Now I remember...

Yesterday I lost it. After my first day with a solid 5 hours to myself in over a month, I was overwhelmed. With my prized time I spent 3 hours scrubbing the bathrooms and kitchen, 1 hour on the phone doing bills and other tasks that yielded very little result, I also showered and had some drive time dropping off and picking up the girls. I felt so defeated. The more I worked on getting caught up the more things I found that needed to be done and I was exhausted. Lucky for me, Captain Awesome listened, fixed the sink and convinced me to sit down and watch Whale Wars (our fabulous new guilty pleasure) once the kids were down. As I settled down I knew that what I was trying to accomplish was unrealistic. But having a clean house with no holes in the walls from skateboards or moldy grout in the shower doesn't seem like that high of a standard. It's not like I was under the delusion that all of the laundry should be folded all of the time, I just wanted the stove clean and all of the clean dishes put away. The more I tried to justify it the sillier it sounded. Then this morning happened and it all made sense. After dropping Chloe off at preschool, Claire and I headed out for our morning coffee date. Claire was in such good form, we enjoyed our time sharing a giant cinnamon roll without the sense that a seizure seemed like it might be seconds away. She smiled and laughed as a few different people stopped to say hello and in between bounced to the beat of the music. We strolled down to the hook to watch the waves and bask in the warm sun. She laughed as I missed pulling her little wheels up for a few big bumps and batted at a few tails of the dogs that passed us. We stopped at a bench to soak it all in and that is when it hit me. The warm salty air filled my lungs as a wave crashed below us and in that instant I remembered why I don't spend more time checking things off the list. I much prefer to sit at the edge of the world and revel in God's handy work. I am a better me when I do this. I am a better mom, better wife, better friend when I do this. I am more patient, quicker to forgive, easier to let things go, my laughs are louder and my tears flow more easily when I sit and just enjoy the many wonderful things around me. With the girls both being back in school next week, I am a little on the fence, will I get more stuff off my list or will I slow down and enjoy the beauty that surrounds me, I really hope it's the latter but if I am honest I am sure I will torture myself with a little bit of organizing life too.