Just doing, day 1
Posted On July 13, 2011
Morning flies by me. Jeff’s off to work. Asa is teething like mad, he’s got a molar on each side coming in, and I’ve caved and given him Ibuprofen to help him relax. Laundry goes in, breakfast is had… yeah. Oh, and I do an update here. Finally the boy sleeps, and so I get a little work done.
I check the chickens and the garden. We’ve got our first zucchini!
10 cubic yards of wood chips get delivered. We have serious mulching plans…
Quick lunch of leftover ham, beans, and rice, with a little cheese and salsa mixed in. Surprisingly good.
Vera and Asa thought so too. I fold laundry.
I stop for mid-day coffee, and think about my love/hate relationship with it. Mostly love though, I think.
I turn this…
Into this.
There’s something about a freshly made bed that just beckons you to roll around on it. My kids certainly seem to agree with me there. I decide to retire the wonderful cream colored down comforter until I actually get around to making a cover for it. I’m hoping that will come together fast- I love the thing! But, it’s crazy for me to use it without a cover- you know, with two kids and a dog and all and that whole "dry clean only" deal.
Darn teeth. Little guy wants to be happy…
We decide to play and snuggle for a while. Vera plays some too, but she mostly pesters me about a doll she wants.
I’m trying to follow this "Flylady" routine. I don’t do everything they suggest, but I’m trying to do a little every day. She says to spend a couple of minutes clearing off a "hot spot". What’s a "hot spot", you ask? Well, take a look. This is a spot that I just dump on. It only took me five minutes to turn it into something really nice to look at…
And you see, this is why I am practicing "Just doing". Because I’ve looked at the top of that dresser for like a month, when all the while it would have only taken five minutes to actually deal with.
I felt so good about that small change, that I saw my little shelf next to my side of the bed and thought I would get around to actually putting some lighting up there like I’ve wanted for ages. So fast. So satisfying.
Vera really really really wants this American Girl doll. The story is- I’ve got one that she plays with. I saved up a bunch of my own money when I was a little girl and chose very carefully what I wanted. I got one, and her bed and nightstand, and some changes of clothes. I’ve held on to her for almost 20 years, and Vera loves her. She started to ask me all about how I got her, etc., and so I told her the story. She wanted to see the "store", and so I showed her. And then came the obsessing. She really really really wants a friend for Addy (my doll). Anyway. Jeff and I told her no at first, and I felt bad for even showing her the website. Silly Mama. Then later, we talked about it, and realized that my doll, which is thoroughly played with, is in great condition. Her hair is all there, she doesn’t have a tear anywhere. She’s almost as good as new. They are really nice well-made dolls, and it wouldn’t be that terrible to get her something new that would be so high quality. So we softened up and thought, maybe it would make a nice winter solstice present. But she has been so interested in it, that we decided to have her earn the doll right now. We have a little extra money right now, and we won’t soon with our housemate moving out. So. Vera has a chart. She gets to earn her doll by getting 5 stickers a day for 10 days. I know, we’re softies… Today she got all five and was very helpful. She cleaned up all the baby toys, she helped to entertain Asa, she cleaned up her sandbox area, etc. And best of all, she’s trotting around all day saying "I’m gonna earn my spensive doll that’s a friend for Addy, and I’m gonna earn it!"
—
We headed outside.
Time to tackle the garlic.
One bed down.
The awning. We built an awning last week. And when I say "we", I mean my awesome Jeff. I guess I helped by bringing water and asking questions… and I watched the kids, and sometimes I handed him screws and held a piece of wood steady. And I made food. But yeah, he’s great. It went up in just a weekend. Here’s before:
During.
After.
You can see it’s just a grassy floor.
Yesterday Jeff leveled the ground, and so tonight we layed down cardboard and filled it with wood chips. And by "we" I mean Jeff… What? I was busy at the park with the babes having a lovely potluck with friends. I mean, I helped when I got back… Oh geez. I can just tell that Jeff is gonna show me up in this little "Just doing" series… He’s an awesome doer, that man. Anyway, I really like the chips for the patio. It’s cheap, it’s earthy, and I think it’s pretty.
I started cleaning up the garlic and setting it out to cure.
Vera and baby went to sleep, and then Jeff went out to make a little music with a friend. And me? I’ve got a date now with a snack and my book, all under my new bedside light.
How was your day? What have you been doing?
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18 Comments
I love Vera’s determination to earn herself a doll. I had two American Doll’s as a kid and I loved them to death. (not literally, they are both in really good condition, minus a minor hair cut on Samantha..) Both were presents for birthday/xmas (different years) I think. But I saved up so much money to buy clothes for them. I hope the quality hasn’t been lost in the years they have been around! Perhaps you guys could go to the library and get the American Girl books to read together too. Does she want a particular girl? I love that you have the Addy doll, I always wanted her. I suppose I wanted them all though at some point. I remember when she was the “New!” girl.
Hope the teething passes quickly! Have you tried amber necklaces?
Oh I hope their quality hasn’t changed! Either way, I’ll talk to Vera about taking care of her stuff, and I guess she’ll have to decide about how well she cares for it. I’m kind of excited to get it for her, now. She didn’t want one of the historical characters, she wanted one of the make your own ones. Which was fine with me, but it seems like a good time to read those stories! They were short enough, right? I hope they could keep her attention. It’s worth a look, anyway.
I haven’t actually tried the amber necklaces. I may have to go pick one up today… Thanks for the suggestion!
They are “chapter” books, with pictures on every page and big letters. Even if you don’t read a whole book at a time, the chapters are in logical stopping-and-remembering points (unlike the book I’m reading now which stops on a cliffhanger every. single. time…).
love it. this kind of entry is awesome:)
Oh good! I kind of wondered how this kind of a post would be received. 🙂
Sigh. Its all so peaceful and lovely.
The garlic looks splendid – and an massive Well Done to Jeff for that awesome awning! I immediatley starting thinking about all the possibilities of a space like that and if I could persuade my hubby to make one too 🙂
How old is Asa now? I ask because Maya is starting to try and chew at the back, so wondering how far till the dreaded molar teething starts…
And well done to Vera for getting her five stickers!
Thank you! If hubs won’t make one, then you should! I’m going to learn how to do all that stuff as soon as I can, because I hate just having Jeff do all of it. I mean, he likes it, but I want to be more involved. 🙂
Asa will be 1 in just ten days! Yeah, it’s high maintenance, that’s for sure. I should be doing other things right now, but we’re just nursing a lot right now, and so I must sit. It passes so fast, I must remember!
Flys by doesnt it? Maya is 13 and a half months, and it doesnt seem like two minutes has gone by since she was a bump!
For us its a space issue – I have been rearranging the garden to see if we could do an awning. The impetus is finding a place to dry store produce, have an all-weather seating area, and a place for the exercise bike to go (its so much nicer having the bike outside.)
Now given that we *will* be moving in the next year or so, do we build one now, or wait until the next house? Hmmm….
You have given me a lot to think about today!
I’ve been really trying to declutter our house too, it makes me feel better when there isn’t junk laying around.
I love the new awning! 🙂 Very nice.
I had an American Girl doll when I was a kid and I loved her! I used to love getting the catalogs to look through too.
Cool! I hope your decluttering goes well. If you have any tips or want to share your progress, I’d be interested. 🙂
I love your awning! What a great way to make a shaded eating area.
I have an American girl doll too, she’s up in my parents attic- Felicity, the red-haired one from the 1770s. LOVED her and loved all the American Girl books!
i am jealous of the american girl doll story. my son lost our DS (it was ours from before he was born) and we are making him earn the money to pay for another one (he earns about $6.00 an hour for doing any sort of helping chores or jobs, but he’s 5, so of course he never works for an entire hour, so its $0.50 here and $1.00 there)
but i really wish he enjoyed toys that use the imagination. he doesn’t like trains or cars or balls or art or anything except video games 🙁
flylady and i have a love/hate thing going on right now too. the more i think about all there is to do, the less i do. the more i say “i should at least do this ONE THING,” it just makes me feel bad about myself when i don’t do it 🙁
i was doing so very well for awhile but i am not sure what happened that made me feel totally overwhelmed again, but something did.
the more i think about all there is to do, the less i do.
My OCD and anxiety have been completely out of control lately, and it’s definitely related to a lot of housekeeping issues. The more I look at how much there is to do, the more I want to curl up in my closet. The nice part about living with roommates is socialization and everyone sharing the workload. The crappy thing about living with roommates is forced socialization when I don’t want it, and the fact that more people make more of a mess and not everyone does their share of chores… And not everyone has the same idea of what “clean” or “organized” means, or understands/respects my need for things to be a certain way. Gah. /rant
I recently read this article about the word “should” that may help. The gist is, remove the word “should” from your internal vocabulary–and how to do that. I have always been very hard on myself, I judge myself even more harshly than I do others, and I hold myself to a standard that is probably not even achievable even if I didn’t have medical issues that prevent me from accomplishing all I think I “should.” I have been working lately at being more gentle with myself, and it’s something with which I’ve struggled. This article was able to put into words and express the frustration with that struggle, and better yet, to give some insight at getting past the mental block that is erected by trying remove a behavior without replacing it with something else. If at worst I can replace the negative-talk with something more neutral and fact-based, then at the very least I can make future decisions based on facts. It seems like such a little step, but it has big implications.
Anyway, I hope that article helps a little bit. I’ve gotten a lot more done this week than usual, in part because of suggestions in this article, so I’m kind of eager to share with anyone who might benefit 🙂
first and foremost, willow/tara icon LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
second, thanks! i have read that blog once before, actually, it was the “a disease called perfection” post that he links to several times in the should post. it was really good, and so was this.
You did a lot! And you took and posted photographs of all of it, too–which is just that little bit of extra work on top of it all.
I especially like your cleared-off dresser top and the lamp on your shelf. That’s the sort of stuff that always takes me ages to get around to, and then I end up kicking myself because it’s so quick and easy to make a huge improvement. So basically what I’m saying is that I’m right there with you–I could use a “more doing, less thinking” project myself.
Beautiful post, Grace! I’ve been thinking about Asa’s birth as he gets ready to turn one (and I think I will forever be reminded of his birth with each Michigan Beer Fest!)!
The awning looks great. We will be using the same material for the treehouse roof. Nice stuff, and I like that it allows some light through.
Garlic- looks gorgeous! Just harvested ours a couple days ago too. I’m trying something new and want to dehydrate thinly sliced pieces for storage. I think I will do this on the more puny bulbs. The other bulbs I’ll just store in the root cellar.
American Girls. Sigh. Have you ever heard me bitch about my conspiracy theory that AG knows when every American woman births a girl child?! Seriously, we started receiving catalogs as soon as Sarah was born! (Hospital birth- they sell your addy to Nestle, Babies R Us and AG! Ha!). At any rate, Sarah received a few fake AG dolls when she was younger ($20 @ Target). Tho when she turned 10 she saved half the $ for a real AG doll and we matched her. They’ve all held up well. Sarah sews a lot of clothing for her girls. 🙂 It’s fun and I’m glad she has them.
Rambling here. At any rate, I hope to see you soon and often wonder about swinging by some evening during an after-dinner walk to see your lovely garden and even lovelier family. xoxoxo!
So much beautiful garlic!!
I loved this. And I love the just doing idea. It’s something I desperately need to work on in my own life. Jake’s a wonderful doer (these men! they are great!) and watching him challenges me to quit with the Oh I Have So Many Plans and just do. But you, lady – parks and picnics and food and baby-play are some of the best kind of doing there is. I think you and Jeff are tied.
brahahahaha eat lots of garlic, burp!