I found myself throwing a pity party for 1 Saturday when I woke up. We've had several house guests the past month which I must first say has been sooo much fun! It also means that my normal OCD weekend ritual of dishes, yard, laundry, dusting, mopping, scrubbing etc. has been put off and or modified for the past few weeks. The weekend to-do list I had written looked more like a Harry Potter novel.
Daniel had left early to go golf for "work." Hence the pity party. I started to get cranky with the "why does he get to play golf while I clean the house" song and dance. That lasted for a good 10 minutes, then as I was grumbling under my breath while I separated the 7 loads of laundry it hit me.... The 2 of us had seven loads of laundry. That's about 4 loads too many for 2 people.
Who am I to complain? We have 7 loads of laundry! We are beyond blessed and here I am being Queen-Whiny-Pants. We both have jobs we love, a beautiful home, modern amenities (which I totally take for granted - see here for a reminder). I had to remind myself to quit complaining that I had to put away the dishes and be glad that I had a nice new hi-tech dishwasher to clean our pottery barn dishes that we load up with food that I can purchase without having to worry about going over budget or how much it costs.
I remembered that my husband who is in the office every day before 7:30 am and gets home well after 6pm every day, who mows the yard, takes out the trash, and cleans up after dinner without me having to ask is deserving of hundreds of Saturdays of golf.
So I carried on separating and washing laundry, pulling weeds, adding coolant to my car, putting away dishes and reloading the dishwasher, washing and replenishing the linens in the bedrooms and bathrooms with a little bounce in my step and a smile on my face.
I am provided for.
I am blessed.
I am loved.
My goal is to be joyful in all the things I do. While I know that may not always happen, I hope you will keep me accountable.
What do you take for granted?
Wow, simply wow. When I saw this on my blogroll, I wasn't expecting to be slapped in the face. I had the VERY SAME experience on Saturday when my husband went golfing, but I didn't have the clarity that you seemed to have...now I do! Thanks for this post- what a wonderful reminder!
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog! I had the exact same pity party Monday afternoon. I was too busy Saturday running my husband around to do his errands, (because he still hasn't started driving after his stroke), to go grocery shopping, so after a full day of work (which started at 5:00am doing housework, I was at the grocery store! When I got home, I thought of cooking, cleaning the dishes, doing a load of laundry, getting all the groceries put away, etc, etc, and I just wanted to cry. Thank you for reminding me that the stroke could have been much worse, that God has provided, and we have the money to buy the grocerys, and besides, if it doesn't all get done, the world will not end.
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