It's Girls Day!!!

Well, I guess every day is girls day at the Button casa but today is *really* girls day because Travis isn't coming home tonight. He's felt for a little while that God wanted him to go away and pray so tonight he's headed to a lodge south of here. Of course, we're supposed to have rain, sleet and 3-6 inches of snow (we'll see) but we both agree that we're not going to let fear dictate what God is going to do. And since everything is an occasion for me, I have a mental list of 80 things I want to do tonight. I bought a Barbie movie for the girls that they're watching now and I have a few minutes to blog-yay!

It's not like I don't have time to blog, I'm just trying to direct my time and energy so that I'm more productive. I've been thinking about it for a while and see that since I mostly blog about the good, productive, happy things I do, people that don't know me well probably have a much different view of me than is real. To say that I'm not perfect is, well, um, *duh*. But there are specific things in which I consistently fail. For instance, picking my clothes up out of the bathroom floor. I don't even necessarily mean to do it *and* it drives me crazy about myself but I can't seem to get past it. I'm a terrible housekeeper, no really, I stink at it. I'm not organized and I'm constantly wondering where my time goes. I don't finish projects. I start strong and then fizzle out, usually because I get interrupted or because of a roadblock. Sooo, where to go from here? I have to go somewhere because I *need* order in my life. My kids need to do chores. I'm constantly picking up after them only to have them destroy it in about 2 minutes. It takes focus on my part that I don't have. I've never developed it but I know I can. So four out of the five days this week I wrote down a list of things that I wanted to get done during the day. Wednesday it helped that my mentor came over so even though I felt like "poo" I cleaned the entire house. I put up the last of the Christmas decorations (it was one of those roadblock things that I'd put off) and brought out pictures that I haven't had out since we moved here. Originally I didn't have anywhere to put them but then we were loaned the piano and I have space to put some of them. I did every single thing on my list that day but didn't finish my list for the rest of them. But I'm not beating myself up because I can't help it if I'm interrupted or not feeling well, etc. I'm going to have a plan but not beat myself up if I can't finish it. And I'm also going to schedule time with my kids and time for myself. If I spend hours doing things around the house I deserve some time to unwind and I refuse to feel guilty about it. The whole point is order and balance- not to go crazy in the other direction.

So tonight I want to plant some basil and Italian parsley in little pots- I'm not planting all of those seeds though because I don't need 50 of each plant so if anybody wants some just let me know. I haven't had the gardening bug yet this year and it concerned me a bit but I really want to start planting things now. I'm still not at the point that I can rent a tiller and do an entire garden but I really do like container gardening. You don't have to worry about weeds and things like that. I found some really nice sized galvanized buckets/planter thingy's at Lowe's for about $15. It was in the paint section I think so I don't know what they're actually supposed to be for but they look like perfect planters- with some drainage holes knocked in them of course. I wanted to pick up some oriental poppies tonight (beautiful and they'd make great models for paintings) but I read on the package that they bloom *one year* after planting. I think that I'm a pretty good sport about waiting for things to bloom since I plant from seed most of the time but I'm not that good of a sport.

And in a little note about my sweet little Chloe...

Isn't it wonderful when your kids do something completely out of the ordinary and your close friends are there to witness it? Or not. Last night we met the Kelso's at Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Well, the grown ups were all talking and the kids were in the play area (brilliant, no?) when I saw Chloe looking at a little boy with a really big scowl. Then I saw her turn around and start *punching* another little boy and then the first little boy and then the second little boy and then the first little boy and she were punching each other! I said, "Travis, she's punching them!". So he went inside and did the Dad, "hey, what's going on!?!" thing and Chloe started talking and crying and the boys scattered. Apparently, the boys were being mean to her and saying that they were going to pull her hair, etc. And as Kris put it, "she decided her best defense was a good offense". So my sweet little Chloe that *everybody* always loves, decided to take on two boys at once. I didn't know she had it in her but I definitely saw myself in that play area. Of course, Travis told her to come to us next time and he stayed in the play area for the rest of the night. Is it bad to say I was impressed though? No, I'm never going to tell her it's OK to beat people up...

It was really nice to see the Kelso's too. Those boys are completely adorable.

I recently purchased some fabric for my new nieces fabric cubes. Angie's going with pink and green but JoAnn's didn't have a decent green in the squares I was buying. So I want to go to the quilting store in downtown Franklin but I've either been feeling crummy or the weather has not been conducive to walking outside. Tomorrow is probably out because of snow but I'm getting there next week- I'll have to put it on my to do list. I'm just hoping that have better/cuter fabric than what I find at JoAnn's.

The girls movie is over so it's time to get crackin' on planting and whatever else I plan to do tonight. I should probably start by feeding them dinner...