The Fall Of Perfection

Well, okay ~ the fall of the illusion of perfection. Since my husband left for Iraq, my life had been in a spiral of controlled chaos. We have been blessed so abundantly in our lives, and with those blessings have come many responsibilities. As time passed with my husband gone, it became increasingly clear that it was too much for me to handle on my own.(sprained ankles and debilitating colds didn't help) Add to that my ministries and various opportunities to do something besides a paying job and things started to slip. I began forgetting appointments, tasks, names ~ even every day words. Praise the Lord my husband came home! Right? Well yes, of course. And with the blessing of him coming home safe and sound, came some certain realities. I am not perfect. And now, my husband knows. Along with the failings that he was aware of while he was gone (see my financial disaster post), he has now become aware that I did not care for our property in a way that he would have liked and he is now paying the consequences because he has six months of catch-up to do. This is not because I didn't care, or was complacent about what needed to be done. It was simply too much for me to do. Also with the blessing of him being home, came the challenge of re-integration. He is having some issues related to the war which are affecting me. Sleep has been such a challenge and I have become exhausted to the point of not even feeling enough energy to go to worship practice. And I have become rather jumpy and agitated at unexpected noises. Then there's the fact that my regular weekly Bible study adjourned for the summer and thus ended my regular attendance to my Bible.(fault mine) And then ~ just to make things fun ~ we dove right into a major reconstruction in our home (not sorry about that at all, just pointing out the chaos.)
SO ~ last night, I shoved some box out of my path and got into the car and went to worship practice. There was no one there. Why? I don't even know. That's how bad it has gotten in the world of S4J. So - anyone that may have had illusions about my perfection or 'being all together', should be pretty clear that they were incorrect. I'm certain that I owe apologies for missed appointments and responsibilities and perhaps at some point, I will become aware of what those are and make the appropriate sorries.
I have been waiting on God to tell me what would be my tasks in the coming season, and I believe He has made it abundantly clear to me at this point.

* My family and my home are a ministry that God has given me and after Him they must be given priority.
* My body is a temple and it must be cared for with the love and respect of the guest whom I have invited to live in it which is Jesus Christ.
* After these priorities have been seen to, I am to care for women whose husbands are deployed and to care for my friendship relationships.
*This one is just me :) I love photography and I have a God-given talent for taking lovely pictures. I want to be a photographer who gets paid. More to the point, I want to be a photographer worthy of getting paid. So I am going to try to take a picture every day to post. Maybe I will start a photoblog just for accountability. It is also my desire to improve on the talent that God has given me and so I would like to take a photography course. Perhaps when the kids go back to school.

In the interest of priority one - I have revamped my home maintenance schedule so that jobs that need to get done are more likely to get done because I know they need to get done. There are daily, weekly, monthly and other frequency-oriented tasks. I have broken them down into manageable segments and have delegated more of the work to capable members of the family ~ although the majority of the indoor work to maintain the home is mine because I am the full-time household manager which was agreed upon by myself and my husband at the beginning of our marriage. This will be a daily Hamper Scamper post. And I will let you know if I completed the tasks or not. You can work along with me, or just hold me accountable ~ or even just ignore the whole thing. After all, this blog is really about me for me (and also to help others keep up on me) and the beauty of visiting friends on blogs is that you can visit with the freedom to read or not read, do or not do, comment or not comment.

Oh ~ and btw ~ my laptop hard drive died and so I am still working from another computer. The new (refurbished) one came today and my husband has promised to help me install it. Hopefully I'll be up and running again soon.

I don't have the Hamper Scamper button on this computer so for now, you'll have to imagine it.

Today's Tasks:
Make beds(each their own)
Sweep common area floors (12 year-old daughter)
Check and adjust guest bathroom (12 year-old daughter)
Change bathroom hand towel (12 year-old daughter)
Vacuum common areas
Mop common areas
Set table for dinner
Clear table table from dinner (12 year-old son)
Wipe table and chairs
Wash dishes
Take out all trashes (12 year-old son)
Curb trash cans (12 year-old son)