When Do I Just Give Up?

I am stuck in the never-ending cycle of thinking I can get the house clean, organized, and well... peaceful. It goes like this: Evening time and I am looking at the house trashed from the day and I think, "Tomorrow I will really bust my ass and get this house whipped into shape! I will even make a nice dinner. Finish the laundry, get the accounting done and bills paid, follow up and the odds and ends of the adoption." I go to sleep and try my darndest in the morning. I make good progress despite the fact that the phone rings off the hook and my mom tells me more stuff than I had imagined when I call to ask a simple question about the company picnic. Around 11:00am I realize that I am not making such good time as I had hoped, am behind already in my prediction of just how much I can get done in one day, but Scott reminds me that there is still day left... except that I need to think about making dinner NOW because dinner can be a major production with everything else going on around here interrupting things. If I need something out of the freezer I should have done that last night so it would be thawed. So nevermind the freezer.. wish FlyLady had sent a reminder about that. Hmmm... peer in the fridge... nothing obvious, might as well wait till later. Lunch time for the kids. Today Ariah invited a friend over so she could be occupied while I worked. I even had a whole list together and resolve to do it! So... lunch... by now I have caught on that the girls have converted the almost clean living room into an American Girl hide-a-way.



Then I eat lunch myself, sitting amongst the dirty dishes left on the table by the girls, feed Pacifique and encourage the girls outside. They skip the bathing suits and sprinkler and head for the plethora of blackberries instead; they are on a mission to make soup. A while later, they are lugging the house furniture out to the front yard. Gawdzukes... my June Cleaver plan is unraveling! They are looking for paper, and finding the rolls of tape. The kitchen becomes a large scale STICKY (think lots of honey to sweeten their "soup") disaster and my hopes for a clean house and peaceful dinner go outside with the table and chairs.



I am quickly becoming June With A Cleaver! Turns out they have decided to have a sale of their blackberry and now mint echinacea soup in the front yard. Ariah's friend apparently can't do this so easily where she lives off the beaten path in the hills. We are in town, almost at the crossroads, so we get a bit of traffic here and the girls look like ants going back and forth from front yard to house to gather supplies.



They set the price and it is not priced to sell, I'll tell you. Judging the size of the miniature shot glasses they have lined up at the front of the table, and wondering how much dirt is in the "soup" I cringe and resolve to hide in the bushes so I am not regarded as anywhere near involved with the sale. With time, they manage to sell thru the soup and head for the kitchen to raid the organic lemon juice supply and more and more lemonade is made. Scott has returned from his errands and gives them appropriate plastic cups. At some point, they discover that holding Pacifique up to the road along with their lemonade sign really attracts the customers. In the end, they have a blast and make a huge profit.



So now Scott is cooking dinner, the kids are counting their loot, and I am blogging while Pacifique fusses on the floor in the other room. The office desk is a complete mess and I am finding myself with my hopes for today dashed but planning how to correct this insanity tomorrow. After all, it is a new day. Right?