my monday

WARNING: This post is a bit of a rant. No harm was intended in it's writing; I just needed to clear out my system, and 8, 5 and 3 year old boys do not make good sounding boards. So here it is. Stop reading now if this will cause you to judge me. If you can identify and/or laugh at/with me (I will laugh about all this eventually) then feel free to proceed.
It's Monday morning and I had high hopes for all I would get done today and throughout this week. Then I got out of bed...

I went to the kitchen to get the boys their usual morning chocolate milk (I guess instead of coffee that's their beverage of choice...and only cuz I won't LET them have coffee!) and found that, while the dishwasher had been loaded, I'd forgotten to run in. Oh, well. A slight annoyance, but nothing major. Then I jumped on the computer to check e-mails and my usual blogs. There was only junk mail, and one of the blogs I read made me very sad and depressed; most of the rest hadn't been updated because people are either on vacation or have a life. OK, I needed to shake off this trend I sensed was beginning...don't give in to the bad mood...fight it, fight it!!

I tried to get a hot bath so I could shave my legs without getting painful red bumps (sorry if that was too much info for some of you male readers)...but couldn't get the water to get hot. (For some reason my hubby decided to turn down the hot water temp; assumedly to save money on oil by not heating the water so hot. However, if I can't get hot water, then I see us also saving money on razors and shaving cream... I'm just saying...) Also, the tub won't seem to hold water for longer than 5 minutes. Another signficant annoyance.

Next on the agenda for the day...start tackling my summer 'projects' list. Next week is going to be painting the bedroom, so I thought I could start this week with cleaning out the basement laundry/storage room. It's a disaster AND my shame and incentive hit a high this weekend when a friend went in there while we were away to look for something we had borrowed and he needed back. (Thankfully - and amazingly - he actually found it...but I digress...) I went in to assess the situation...and almost cried. (I am actually not too bad at tackling big jobs, but usually I first am washed over with a sense of complete overwhelmedness (is that a word?); then I just kick into gear and get started...I'm just having a delay in the gears apparently).

My major hesitation with this job is because most of what is in there is Todd's, and I will probably inevitably put it in some place that I think to be very organized and visually acceptable (or else totally hidden) and this will drive him nuts because it will be completely ineffecient. That's usually how it goes when I move his clutter; because, you see, HIS clutter is ORGANIZED clutter - though it looks like a mess, he knows exactly where everything is an can go right to it when he needs it. He's explained this to me for years, and while I know it is true, I still can't stand the unsightliness of it never getting completely cleaned up. So my dilemma is how to clean up in a way that will look nice AND actually be helpful and efficient for him. I can play the scenario in my mind, because it's happened dozens of times... I will work hard all day, cleaning up, organizing, moving furniture to make things work and look just a little bit better, and will be so excited to show him... He will arrive home, take one look at the situation and say "Where is my...[fill in the blank]?" and "This won't work here because..." and "You just can't put that there..." It's like a little dance that we do, I guess. Often we come to some sort of compromise, where my new 'plan' does turn out to have some benefits, while his objections do have some validity, so some things stay and some return to the original state. But we have to do the dance first...

To top things off, as I was typing this Seth fell in the shower and hurt his back, and Luke is now watching the Wiggles...which I hate. And, oh yeah, last night's message at church (and what the worship leader had talked about even before the message) had to do mainly with our attitudes... Don't you hate when preachers make you feel guilty about stuff? Oh, wait...I was the minister... Darn.

OK, hopefully now I've gotten this out of my system, given you a laugh, and now I can try to re-start this day. On a more positive note, the weather is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS here today...really the perfect day to throw open the windows and do some serious work. Todd fixed the pool and got it up and should be ready to go in a few more days. We are having dear friends for dinner tonight. And the boys all seem to be in fairly good moods. (My dear daughter is off again, but I did get to enjoy her for a little bit this weekend). I sense my dark cloud clearing, so I'm gonna try really hard not to cry, and see if I can't get something productive done now.