Before I had even joined the Air Force, I had memorized its core values: Integrity first, Service before self, Excellence in all we do. As a candidate in Officer Training School, I saw these values played out many times in different scenarios meant to teach us what these values look like in practice. What I learned was not new to me; I was raised to believe I should do what’s right, even when no one is looking, and always work hard, yet I appreciated having these succinct phrases to name what I believed.
After this past week, I’m starting to think that more organizations should adopt them, too.
This year has been the year for public apologies. From politicians expressing remorse for their inappropriate relationships to sports figures apologizing for their reckless behavior on and off the field to a CEO lamenting the worst oil spill ever decimating the Gulf Coast, I’ve watched countless individuals offer their confessions over the air waves. Yet I have to wonder, for whose benefit are these apologies?
In this day and age of attorney-crafted public statements, we all realize that for many of these people, they are simply doing what a public figure is supposed to do after messing up. As far as true acts of contrition, there are none. Can one truly have remorse for an action if one’s public statement is crafted in such a way as to admit no guilt?
Instead of spending energy crafting the perfect apology, I have a better idea: Do what’s right the first time. Don’t cheat on your wife, don’t berate a line judge with profanities, and don’t cut corners in your business. Integrity first. Service before Self. Excellence in all we do.
I believe in forgiveness as I have been forgiven much by my God, yet I also believe that actions have consequences. True repentance brings with it the acceptance of these consequences. True repentance isn’t something that happens merely because one gets caught, and true repentance isn’t found in the pen of the lawyer.
As I watch the live feeds of oil gushing into the once clear Gulf waters, volunteers caring for pelicans covered in the thick sludge, I’m not concerned with anyone’s public statement. The fact is this tragedy never should have happened.
Living life by a strict code of conduct isn’t always easy. Controlling one’s emotions isn’t always easy. Staying faithful isn’t always easy. But I’d imagine, neither is the clean-up when one doesn’t.
The other night when I was getting ready for bed, I began to think how I loved writing and questioned why I hadn’t been writing all along. This past year of my life has felt that much more full since recording all of my ideas; I needed this outlet. However, this love of writing is not a new discovery–I just allowed it to get a little dusty, tucked away in the corner of a shelf.
When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to be an author when I grew up. I loved reading and creating my own stories, and I knew an author was what I was meant to be.
A few years later I learned a fancier term: journalist. Then I told everyone that I was going to be a journalist. I constantly had to explain myself when people would respond to my desire by whipping out a pretend microphone and the stock sentence, “This is Jennifer Vignola, reporting live from the scene,” –that that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to write.
So with the passion for writing that I developed as a child, I entered college without a clue as to my major and eventually became an English teacher. Instead of writing myself, I attempted to teach those who hated the written word to write and then wondered why I didn’t look forward to my job in the morning.
Truth be told, I went years without writing, except for the required essays that I wrote as a student. Somewhere along the way in high school, feeling the pressure of AP classes and competitive gymnastics, I pushed aside my love.
My incessant need to plan every moment of my life got in the way, too. I always knew I wanted to be a mother and that I wanted to stay home when I had children, so I spent hours in the career counselor’s office trying to figure out what career would fit the best with motherhood.
I had so many interests, and there were a plethora of careers that sounded appealing: journalist, lawyer, psychologist, actress–too many to decide. So when I went to college and agonized over my decision that first year, I decided to pick a career that used my passion for literature, forgetting about my passion for writing because I had stopped doing it.
I wanted a career that made a difference in the world, so teaching seemed the best choice. If I decided to continue to work after my children (who didn’t yet exist) were grown, my teaching schedule would coincide easier with their own schedules than another career. The only problem with this plan was that teaching wasn’t my passion--teaching others about one’s passion isn’t the same as doing one’s passion. I had chosen my career based on external factors that hadn’t yet come into play rather than my heart’s desire.
Luckily, I discovered I was in the wrong place before investing too much time in that career. I left teaching and joined the Air Force. For the first time, I looked forward to going to work in the morning. I loved the discipline, the ritual, and the challenge of leading others. But shortly after joining, my husband and I found out we were going to have a baby a little sooner than we had planned, and I knew I was no longer in the right career.
So after three years and three children, my husband bought me a laptop. He knew I had a passion sitting tucked away on a shelf that needed to come down and get a good dusting. And for the last year, I have written, and writing has changed me.
My children are my number one priority right now, but I can still challenge my mind and do what I love while giving them my full attention. Writing is not a career, yet, but I now have a purpose in line with my passion.
I’m not sure why it took 11 years after I graduated from college to figure out what I knew when I was eight. Maybe God had a particular student I was supposed to reach or an airman I needed to lead. Or perhaps God was shaking His head as I meandered along different paths while He gently nudged me back on the one He knew was best.
I’ll never know for sure, but I know now that, for the first time, this course feels right.
What did you want to do when you grew up? Are you doing it now? Share in the comments!
I don’t watch a lot of baseball on TV. I love the sport, but I don’t want to devote three hours to anything, not with the mound of chores I always have to do. If I do watch baseball, I’ll watch an Atlanta Braves game, so the fact that I caught the ninth inning of the Detroit Tigers versus the Cleveland Indians is completely by chance. And I’m glad for my husband’s unusual change of the channel.
It was the ninth inning when we tuned in, and Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game. He had retired 24 batters in a row, no walks, or errors committed. We watched as the center-fielder made an amazing running catch to keep Galarraga’s once-in-a-lifetime dream alive. Out one. The next batter up swings and is thrown out at first. Out two. It was now time for Galarraga to make history–only 20 other men have ever thrown a perfect game in the Major Leagues.
It was a hard hit, and the first baseman ran to retrieve the ball. Galarraga ran to cover first base, arriving in time to make the catch. He stuck out his glove, extended his foot out to touch the bag, and he and his teammate turned excitedly toward the first base umpire to see the call: SAFE! The umpire extended both arms out to the side making the signal that forever changed the way this game would be remembered in history.
The replay was clear; the runner, in fact, was not safe. He was clearly out. It really wasn’t even a close call, but baseball doesn’t use instant replay, so it was the final call.
As I watched this play unfold, I literally felt my stomach turn queasy. I may not have any experience as a baseball player, but I know how rare a perfect game is. A no-hitter is an amazing accomplishment for a pitcher, but a perfect game–that’s more like a dream.
But what amazed me most wasn’t the bad call and horrible ending to this game. No, it was the events that happened since that call was made.
Armando Galarraga, after getting this call that blew his chance in history, didn’t yell. He didn’t throw his glove. He simply smiled at the ump. Yes, it was a smile that said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” but it was a smile nonetheless. He then walked backed to the pitcher’s mound and faced his 28th batter. He got the out and won the game for the Tigers.
As he walked off the mound to the dugout, he was greeted by the catcher who hugged him. Galarraga was clearly disappointed. The rest of his teammates came to congratulate him and offer sympathy at the same time–Galarraga earned a perfect game, but it was taken from him. And then his coach and teammates went for the umpire.
I can’t imagine what it felt like to be Jim Joyce, that infamous umpire, booed by the crowd, surrounded by hostile teammates defending their pitcher, but it was clear he wanted to get out there. But, apparently, he didn’t get out of there and go home. After seeing the replay for himself, he sought out Galarraga and apologized. In the interview I saw last night on the MLB Network, Galarraga said the umpire came to him and said he was sorry with tears in his eyes, still in his sweaty clothes. Joyce knew he made a bad call that ended Galarraga’s perfect game.
And Galarraga hugged him. He hugged him. He said in his interview that Joyce was only human; mistakes happen. In fact, I heard that phrase many times that night. The coach, catcher, and center-fielder all said the same thing: Joyce was a good umpire. He made a bad call, but he was human. That’s baseball.
Galarraga smiled and joked with the reporters. Yes, he was disappointed, but he would show his son someday that he pitched a perfect game. It might not be in the record books, but he knew he did it.
After the game was over, the interviews finished, and the clock screaming that I really needed to get off the couch and clean up the kitchen, I continued to sit. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had witnessed and heard. I wanted to process what I had just learned.
Finish What You Start
Galarraga could have stormed off the field after the bad call, and while it would’ve been unprofessional, no one would’ve blamed him. He could’ve lost his composure and given up a hit with that 28th batter. Instead, he made the out and secured the win for his team.
Live in Such a Way that Others Will Fight for You
After viewing that final inning and the events afterwards, it was clear to me that those teammates surrounding Joyce weren’t just protesting a bad call. They were fighting for a good man, a man who deserved a perfect game.
Have the Guts to Admit When You’re Wrong
If I were Joyce, I would’ve run away and hid. Instead, he confronted this pitcher face-to-face, not in an e-mail or over the phone, but to his face, and in the same night he made the mistake.
Freely Forgive, and Keep Moving
Galarraga and his teammates all agreed; Joyce was a good umpire who made a bad call. They felt sorry for him–Galarraga suggested that Joyce might feel worse about the ending of the game than he did. After the fury of emotions immediately following the game died down, these players could acknowledge that the ump simply made a mistake, and they moved on.
Always Choose the Higher Road
Even after a night’s sleep, I’m still in awe of Armando Galarraga. What a class act. It’s not too often in this sports world that we get to witness men and women with true character, men and women who don’t barrage an official with profanity and insults after a call doesn’t go their way, men and women who keep their composure during and after the game. But Galarraga did, and he earned my respect.
When I want to teach my children about character, I hope to share this story with them someday. Life isn’t fair, and sometimes we don’t get what we deserve when we’ve done well, but there is a respectable way to act. And if we’ve lived a respectable life, we won’t have to fight when we’ve been slighted–others will fight for us. And the one lesson that hit me the hardest is that we shouldn’t care about getting recognition from others–Galarraga said he knew he threw a perfect game whether or not history acknowledged him–all that should matter is what we know to be true about ourselves. This lesson is one I have yet to master.
Before last night, I had no idea who Armando Galarraga was, and I wouldn’t have cared. Now, I am so glad that Matt changed the channel, because what Galarraga did changed me.
I had no intention of doing any more than dangling her little feet in the water. I thought the newness of cool waves lapping at her feet, sand squishing between her chubby toes would suffice. It was early evening, so I hadn’t even changed the baby into her swimsuit; the sun would go down, and no one would want to swim. Instead, I found myself struggling to pick up a baby who had doubled over my arm reaching towards the water. When I tried to straighten her and carry her, she allowed her body to transition from completely limp to completely tense–whichever would successfully allow her to slide beneath my grasp.
I marveled that evening as she moved through the water, determined to keep traveling ahead. She was undeterred by the small waves that would meet her and pressed on. Her orange tank-top dragging across her body with the weight of water, she continued to crawl with a small grin on her face. She purposely dipped her head into the ocean to feel the cool on her cheek, only stopping momentarily, and then she continued.
Watching her move with such grace, I thought to myself how free she looked.
Fearless.
I envied her. To be able to look at something so vast, so huge, yet jump in without hesitation is not an action to which I can relate.
I can relate more to my son who, upon seeing the ocean for the first time since he was a baby exclaimed, “It’s too scary! It’s too scary!” I was surprised by his reaction. He went on to say that the ocean was so big, but almost immediately, he, too, braved the scary sea.
My second-born wanted to be brave; she wanted to run towards the waves, but her fears kept her dancing along the shore.
Until the next day when she gripped the back of her daddy’s neck, wrapped her legs around his waist, and allowed him to carry her through the waves. I watched as cries left her open mouth, but then gradually the black hole I could see from afar began to close. She trusted her daddy.
And why should any of my children have been afraid? If they turned their heads away from the sea in front of them, they would’ve noticed a creased brow over the eyes of one watching with concern, not turning her eyes from the fearless babe unaware of how easily a wave could knock her over. They would’ve known as soon as they took their first step into the deeper water, their mommy would’ve been right behind them.
Or behind the lens, capturing their every move, their brave moments in the waves, stood their Daddy. With each click of the camera, a smile spread across his lips from the joy of watching his kids play. He stood proud, cheering on his children with each memory he preserved.
And when I turn my eyes from the vast sea in front of me, I am reminded that I no longer need to fear. I look into the eyes of my Father and know He is guiding my every step as I pick up my foot that has sunk into the sand and push through the water lapping at my ankles. I walk and feel the cool on my calves and then the back of my knees. As the first waves splash around my thighs and more are forming in the distance, I turn back with worry written on my face. But the eyes of my Father speak, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).
It is then that I begin to play in the water and splash until I taste salt on my lips. It is then that I know that I, too, can be fearless.
I quit teaching a few years ago. I could tell you all the reasons that I quit, but really, there was just one–teaching wasn’t my passion. If it were, I could’ve dealt with all the problems that caused my frustration. With that being said, one of the biggest frustrations for me during my time as a teacher was the lack of responsibility that the students (and parents, too) wanted to take for their own success or failure.
I didn’t enjoy carrying all the responsibility for a student’s failure, especially if that student missed eleven days in my class and failed to turn in every major writing assignment. However, when I thought about this issue further, I realized that responsibility wasn’t the whole issue.
If my students were in a class that they enjoyed, they were happy to take responsibility for their work. Likewise, when they did well, they wouldn’t hesitate to take credit for their success. The issue wasn’t responsibility so much as it was this underlying idea that school shouldn’t be hard; if a class were difficult, then the teacher was doing something wrong. Nothing in life worth doing should seem hard.
I remember feeling shocked after calling a parent whose daughter’s ‘A’ average was suddenly plummeting. He informed me that she was very stressed from soccer. And that was it. He didn’t say that she needed to turn in her English assignments, that she needed to find a way to balance both. He simply explained away why she wasn’t turning in her work without any reassurance that she would find a way to do better in my class. Balancing her schedule demanded too much effort, was too difficult; therefore, not turning in assignments would make juggling priorities easier.
This tendency of my students to avoid the difficult shouldn’t have surprised me; our society perpetuates this idea that people shouldn’t struggle. From government programs to weight loss gimmicks–even to different childbirth options–our society embraces fast and easy. I’m not suggesting that any of the above are bad, but finding something is hard isn’t necessarily bad, either.
In fact, many times pain, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, has a specific purpose. If I grab a pot whose handle is hot, I will feel pain and let go before I severely burn my hand. I know from my own life how Matt and I struggled when we couldn’t sell our home in Oklahoma. As a result of those difficult four years, we arrived at an understanding about our finances that I’m not sure we would have had we not lived on so little for so long. Would I ever want to go through that experience again? No, yet as a result of that experience, we learned lessons that we never would have learned had we not faced hard times.
As I was thinking through all the ways my students and society avoided anything hard, I had to do a little self-examination. For all my preaching that difficult times are what really refine us, I realized that I was no better than anyone else. While I might know, even experience, the good that comes out of the hard, I don’t want to deal with it. I want my marriage to be perfect now, but I don’t want to bite my tongue before letting an unnecessary criticism leave my lips. I want my children to respect me, but sometimes I want to look away when they do something wrong, leaving the discipline for another day when I have more energy. I can’t avoid difficult times, knowing they will find me, but I sure do try.
One night, I was praying over my baby as I rocked with her in her room. For some reason, I remembered a poster that used to hang on the wall where I did gymnastics. Nadia Comaneci was on the balance beam, holding her body in a pike position with all her support on her hands. On the poster the words read, “Don’t pray for an easy life. Pray to be a strong person.” I began praying those words for my daughter.
I need to repeat those words to myself every day, remembering that my reaction to the hard is what makes me better. And when my children see a mother who didn’t quit, who was tough and persevered when life was difficult, they will be better, too.
“We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3-5).
As I was signing my sister’s birthday card today, I couldn’t help but notice how sloppy my handwriting looked. “What happened?” I thought. My papers in school used to cover the classroom as examples of exemplary writing. Now, I wasn’t impressed.
I have never been one to get excited about computers. Technology scares me–the moment I try to do something by using the device that is supposed to make my life easier, I end up taking four days longer than I should’ve. And crying is normally involved. Therefore, I have no problem blaming my reliance on computers for the deterioration of my handwriting.
On any given day, I can count on the fact that I will type away on the computer, but I don’t always write. What saddens me most about this fact is that I feel like I am slowly losing a part of myself as the control of my handwriting slips away. Actually writing with a pen to the paper doesn’t seem as natural as it once did. The thought of writing this blog post instead of typing it causes my hand to hurt, yet, until my sophomore year in college when this method was no longer practical, I used to write all of my term papers, edit them, and then type as a final step–my papers were better that way. There was some sort of connection from my brain through the pen to the paper; that thinking connection helped me write. And now I’m losing that part of me from lack of use.
While I’m not normally a pack-rat, I have trouble throwing away cards from relatives. When I stare at their cards, I am looking at a part of them. Each person’s unique handwriting identifies him or her right away, and I instantly feel a warmth knowing I’m reading a card from my Nana who had a stroke, each round letter betraying this dignified woman, shouting that her hand was shaking the whole time she wrote. Yet she filled the bottom half of the card for me, anyway.
Or my mother. Neat and tidy, and full of thought, every letter exudes the care she takes in everything she does. Her family is never far from her thoughts, and the pen never far from the paper. Equally distinct is my father’s handwriting, a little messy, but definitely not careless. While most words will end in a joke, my father is not void of true emotion that he is willing to share, his words on the page not small and insecure but plain to see (albeit not always clear to see).
And then there are the small letters that cause my heart to flutter every time I rediscover them. Quiet and controlled, they represent the solid man that has blessed my life for almost ten years. The handwriting doesn’t shout at me, yet I’d recognize those words from a mile away.
Whether the card be from the slightly scattered-brained aunt with good intentions or my mother-in-law with a joyful heart, I can identify the author right away by the pattern of ink on the paper. I find comfort knowing that only a pen separated them from me, that I always have a part of them that is tangible, in front of me.
Many times I think of my children looking back on the writings from my blog. I hope they’ll see my heart and know that my life was for them and any frustrations were that I couldn’t be more. I want them to laugh and cry and experience a little of me through my writing, letting them in on any part of me they didn’t already know. Yet sometimes I feel like they won’t see all of me.
Looking at a sterile piece of typed paper, they won’t see the emotion in my letters or know that my hand directly crafted the words in front of them. They won’t see all of me, the scribbles and corrections, the quick-edits and new ideas that would be visible in a handwritten piece.
And so, as I type, I yearn a little to feel the pen in my hand, to get reacquainted. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not ready to lose that part of me, yet.
10 reasons why we should not have gotten new carpet!
Of course, Matt and I knew what we were getting into, and in fact, always said that we would NOT get new carpet until all of our children were housebroken. However, when we decided to put our house on the market during this terrible housing crisis, we knew our only chance to sell without giving our house away would require our house to look as close to perfect as possible.
And our old carpet was anything but close to perfect. We can’t take sole responsibility for it’s condition–the carpet was original to the home, and the home is 13 years old. I will say that we did more than our fair share to speed up it’s deterioration in the last three-and-a-half years that we have lived here!
When I was scrubbing out the pink stain from the silver polish that my two-year-old so lovingly spread onto the carpet (this polish only appeared after getting the new carpet, of course), I began to cry. That evening, I had a nightmare that I was having a party with a group of women that I didn’t know, and someone spilled salsa on the new carpet. One of the ladies curtly spoke, “We couldn’t get the stain out.” A huge pinkish red circle tarnished the beautiful carpet. A few nights later, I had another bad dream, and one more involving marker all over the walls and furniture followed.
So a couple days ago, when I was cleaning spit-up out of the carpet, I thought to myself, “I wish I had my nasty carpet back. This stress is not worth it! This house better sell fast!”
A few minutes later, there was no evidence of the spit-up, just as the previous poop, pee, and silver polish stains vanished before it, and I scolded myself. How could I even think that I wanted my old carpet back? It was disgusting, and I had always looked forward to the day when my children would choose the commode over the carpet to relieve themselves so that we could live in a house that didn’t look yucky.
I realized that I did a lot of looking forward and not enough looking around.
When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get out of college and get a job. Then I couldn’t wait to get married. Once married, I would wonder how life would change with children. When I had my two-year-old, I looked forward to retirement, and then when he hit three, I changed my mind and looked forward to him starting school so I could have a little break during the day. Then his sister turned two, and his other sister was born, and I looked forward to Matt’s retirement again. How fun to enjoy marriage without kids and travel the world!
Right now I look forward to moving to Alpharetta and lessening Matt’s commute so that we can enjoy more time as a family. A husband home earlier in the evenings to help with the children means a wife with fewer gray hairs! And, of course, to make all of this happen, I have to keep the carpet spotless!
Except I don’t know that we’re moving to Alpharetta. God never promised me that everything I plan will happen as I hope. In fact, He hasn’t promised me tomorrow: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14).
If it is God’s will, we will move to Alpharetta, but if it’s not, we better figure out fast how to make more family time with the time we have. I better smother my two-year-old every day with hugs and kisses because when she’s 22, I might not see very much of her when she starts her first career. I better find a way to treasure the stains on the carpet because they are a reminder that I’m blessed with healthy, rambunctious little children.
I better enjoy my new carpet. If we don’t move, I know very well that the carpet won’t look this pretty in a year, and it will be a looooong time before we buy any more. And I better not lose any more sleep over it; there are far more important things in life than stainless floor coverings.
My struggle to get the house ready to put on the market illuminated a fact already well-known to me: I’m not a good homemaker. I want to be and know what I would need to do in order to win the approval of Martha Stewart, but it’s not going to happen. As much as I’d love to make scrubbing the baseboards in my home a regular chore, doing the dishes, throwing in a load of laundry, and taking a shower at night (if I don’t take it at night, there is no guarantee I’ll get one at all) is normally all I can accomplish before I go to bed.
My failings as a domestic goddess were already known to me before this process began. The depth of my failing, however, was quite the surprise. The more I cleaned, the more I discovered needed to be cleaned, and the absolute grotesque nature of some of these areas needing a good cleaning completely overwhelmed me.
I started to doubt my ability as a mother. What was I doing when my children splattered some kind of sauce all over the blinds? And more importantly, why had I never noticed this sauce that was splattered all over the blinds?! I did notice that it was not fun to try to remove….
Into the playroom for even more surprises! Crayon all over one wall, crayon on another, did my children ever use paper? And, again, how did I not notice this crayon?! Our walls are a dark color (thank goodness) camouflaging some of my kids’ most brilliant work, so I probably didn’t pause long enough to see what was really on the surface….
Maybe the gazillion toys before they were neatly organized in matching bins distracted me from the horrific gunk that I found on the blinds in this room, as well. What is it with my kids and the blinds? And what was that gunk?! Seriously, I do not know. It was gross and gooey, and I have no idea what it was. Although this post might lead you to believe otherwise, I am not a total slob. My kids are supposed to eat at the kitchen table, and I do not allow food fights, so how this sticky resin-looking substance ended up on my blinds, I do not know. All I know is that I had planned to smooth away some dust with a rag and instead had to scrub with all my might.
Even the den, an area of the house that saw regular attention, was a disappointment. Marks on the wall that I hadn’t noticed, dusty blinds (no gunk, amazingly), scuffed baseboards–no room passed the inspection.
When it was all over, it hit me: I will never be finished. The baseboards I cleaned a week ago looked dingy again. My heart sank a little.
And then another realization hit me: If I clean it now before the other areas of the house start to go, I won’t have to do them all at once again. And so I have tried to stay up on these tasks that I neglected previously.
I won’t say it’s easy–I still have three kids, and they still consume almost all of my waking moments–but starting fresh and maintaining rather than doing a major cleaning overhaul is a lot easier.
One final thought, more important than all those related to my home, hit me: “Your house looks great, but what about inside you? How are you doing?” For the next few days, I began to ponder this thought, and I realized I wasn’t the best housekeeper inside, either. I had neglected some areas of my spiritual life, and the fine layer of dust had become a little thicker, requiring more attention to wipe clean. Then there was one area of which I was so proud; I knew I had done so well in the past, and I rested on my laurels over time. It wasn’t until I gave myself a good look that I discovered the nasty gunk marring this area of my life, as well.
Perhaps all the distractions in my day had kept me from noticing what I was really like, much like the distractions in the playroom kept me from noticing the writing on the wall. Maybe I was so focused on eventually getting to the dusting that never got done in my struggling areas, that I didn’t keep up the one area that started out looking pretty good. It, too, began to look dingy from neglect.
So, in the spirit of spring cleaning, I gave myself a good inspection, going from room to room, dusting where I needed to dust, removing cobwebs, and hosing down with soap and water, when needed. And if I learned my lesson well, I will spend more time maintaining day-by-day, which is much easier in the long-run than cleaning gooey crap off the blinds.
I purposely haven’t written a blog in quite a while. For the last few weeks, we have been furiously packing, cleaning, organizing–you name it–in order to get our house ready to put on the market. Every spare minute I had I devoted to this house, and I’m exhausted. I have a blog brewing in my mind to share at another time uncovering all that I discovered during this process, but for now, I’m going to write a short blog about why I had doubts this week about my ability to keep up the appearance of a neat and tidy home. For the past week, every day displayed one of my shortcomings. If I struggle in normal life, what will the next few months look like while our house is up for sale?! I shudder to imagine!
When I grabbed Caleb’s laundry hamper to wash his clothes, he asked, “Why are you taking my basket now? It’s not full to the top!”DOMESTIC FAILURE!
While helping Matt sort through papers in the garage, I noticed a stack of papers from my second period Language Arts class that I still hadn’t graded. The last time I taught a class of students was two years ago. TEACHING FAILURE/ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE!
The other night, I began making dinner as I do every night. Matt and I had chosen a recipe from a magazine earlier in the week. As I was rolling up these fancy flatbread sandwiches, I kept thinking to myself that they seemed different than I imagined. After dinner, Matt pointed out that I made a completely different dish than the one we picked out–somehow I didn’t notice that roll-up sandwiches and quesadillas are not the same thing. MENTAL FAILURE!
While making dinner another night than the above mentioned dinner, I heard my two-year-old encouraging my nine-month-old, “You can do it, Chloe! Keep climbing up the stairs!” She was one step from the top when I got her. PARENTING FAILURE!
While making this same dinner, I discovered my two-year-old sneaking into the refrigerator and downing a bottle of raspberry pecan salad dressing. PARENTING FAILURE/DIETARY FAILURE!
This darned dinner that I was making had a total preparation and cooking time of about thirty minutes. I finished in two hours. TIME MANAGEMENT FAILURE!
Oh, well. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t have any topics for my blog, I guess….
Yesterday as I was rushing to throw in one more load of laundry before I had to get the kids from preschool, a sudden thought came to me: “Did I do chores before I had kids?” I’m sure I did, but I honestly couldn’t recollect a consistent rushing around to get tasks done in the house.
I don’t remember doing laundry. I know I did it because I wore clothes every day, but I don’t remember laundry holding a steady place in my week. My guess is that laundry was reserved for the weekend. Matt and I probably had a hamper that started to overflow, so we’d throw in a few loads when we were running low on underwear or socks. When I was in the Air Force, we dry-cleaned most of our clothes, so remembering to take and pick up my uniforms from the cleaners was my most important laundry responsibility.
I do remember that I loved hosting Bible studies in our home because they forced me to keep the house clean. Once a week, I would give the house a good once-over–vacuuming, dusting, mopping, scrubbing–and the house stayed relatively clean until the day had come to start over again.
While I was placing diapers on the rack to dry yesterday, I smirked remembering how casual and disorganized my life really was back then. I was always tired as a new teacher, yet once I came home from work, I really didn’t do much in the house besides make dinner. How life had changed!
Now, I feel like all I do is laundry and clean, yet the house is never clean, and I’m always behind on laundry. As before, I don’t mop the floor that often but for a very different reason: Now, I get disillusioned when I scrub the kitchen floor only for one of my children to spill milk, drop peanut butter and jelly, turn over the dog bowls, etc., less than 24 hours after I finish the job. It’s more time-efficient to spot clean.
I sighed thinking how wonderful life would be again one day to have only two people’s clothes to throw in the wash.
It would be quiet…
…and I’m not sure I like the quiet.
After all, if it’s quiet, and I’m only doing laundry for two, then I’m not looking at these adorable monkeys every day.
And I want to keep these monkeys around for as long as I can.
Jennifer Vignola Davis 