A Challenge

Sometimes I think I've given up.  Maybe it's just four kids home all summer that destroys my sense of being able to plan to do something and actually get it done?

Or maybe I've gotten too used to going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink because I'm too exhausted from shopping clearance at Hobby Lobby for Christmas presents to care.  =)  (In my defense, I grocery shopped too!  With two little girls...)

Or maybe I'm just so used to the back side of Christmas wrapping paper hanging on the mudroom wall that I forget that actually I have real stuff to hang up there!

I see things that aren't the way I want them, but they've been that way so long, I start to look past them.
So I know the "carrots" in the garden have been completely drowned out by weeds.  And I know there's a layer of dust over every piece of furniture in the house.  But if I pull the weeds and dust the furniture, the weeds and dust will be back tomorrow.  Really, everyone knows it's a losing battle.

And I know there's mud on the mudroom walls.  But it's a mud room!
That's what it's for!
Mud.
Right?

And there is so much laundry to fold!

But some people are so productive!  Like my husband yesterday.
He worked a full day from 8-5.

Came home and mowed most of our overgrown, jungle-imitating yard.  I had been trying to mow that yard for weeks but had only managed to mow the front yard twice.

Then he came inside, put the girls the rest of the way to bed, and wanted supper.  Only the dishes were piled in the sink because of my exhausting shopping trip.
He doesn't handle messes well.

So he happily cleaned my kitchen at 10:00 at night and ate a peach and some yogurt for supper.

 Have I told you lately how much I love this man?

And so this is my new goal for the rest of the summer.  (Is it possible that school starts again in a little over one month??!?  And why does this make me panic worse than the approaching summer did in April?)

I am going to wash my mudroom wall.

Today.

And fold the laundry.

And put it away.

And I will wash my own dirty dishes by 9:00 tonight.

Sounds like it should be easy enough, right?

But for this unorganized, not-clean-freak, morning person (who has now lost half the productive hours in the day typing on the computer and talking on the phone until 10:14 in the morning!), and mother of four who would rather be baking chocolate chip cookies, this is quite the challenge!  =)