Why I Can Never Get a Manicure

Once, long ago, my biggest chore was the once weekly deep scrubbing of our little one bedroom apartment. Three hours of intense cleaning to my Dido: No Angel cd and our little nest was sparkling clean and smelling like whichever candle I had going. 

Fast forward three years, one fixer upper house, a teenage brother and two babies. Somedays all the pecan praline candles in the world cannot mask the dust on the bookshelves, piles of laundry to be put away, and the miscellaneous piles of power tools strewn around the house. 

 

It's not only the house that takes a backseat to pristine when we have projects going on. In fact, I think the littles are the only ones in this house to get fresh non painted on clothing and a bath on a daily basis. Super mom here.

While I wouldn't trade my life for anything, I do sometimes get so caught up in a goal that I forget myself into it. I sacrifice my down time or relaxed time with my husband to push through another house project deadline, or crafting obsession. 

Most times I feel no harm in it. I am enjoying myself, my kids are not being neglected, why not? But weeks like this where one seemingly straight forward ambition (install above ground pool) becomes an avalanche of headaches, I look around my home and see the temporary cost.  Messy desk here, clean laundry piles there, a kitchen floor in need of sweeping and a kids bedroom full of toys to be put away. I think of the moments my husband and I could have been connecting over something other than what size we want to make our deck posts.

Don't you just love my nail treatment? Black rubber leak sealant. Stylish.

While my husband and I enjoy doing these projects together, and our son always gets excited watching mommy and daddy use tools (little man busts out his tool set right along side us), I know there are times we need to step back and regroup.

So tonight I am choosing laundry over deck building, mopping over pool cleaning, doing puzzles with my kids over making concrete forms in the yard, and snuggling up on the sofa with my husband over yard work by flood light.