Procrastination, Pinterest Fails and Curse Words

Momma's Log November 20, 2015 (Kwrp)

So, last week started off with the realization that the craft fair that I had signed up to participate in at Super Rock Star's workplace was happening. On Thursday.  In my true to form procrastinating nature I started gathering ideas Monday morning.  How hard could it be?   SO.. I started off where any good crafting soldier starts off--PINTEREST.  I have a love/hate relationship with this particular place.  I LOVE it because you can get super good ideas for just about anything here and I HATE it because those super good ideas almost NEVER turn out the way they show in the picture--known as Pinterest Fails.  As you will soon see--I had one of those precious moments in my week.

TUESDAY morning (the procrastination continues) I found this SUPER cute idea for making a candle center piece out of mason jars. 

It just so happens that a friend of mine from my Bible study had just given me a bunch of mason jars that she no longer wanted.  As you get to know me...you will find that I NEVER turn down a freebie-- even if I have NO idea what I will do with it.  If it's free.  It's mine.  Anyway, I thought they looked adorable and relatively easy to make:  Some jars,some spray snow, a cute little cut out scene (PLUS the artist supplied the template for printing--YAY!) -- pop in a candle and POOF you're done.  Cute. Easy--Heh Heh--not so much.   FIRST of all, the artist said to use spray snow.  I should have grown a little suspicious when I noticed a comment questioning how well the spray snow would stay on. "I've had mine for over a year, and the snow has NEVER flaked off" says the artist. Liar, liar, pants on fire!!! I wasted an entire day spraying these jars and waiting patiently for them to dry.  Just merely picking them up sent the snow disintegrating off like the needles on Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. 

I even tried putting a finishing coat on. Nuttin.  They were a HUGE mess.  And the cute little cut out? Oh. My. Goodness.

It took me half an hour just to get ONE cut out.  I looked at the time.... I looked at what else I had to do and I saw this was going to turn into "one of those" weeks.

Next, on my list to make was some pillows.  I had all the fabric I needed, had come up with a simple Christmas tree pattern and I thought I would use up my plethora of extra buttons to sew on to make it look like ornaments on the tree. PERFECT! Now, here's where things start to take a very bad turn.   Super Rock Star got home Tuesday evening and I had managed to have 16 jars sprayed that were spewing dusty snow everywhere, one template cut out and the fronts of 4 pillows PARTIALLY done.  I was feeling pretty good about my progress until WHAM he hits me with "You know you have to have these ready by tomorrow afternoon, right?"  WHA WHAT??!! Yeah, apparently to participate in the craft fair you have to be oh, I don't know, PREPARED and have your table all set up the afternoon BEFORE the fair starts! Gulp!  I give him my best -- I had no idea look and I think he could see the desperation in my eyes.

Being the loving super SUPER ROCK STAR guy that he is AND the best husband EVER, he offered to help.  He came up with the BRILLIANT solution to use white spray paint (which does not flake off everywhere) for the jars AND he spent the entire evening cutting out the scenes.  Did I mention that the scenes were on thick craft paper. And had tiny details like 1000 windows on a house with at least two chimneys (Who does TWO chimney's. On a cut out? Why?!) ? 

Yep.  I owe him BIG time. Good GRAVY!!! Can anything just be easy?!!

Sewing on the buttons on the Christmas trees took and  EXCRUCIATINGLY long amount of time. Also, I punctured my fingers with the needle so much, I was howling in pain with all 32 buttons. (If only they made something to put on your fingers to protect them from being poked by the pins and needles when sewing....)

Also it turns out that in my pile of a bajillion buttons the only colors I possessed were brown, black and beige. Not very Christmassy (UGH!)   I had decided to buy some rope trim just to give them a little extra "I made an effort" look. Let me ask you-- have you ever tried to sew rope trim onto square pillows? 

If not--it's a real hoot (said no one EVER)! In trying to force my sewing machine over the stacks of 3ft high trim and fabric (small exaggeration--but that's what it seemed like) I had to grit my teeth (because that helps--you know) and shove the masses through the machine praying that some small particle of a stitch would latch on holding it together--meanwhile the pins that I used to hold the stacks together are jamming into my wrists and the howling in pain continues (no--they do not make a thimble type apparatus for wrists--I checked).  I am not a big curse word user.  In fact most of the time the worst that pops out of my mouth is the phrase "curse word" and the OCCASIONAL use of the "D" word.  By the end of all this I was throwing curse words out left and right without remorse.  I was yelling at my sewing machine as if my words would some how miraculously get it to defy all the odds and produce a somewhat straight seam in the midst of all of the uneven terrain of fabric, trim and buttons. At one point I noticed Super Rock Star giving me a side glance that was either fear or pride--maybe a mix of both.

By late that night, we had managed to finish most of it--only some assembly left to do. But, we were both exhausted and our hands were cramped into grotesquely painful positions.  Our home was a complete disaster area and we both fell EXHAUSTED into bed.

The finished products actually turned out o.k. and, to be honest Super Rock Star was kind of hoping the tree pillows wouldn't sell so that we could keep them for ourselves. (that is a HUGE compliment to me).

As for the craft fair.  I sold 3 of the 6 pillows I made and 0 of the mason jar contraptions.  I don't blame people--as much effort as we put into making them they didn't seem up to par for selling. Plus, there were at least 3 other tables that had some sort of mason jar craft to sell, so maybe they weren't as special as I had hoped they would be.   Lessons I learned:  1) Once again, NEVER trust an idea on Pinterest (esp. if your making it the night before said event--this is true for recipes, crafts, everything) and 2) If you decide to sign up for a craft fair--maybe start a little earlier than the day before. 

God changed my plans today

Momma's Log November 5, 2015 (Kwrp)

I love lists--I love making them, I love thinking about them, I love checking things off when I've completed them. It's like an obsession for me.  (To see how truly, crazily and insanely thorough I am, you can read it in my blog post from a few weeks ago) I have learned that having some sort of schedule is essential, because without one chaos ensues.  However, ever since my boys have gone back to school and I'm in this new territory of planning how to spend the 7 hours they are away--my lists have gotten pretty ridiculous. I have a plan on how to spend almost every moment of my day.  I like the feeling of order, control and consistency of knowing what's going to happen.   But, here's the difficult part--my desire is to get all of these things done so that when my husband and children need me I'm available, fully there and not distracted by the things I want to get done on my list.  Sounds reasonable right?  So why is it so hard?

 
Day after day, I make a plan, I start to implement it and BOOM--something happens to throw my world into COMPLETE chaos (or mildly disrupted--it depends on your perspective).  Whether it's something as small as one of my children forgetting something at home so I have to spend an unplanned 20 minutes of my day (which is clearly slated to be designated to exercise time) to go take it to them at school, or the car is out of gas and I (UGH!) have to spend an excruciating 15 minutes watching the meter click at an interminably slow pace which has now forced me to be behind during my running errands scheduled time slot or, the one that nearly sends me over the edge of my sanity--the super chatty sales clerk at the store.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I DO NOT need to hear about how your head cold is making you feel all sluggish and that management won't let you go home as you sneeze and cough and sputter your woes to me while ringing my purchase at an excruciating slow speed.  Keep your head down, sister, and just scan, scan, scan-- make it snappy! It goes on and on--interruptions that destroy and upset my perfectly laid out plan of how I wanted to spend my time that day.

But, boy have I been convicted lately on this issue.  I realized I was being absolutely hateful to everyone I came in contact with--even those I love the most--all because I felt that their "interruptions" or "slowness" or even silly changes in plan were taking precious time away from my time spent on my list.   One example was last week--Super Rock Star normally practices on Tuesday nights, but last week  the band decided to cancel practice.  Now, what I had planned on doing was--what I always do while he's at practice which is read a book and relaxing--it was on my list.  Item # 22.786 sub paragraph 2.   With the change in schedule I ended up snuggling with my hubby while we watched shows. Oh the horror (dripping sarcasm)  Ridiculous Right?  It's enjoyable to sit with him and enjoy giggling at our favorite shows together, but because of my over the top control freak desire to stick to my plan--I was grumpy and groany and made sure he realized that changing his plans was NOT making me very happy.  

Whenever my boys get home from school, I have a SCHEDULE to keep--home work, chores, put their things away, THEN they are to go off and play so I can make dinner.  But, that rarely happens.  Instead they want to tell me about their day (the nerve), talk while they're doing their homework, and I have to prod them through each and every chore all the while they are goofing off and laughing and having a great ole time while they do it. What happens?  I LOSE it --I yell, I screech and holler for them to go with the plan, follow orders, do as they are told!

As you can imagine, when I see their crumpled little faces or when I see the look of rejection in Super Rock Stars face--I realize they must wonder " what in the world is wrong with this woman"?  Why can't I just lighten up?  Why do I feel SO defeated when things go awry? Why am I trying so hard to control my life rather than just live it? So, in the quiet of my time with the Lord, He leads me to realize that everything I am fighting against--the interruptions, the changes in plan, the unscheduled events--ARE His plan for me.  Get it?  God is trying to show me He has a plan for my life every day and it is not what I thought (or planned) it would be.  I'm not saying it's totally wrong to have an outline for you day--goals or things you would like to get done--but the way I have been handling it has been totally wrong.  I have used my lists as my marching orders and like a good little soldier I want to complete them so I feel complete.  But God is saying "No,no, no, no, child--My plans for you are different. My ways are NOT your ways."   He wants me to seek Him in everything--including how to spend my day.  He wants to grow me, stretch me, create in me a desire to be more like Him and if I am just following my own agenda--I'll miss it.  I'll miss those opportunities to grow closer to my husband, I'll miss those opportunities to engage with my children and just laugh and be silly with them,  I'll miss those opportunities to show kindness, patience, respect to a stranger.  I'll miss out on showing Jesus' love to those who desperately need it--all because I am so focused on some silly non important things I wrote down on a piece of paper.

Earlier this week I challenged myself to at least try to be more flexible if some hiccup disrupted what I had scheduled.   As you can imagine it took nano seconds for God to let me test this out.  MY plan for the day was to follow my older son's bus to the destination for his field trip and then run some errands, go home and get some house work done that I was behind on, take a rest, do some reading maybe and then pick up both boys after school.  THAT was the plan, but what happened was NOT the plan.  Oh sure, I followed the bus, got to see him safely into the building, take off  in my car whistling a happy tune of freedom.. and then...my phone rings.  It's his teacher wondering if I could stay and be an extra chaperon for the field trip since the one who was supposed to go cancelled.  Sigh!  "O.K." , I say, "I'll turn around and be right back".  Mentally, I'm calculating that I will now no longer have time to do ANY of the things I planned to do that day.  The field trip is to see a two hour play put on by young adults that I will now GET to watch with my son and about 200 other noisy, rambunctious 2nd and 3rd graders. Oh, joy! I realized that by the time the play finished and following the bus back to the school I would barely have enough time to get a load of laundry in before it was time to head back to the school for pick up.

The whole time I drove back to the field trip destination I mentally coached myself to get into the moment.  But, I'll be honest--I wasn't there.  I did this VERY begrudgingly and not AT ALL with a good attitude.  I plastered on a smile and sat next to my son.  But, as soon as the play started and I had surrendered to the realization that my plan for the day had been blown (that I was trapped and there was no where to run or hide), I relaxed.  My son thoroughly enjoyed the play--and to be honest--I did too.  I LOVED his look of pride and joy when he saw me come in to sit next to him.  I LOVED watching him laugh and really get into the story and I LOVED how he clung to me almost the entire two hours.  But,  most of all I loved that somehow I knew I had permission to enjoy this moment in time.

You see, I think as Moms we feel like were supposed to be doing doing doing all the time.  Especially as a stay at home Mom--I constantly feel like I have to justify my existence and "earn my keep" so to speak.  I think that's why I'm always pushing myself so hard to get so much done.  But, this experience has taught me something so huge I can hardly put it into words.  At any given time, God has us where we are for purpose.  For me that means being fully here for my family, rolling with it when my plans change and engaging and being kind to the strangers He places in my path almost every day.  It means allowing God to "interrupt" my schedule so that I can be what He wants me to be for someone else and be in the moment rather than chasing after the next item on my list.  As with all the lessons He's teaching me, this one does not come easily.  As I walk through this life-- trying so hard to shed this snake skin of my sinful nature that longs to be selfish-- and replace it with being more selfless and putting others needs before my own, I find that the Lord blesses me with the feelings of significance and sense of completion I long for. When I put my agenda before His, all I feel is miserable.  

As I walked Morgan out to his bus after the play he gave me the biggest hug and whispered "I'm so glad you stayed".  That, folks, is all the encouragement I need to try to do this Momma/Wife thing better all the time.