Dust if you Must - Poetry I like today

Dust If You Must

by Rose Milligan

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better To paint a picture, or write a letter, Bake a cake, or plant a seed; Ponder the difference between want and need? Dust if you must, but there's not much time, With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb; Music to hear, and books to read; Friends to cherish, and life to lead. Dust if you must, but the world's out there With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair; A flutter of snow, a shower of rain, This day will not come around again. Dust if you must, but bear in mind, Old age will come and it's not kind. And when you go (and go you must) You, yourself, will make more dust.

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Messy Monday - laundry mountain

My family likes to have a big breakfast.  They pick at lunch, they graze at dinner, but at breakfast they feast!  I'll give you three guesses as to how eggs and a newly pregnant mama mix in the mornings. 

Actually most mornings are like this lately, not just eggy mornings.  Mornings used to be my most productive time, but not so much right now.  So in honor of Messy Monday, here is a view of my heap of laundry waiting to be folded.  It happens to be clean, and for that I am grateful.  I will get there, but not right now.

Here is the window seat and book corner, post Kid-Apocalypse.  They are fans of dumping baskets and boxes of things out.

I feel like I could take a picture like this in every room right now.  But before I depress myself about the state of my uncared for home, I will say this:

I may not have a clean house, but the kids and I baked an apple pie together today.  (read, they ate peels, ate pie dough, ate apple slices, and ran around squealing and wearing aprons while I chopped apples, but we were together and had fun!)

I may not have a clean house, but on Friday we went apple picking and I made an entire farm full of roosters crow with my rooster impression, inspiring awe in my kids.  We also slid down a giant pipe slide together.  All three of us.  Lots.

I may not have a clean house, but my daughter whispers in my ear, "Guess how much I love you?"  

I may not have a clean house, but I have a good and loving husband who just this morning promised to make breakfast until the morning sickness passes.  What a fella! 

I may not have a clean house, but I am a fun mama.  And that is enough.  I'll have a clean house when they leave for college.

Happy Rainy/Messy Monday!

Messy Mondays was inspired by Flo Paris Oaks when she wrote this blog post/article and subsequently started this blog.

Messy Mondays - pondering the excess

One of several baskets of 'stuff' on the toy shelf

Cora and I have just begun some of my favorite books, the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We usually get through one chapter per night but this morning she requested two extra ones!  I agreed and we had a cozy time reading while Judah got his wiggles out. (Walking, yelling, chomping things, crawling through the tunnel etc.)

 

Enough cars for 3 kids.  (there are more)

Then we began our chores for the day, a good portion of which is 'putting things away', and I began to wonder how we got to the state of having so many things.  In her story, Laura Ingalls had one doll, and that she got around her 4th Christmas.  Before that it was a corn cob wrapped in a handkerchief.  Not much for Ma to clean up.  But then again maybe she didn't anyway.  Girls of that era (and boys too) were expected to work, keep their things cleaned up, help their parents with chores, keep their beds made, and selves tidy, as well as schooling.

Of course, I don't envy Ma's regular work,  (We just read the chapter where they butchered the hog and Ma was making sausage by hand and rendering fat on her stove for days!  Pass.) and I can see why things were kept simple.  I know I've got it easy with my washing machine running and my dishwasher drying the dishes for me right now while I blog.  But at the same time, part of our messy life here is just too much stuff, too many clothes, too many things, both of my own and the children.

 

The storage room of shame.  In this room I am more like a hoarder.  People give me children's clothes and baby things and I say yes to all, regardless of need.  In my head it's because I want to pass it on to others who may need it, but reality gets in the way and it just sits here.

Seriously.  When I pack away each outgrown season of clothing, if they haven't even worn them all, there is a problem.  Granted, we have been so blessed by the sharing of friends that I literally have only bought shoes for my children in all their days of life, but we have been given more than we need.  It's time to pare down, to pass on, to give to others what we have been given.  To sort out all the things that are never used or lost in the heap.  To put away or give away.  But not put too much away, because my storage space, it overfloweth. 

 

Least you think it's just part of this giant room that is filled.  Oh no.  The whole room is filled with baby junk.  (And boxes and linens.  Sigh.  No closets in this old house!)

In some ways, losing this baby has given me a chance to get my act together before we really have a 3rd child. (5th child.  I count my angel babies in my heart.)  To make space for him/her in our home, not just in my heart.  To paint, to prepare, to sort, to pare down.  To rid my home of the extra so we can enjoy the gifts we have been blessed with.

(Messy Mondays are inspired by Flo Oaks and her Messy Monday blog)

Messy Monday

My friend and fellow music mama posted this lovely post about the Beauty and the Mess.  About how mom bloggers post the perfectness of their lives and hardly ever the mess and how that can be discouraging for those of us who don't have our proverbial $hit together (like me).  In celebration of the mess, she called for others to join her in her imperfection.

This is not my first post about the mess that I hid in my photos.  About letting it go and enjoying relationships over a shiny floor.  It's not the first time I've let you know that I am SO far from having it all together.  But it's the first time I feel camaraderie with other blog mamas who are a work in progress.  Who aren't only willing to show how well they do life, but how badly or how messily, or how imperfectly.  And how beautiful that is.  So here is my contribution to Messy Monday.

 

My dining table. A mess on top, a mess underneath.

 

My beautiful daughter who has been wearing the same clothes for 2 days, bed hair and playing with the stroller which has been occupying the dining room for weeks now. 

 

And this. Which Cora so kindly pointed to for me. I think it is sweet potatoes and judging from how dried and crusty it is, it may have been there for weeks since that is the last time I mopped the floor. Usually I rely on the dog to clean up any leftover tidbits after dinner, but apparently she wasn't down with sweet potatoes. Classic.