with my friends, and eat lunch. I like to get hot lunch but my mom always makes me cold lunch because she says it saves money. Can I get hot lunch on Monday? Then we’ll call my friend and tell her what lunch I’m having so she can have the same lunch too.

That’s all for now. Bye.