Shower, Shout Out And A Hamper Scamper For Good Measure

Big day. Lots to do. Having trouble focusing.

Shower:
Have you ever cleaned the shower while taking a shower? Well I did this morning. Cleaned myself first then the shower. Nothing like combining tasks. I could be the queen of multitasking. (How about you? What tasks have you combined for maximum efficiency?)

Shout Out:
Hey Gretchen! *waves* I was thinking about you this morning. (NOT while showering). And I just wanted tell you, "Thank you" for being in my life. You're a treasure to know. virtually.

Good Measure:
Look - I know it's the busiest time of year for many of us, me included - but don't forget that we are celebrating the birth of our Savior, and you still need a clean toilet seat. So.....

Time to clean your shower.... GO!
(You thought I was going to say, "toilet seat" didn't you?)
(No you don't have to be naked)

New Job Every Day (Otherwise Known As Spam)

Has Michael Vincent been working to find anyone else a new job as diligently as he has been working for me? Maybe he has only had time to focus on me since nearly every day in my email he notifies me that he has found me yet another new job. Astounding the dedication this man has for me. Really.

Been sick since Saturday with a bad throat and still having to do most of the stuff on my schedule. I delivered some pictures on Monday morning and I was feeling so crummy. The delivery did not go well, and I left feeling less than satisfied. I am in the process of making right with the client, but like I said - I've been sick. It's failures like that which plant the seed of "quit" and the seed of "you're not good enough".

Started antibiotics last night and already see improvement this morning! Which is good because I am expecting to have about 20 people around my table for dinner tomorrow and today, although I cannot finish our work in progress of a home, I can at least make it clean and welcoming.

I went to the newer gynecologist for a follow-up about my urethra last week. I'll tell you more about that in another post.

I also have had a post brewing for many weeks now about perspective and perception. Maybe since I claimed it here, I will have to write it for sure.

Busy Bee

I have a lot to do today. I did not do any chores on my birthday. Yesterday I had dreams of doing great things, but after PWOC and the library I got a nasty headache/earache combo and that took me out for the rest of the day. Plus, my Dad is coming to visit tomorrow and he'd like a place to sleep and a place to sit at the table. I've got to arrange the things that are still stored in the dining room so that I can expand the table (it's one of the storage areas for the stuff we moved out of the east wing so that we could renovate). Those are the most important goals but not the only goals.
After dinner on my birthday, my husband cleaned up ALL of the dishes. NOT just the ones from baking my cake, no. ALL of them. He even hand-washed what wouldn't fit in the dishwasher. What a lovely birthday.
I got the new, new hard drive yesterday. My husband opened it up and saw that it is about 200gb less than MY hard drive that I PAID for. Sooooo ~ still no laptop. That one has to go back too. Also, I picked up an enclosure for the hard drive that crashed to see if I could retrieve my data. The guy at Radio Shack said it was the right one. It is not returnable. And it doesn't fit. FOOIE. I suppose I'll be spending some time on Ebay soon. As for now, I have to get to work.
I wanted to say, "Thank you" for all the wonderful birthday wishes and the gift verses. So awesome! A special thanks to my BFF IRL HisGirl for hosting my surprise virtual birthday party!
I also received a gift certificate for CBD from my parents(I've spent it 6 times for practice), a check for oodles of dollars from my in-laws, some birthday cards and emails ~ And these lovely words from a sweet friend who shares my same birthday....

Happy, Merry, Fun-Loving, Excitable, Cheerful, Wonderful, Unique, Rule Abiding, Guitar playing, Humorous, Religious, Beautiful-singing, Crab-huntin, Prayer-lovin, Picture-takin, entertaining hostess, humor-writing, Expert on linguistics, Social Butterfly, God-fearing, worldly experienced, Mothering & All the other cool words to describe you: BIRTHDAY to Judi. YAY!!!

*My life is good and I am blessed beyond hope by the Most High God.*

Nuttastic

These are pecans harvested from our future home. We have about a dozen pecan trees. These are some of the leftovers from last year's harvest, and sadly - I have to throw them away because they have lost their shelf life. But not before I stopped filing to take pictures of them! Next year we know to freeze them ~ which will also kill the weevils. (I applied the kaleidoscope effect using Corel Paint Shop Pro X (trial version on my stand-in laptop))

Doing great on our tasks. Mostly the part that we're doing great at is not getting so wrapped up in getting the list done that we drive ourselves crazy and cease to enjoy life. The point is to keep a good house in an orderly fashion. The reason we desire this is because it makes our life more pleasant and relaxed because somehow, it feels easier to breathe when you aren't staring at an inch of dust on the mantle. And somehow, it feels easier to walk down the hallway when you aren't worried about breaking a leg on 14 pairs of shoes in your path. And as HisGirl has pointed out, it's nice to be able to say to someone, "Sure - come on in." Without having a panic attack for what they will think of how you really live and whether or not their immune system can handle the attack it is about to receive.

The filing is taking epically long today for 3 reasons. 1.)I am way behind so I have a lot to file. 2.) I have taken many breaks. 3.)I decided to purge files of old papers. The fun about living where we live, is that we don't need a shredder. We can just make a bonfire with our sensitive documents and save our identities for another day.

Needs to be done.

Having fun with my husband today who has baked me a really hilarious cake in honor of my impending birthday. Also seems to have left me the cleanup from said baking. We shall see.

Getting Back On Track

We completed all the tasks on our list yesterday! And then some! As I mentioned before, we spent the holiday weekend at our future homestead. Here is a picture of what my future looks like.....



Today's Tasks:

Make beds (each their own)

Check the guest bathroom (12 year-old son)

Clean the Master bathroom

Change kitchen towel

Laundry

Clean kitchen sink

Check house plants and water

Clean garbage disposal

Clean ionic breeze

Pick up dog poop(12 year-old daughter)

Mow dog yard(12 year-old son)

Bring up trash cans (12 year-old son)

Set table for dinner(12 year-old daughter)

Make dinner

Clear table from dinner(Dad)

Wipe table and chairs

Take out kitchen trash(12 year-old son)

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)

Mission Possible

HisGirl and I are developing a game. In the interest of accountability, taking care of the things God has blessed us with, AND still getting to do the things we want to do (which is chat online and blog blog blog). When we are IM'ing, which we do daily; we will break out with random jobs to do. Sometimes in the form of - "It's a challenge.....GO!" sometimes in the form of, "I'm going to change the laundry" "I'M GOING TOO!"
We are rather enjoying this game. And our homes seem to be happy about it too. Today I said to myself, "Self - why keep this wonderment to yourself?" And myself said back, "Well Self, I can't imagine why we would! Let's tell the WORLD" (oh and I also told myself this: *Note to self* - ALWAYS check the kids' bathroom when someone says they are on their way over because it is also the GUEST bathroom. ICK)

So. You are being invited into the game. Just so you know, this is a game of SMALL missions. For example: CORRECT USE OF THE GAME: Clean one item in the bathroom. GO! INCORRECT USE OF THE GAME: Clean the WHOLE bathroom. NO GO!(You can choose once you are engaged in the mission to go the extra mile if the mood strikes you - but it is NOT a requirement.)
Today a mission I made for myself was to tighten the tank on the toilet in my bathroom. This was so simple, that I moved on to other things in the bathroom that needed tightened. And so the mission became a fun search for loose things in the bathroom. I used simple, common tools,(which are mine and not my husband's) and spent MAYBE 30 minutes in my bathroom. (Taking and editing the pictures took longer than the actual mission) There is now no wiggly or squeaky thing in that place. I am a girl! I did it!

Your Mission: Should you choose to accept it; Think of something anywhere in your house that needs tightened or squeaks. And go fix it!!
Report back to me when you have completed your mission. You can either - make your own post about it with pictures and let me know, or you can share on my comments.

BUT BEFORE YOU GO..... Look at how I completed the mission!!! These are the items that needed tightening or de-squeaking, and the tools I used to fix them.

This one I actually found the little nut on the floor when I was down there fixing something else. I didn't even know the thing had fallen out of the switchplate!! Geez!

And I see that HisGirl, without even knowing what I was doing, has secretly challenged me on today's post.

GO!

Seasons

Today while the housekeeper was cleaning my house (cause I'm broken, remember?) My friend the postlady brought me a package... but first, a little backstory....

I have several Bibles in several translations that I have picked up during different seasons of my Christian walk....

And for about a year now I have been wanting a praise and worship devotional type Bible.Today it came!
Here's the description....

There is a fresh wind of worship blowing across the Body of Christ - believers everywhere are realizing that amazing encounters with God occur not just on Sunday, but every day! The iWorship Daily Devotional Bible will help you celebrate and experience a fervent passion for God in everything you do. It will build your faith and encourage you to adopt a moment-by-moment lifestyle of worship!

It is a beautiful Bible and I already know that I will cherish it in the years to come. Don't get me wrong, it will never replace my first Bible which was given to me by Cousin Amber - who devotedly prayed for my salvation - when she learned firsthand that her prayers had been answered.

She knew just what I needed when I needed it (as she almost always has for the 20 years that we have been friends). It is a most excellent personal study Bible in the NKJV translation with my name engraved in gold lettering on the front. In it are the first pages that my hands touched in earnest seeking of the God who gave all for my very soul. It contains the pages where I first ever wrote a note in a Bible when the words of Isaiah the prophet jumped off the page and danced around me as an exact and direct answer to a friend in need. It contains a very personal,powerful and overwhelming message that God gave directly to me in purpose and promise at a time when I was just beginning to learn who I was in Christ.

I pray that this new one is a faithful companion and supplement to my evergrowing relationship with Christ.

Working on not being broken

(To get the full effect of this note, you have to read MY CUP RUNNETH OVER first. lol - they don't order up right.)

Whoops. I chipped my cup. Hubby IM'd and I missed it. Here is where I introduce you to the S2 team: satan + self. I'm sure you've already met. Satan says to me, "Well, if you hadn't been doing the dishes, you would have caught him." And I say, "Yeah. And now I am sad, and what if I never get another opportunity to speak to him again?" The proper and appropriate response to this is, "You're right. I am never doing the dishes again!"
Wait. I mean, the proper and appropriate response to this is, "Shut up S2." and "Lord, thank You for my dishes and thank You that I saw that my husband was thinking of me."