Skip to main content

little by little

I like that song Dave plays on Wed nights:

Little by little, inch by inch,
by the yard it's hard, by the inch, what a cinch!
Never stare up the stairs, just climb up the steps,
little by little, inch by inch.

That somewhat describes me these days: tiny, minute movements that don't seem to accomplish a whole lot. I attempt not to focus on the big picture but to look at the tiny things, but I've inherited my mother's gene of randomness. For example, I start cleaning Tonya's room. There's a small batch of clothes that need to be bagged to give someone. So I go to get a bag from the kitchen. While I'm in the kitchen I see a half-made grocery list, so I get side-tracked by the grocery list. In the process of finishing my grocery list I head to the bathroom for a "quick" inventory, and wind up cleaning there instead. One of the cleaning supplies reminds me of something that belongs in Tonya's bathroom, so I head back in that direction. I'm close to where I started, but not quite. Our day is approaching near over, and I have 1/2 of Tonya's bedroom ready, and 1/2 of her bathroom cleaned, but nothing is finished.

Perhaps that is why I like Laura Numerhoff's books so much. (If you give a mouse a cookie; If you give a pig a pancake; If you give a moose a muffin) I've met many children's authors who absolutely hate her books, but I can so relate to them. I like things that come full circle. (and having a cute pig or mouse as your main character enhances the story line, as well). A friend of mine took her story line, and changed the first sentence to "If a Christian prays for ________, then ____________." Each person in the room had to complete a line. It really made us stop and think about what can happen when we sincerely pray.

So now you know how random I am: we start off with music, switch to my cleaning projects, hop to children's books, move toward devotions, and now I've got to abruptly end.

Comments

Lydia said…
We LOVE those books in our house! ...and just so you know, that's the type of housekeeper I am. I go to put a load of laundry in and while walking through the kitchen I notice that it needs to be swept. When I go to get the broom, I notice something else that needs to be done and so on until I finally notice later in the day that the basket of dirty clothes is still on the kitchen table where I left it!

Popular posts from this blog

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas. This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming. Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Lut