cleaning and crafting and rambling, oh my!

I wrote the following post last Friday.  FOUR DAYS AGO.  Which I think just provides additional evidence for the point I'm trying to make below.  That is, if I can keep your attention long enough to read the short novel I wrote.  If you want to just look at the pics, I'll summarize for you:  

I can't do it all.

And also, Mia has entered a new phase of "busy-ness" that prevents me from completing anything.  At this exact moment, she is asleep, which is, I believe, the best place for her to be right now.


At 9:00 this morning, I decided I needed to clean my whole house right then. This is how I usually do things. I procrastinate, and put off, and make excuses for things I don't want to do (like clean), until I can't take it any longer. Then I feel like I must do ALL THE THINGS. And I sincerely want to do all the things like pick up the toys and mop the floor and clean the toilets. Except doing ALL THE THINGS can take a while and I never have a "while" to do anything because my kids need me and like to be underfoot. So, I did the best I could.

I gave Laci a baby wipe and she willingly wiped windowsills and furniture for half an hour. Mia was more like the Tasmanian devil making messes in the specific areas I had already picked up. Two hours later, I was a sweaty mess from vacuuming but the house looked quite a bit better and I think I got most of the Maverick hair cleaned up. Tell me, am I the only one who gets totally overheated while vacuuming? Please tell me I'm not.

After our cleaning frenzy, we ate some snacks and Mia went down for a nap. I set Laci up with my iPhone and PBS and took a quick (and much needed shower). I was hoping for a few minutes of relaxation while Mia napped, but the mail lady honked her horn in my driveway to tell me she left something by the front door, which made the dogs bark like crazy, which woke Mia up, who presumed that since she had napped for thirty minutes, she was well rested. Wasn't that nice of the mail lady to blare her horn obnoxiously twenty feet from my front door? I have wanted to thank her for her kindness in the past, as this is certainly not the first time she has done this, but I'm afraid I won't ever see any mail again if I share my true feelings with her.

And all this brings me to now, where my non-sleeping children and I are sitting on the back porch in the sun on what is turning out to be a beautiful day. Breeze, warm sun, birds chirping. It is as wonderful as it sounds. Laci is sitting with Spider kitty, Mia is eating chalk (not as terrible as it may sound), and my house isn't getting wrecked. Yet.

I was talking with my dear Aunty Jenny recently about how sometimes this blog might make it seem like I have it all together because I talk about the crafty things I've made or a really good recipe I've tried. And I don't share a ton of pictures of my messy house. Let me just come out and say it: I do not have it all together. I don't even think I have it partly together. And some days, I just don't even try. I figure bedtime will come soon enough and I'll have another shot at it tomorrow.

It is true, I have been on a crafting binge lately, which partially explains my erratic blogging. Please be assured that I cannot, and do not, accomplish any of these things without a lot of help from my mom and Ryan who play child wrangler while I make messes with glue and yarn. And when I'm done with any given project, my house is always in shambles. Because if I'm working on a craft project, it means I'm not attending to any of the other things in my house. My children raid processed, sugar filled snacks from the cupboard, smash them into the carpet, bring out every single toy they own, and generally make as many messes as humanly possible. This is also why I suddenly go on cleaning rampages on random Friday mornings. It sometimes takes an entire day to recover from a project.

Even blogging has been challenging lately. I can't sit at my computer to upload pictures without Mia sitting on my lap, banging the keyboard and commandeering the mouse. If I do get a rare moment to myself, I stare at the computer for a few minutes, my mind as blank as the screen in front of me, and I either give up trying to write something, or worse, get sucked into the world's two largest consumers of time: Facebook and Pinterest. I need to quit them both. For real. And even now, I'm typing on my phone at this exact moment. It is not the most efficient way to type, although I'm getting pretty good at it. I've already taken several breaks to assist Laci with cat wrangling, to remove chalk from Mia's mouth, and to fill cups with Cheerios so my kids can feed the animals. Apparently, dogs and cats like whole grain, too. Should you be reading this post at this moment, know that it took several days to get this out. Time spent writing, organizing pictures, uploading, and finally publishing. This may also explain why I end up with spelling and grammar problems, because even though I really hate misspelling and incorrect grammar, and I know enough to identify both, I just don't have time to proofread thoroughly.

I say all this not to complain (I need to quit that, too). I say this because I want it to be clear that I do not, and cannot, do all the things, even though I really like to believe that I can. Sometimes, I really believe that I can cook from scratch, craft my home into something from a magazine, while my children play quietly in their perfectly clean, adorable clothes. In reality, it is always a choice between a clean home and a happy heart. My kids are often in their pajamas all day and sometimes we eat hot pockets for dinner. It all evens out, and I suppose balance in all things is what keeps us content.

So, now that I've written the longest disclaimer in history, I'm going to go ahead and share some pictures of what I've been up to the last few weeks.

A wreath for my front door, although it isn't really the best place for it. Also, this was a really easy project even if it doesn't look like it. For a tutorial on how to make your own, start here and then go here.

I finished Mia's Halloween costume. She refuses to wear the hat. Laci loves it. So, we might end up with one headless cow, and a butterfly with spotted ears.  For the record, I did not make the cow spotted baby legs.

I made a bunting for Kristina's baby shower, and for the baby's room. I don't know if she's ready to reveal the name yet, so I'll just give a sneak peek at the first letter. Any guesses?

And now it appears I have run out of both words and pictures, which is appropriate since I'm also out of time.