Bliss

The past few days I have been in total BLISS! (Maybe a little too much since I have barely gotten ready for girls camp that is in 2 days:-) Yikes!

I have had such a wonderful time relaxing and playing with my children while my Entry has transformed from this...

To This...

I just have to say that Ken and I are major DIY's! Honestly, this is the 3rd time we have ever paid anyone to do any type of work for our home. The first was to install our fence. The second was to build a limestone retaining wall, after we had talked a builder in our neighborhood into letting us have all the spare pieces of rock from a bunch of the houses he was building. Ken and the boys would go out and collect the limestone here and there for a few weeks. Seriously, we designed and installed our own sprinkler system's at both of our houses. Paying for a service we can do ourselves (we are both the type who think we can read about it and learn how to do it ourself) is a huge, HUGE deal.

Plus, I truly love to paint. It makes me so happy. But, I have to say paying someone else to paint makes me even happier. I feel like I should just pinch myself, I can't believe I said that.

We had already painted the entry ceiling and the trim in March. So I was going a little nuts and feeling chaotic with it looking so terrible and halfway done.

But we really have not had a spare iota of time the past 3 months and we can't see us having any in the next 3 either. At least not any that doesn't need to be spent focusing on a child, or even just enjoying our family.

Even though I am not a fan of the boring beige. I am a huge fan of my entry now. It is 1000% more peaceful and I am starting to enjoy my home again. Everything feels so clean too, which is a major bonus!

My thinking has been that since I am paying someone to do a major chore for me, then I better take full advantage of it. Basically I made sure I was only doing things I totally wanted to be doing like:

I volunteered for a day at Cub Scout Day Camp. Nathan absolutely loves it! Especially the shooting range.




He also made a solar oven, and the teeniest, tiniest smores you have ever seen.

They had an obstacle course too. This is our den.

They also did a Weather Station, Archery, and Kickball. He loves Cub Day Camp. They go all day from 9-4 pm. I loved being there too except for the heat. It looks like I went on the hottest day of the week:-(

The nexy day, I organized my dresser drawers which have been bugging me forever. I also finally got the Sharpie off of my furniture without damaging the stain.

Turns out straight vinegar took it off pretty easily.

I was able to take plenty of naps with this beauty. Every single day I would cuddle up with her and Rose in my bed. That is pure bliss right there!

I've had plenty of time to play games with Darin during lunch time. This one is of Scrabble (Darin's current fav) but we have also played Ticket to Ride (my fav).

Darin beat me at the very, very end by spelling QUITE on a triple word square. It was so totally not fair, I thought I had him the whole game:-)

Really, I just loved not feeling like I have such a huge project hanging over my head. One afternoon as I was calmly cleaning my room the girls were sitting on my bed trying to read books and my boys crashed in the chair and were happily playing their games. It's amazing how when I am not stressed my children will just congregate around me. I love that feeling! I also have to say that I really regret that we have not been feeling that way as much as we used to. It really is time for us to slow down.

Of course at nights we have been partying all together too. Ken is out of town on a business trip. Which is really so sad. I wish he could see me all relaxed instead of being such a stressed out mad woman. That- Plus his trip had to be extended so he spent his birthday all by himself:-(








For this project, in particular, it just got to the point where it felt like if we worked on paining the entryway we were being neglectful to our children. That made us sick to our stomach since we could so easily afford to pay someone to do it. I'm not saying we will do this in the future, but with our children's circumstances at the moment it was absolutely the right decision. I still very much feel like helping and learning how to do DIY projects is very important and an integral part of who we want them to be. But I also hope we teach them to be flexible and to weigh the emotional needs of their family too.