Yearly Tradition, Happy St. Pats

Yup. Every year, I find myself on this day.....putting away the last of the Christmas ornaments. At least this year it wasn't the tree too.

Remember my ambitious list of deep cleaning? Yeah, whatever. I've made slow progress, but not nearly where I wanted to be. I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Life happens. Progress is still progress. I will finish the race.

Here's the revisited list:
Here are the items on my list to tackle, dark blue is done (sort of):

• Put away fake tree and better label ornament boxes. DONE!!!!
  
• My office/craft room: need more baskets and hang some wall art (or baskets on the wall- neat idea I saw in Country Living, shhh.) Moved in, no baskets, total chaos anyway.
  
• Lil'Bug's room: need room for all her new loot. Need to change out 2T to 3T clothes, pack and label the 2T crate. Hang her wall art. (Thinking about framing her art and hanging it....)
• My bedroom: finish painting the trim, find (make?) better window treatments.
• Paint hallway (fine, this has been on the to-do list since 2004.....)
• Paint laundry room.
• Paint hall, bathroom, and laundry room trim. Hang wall art.
• .......(cue drums of doom) the north bedroom: right now a staging area for pre-packing and all other "stuff". Clean out, set up spare bed. Maybe paint the walls. Maybe. Hang wall art.
• Then paint middle parlor. Oh yeah, find good colour for that room. Gah.
• I have cleaned the car 3 times.
• Clear out pile of construction stuff in dining room.
  
• Shoe issue in foyer

So progress is still progress.

Gentle

So for all my striving for gentleness and release I missed something. Today I was asked for advice by a dear blogger friend who faces similar dynamics in a delicate family situation. In attempting sage wisdom I realized something about myself:

I practice gentleness and compassion to my own child but not to others. I treat her with respect and understanding, but I often do not give the same consideration to other moms or their kids. I do for my online students, and most of the time for others, but not 100% of the time. So for all my talk, yeah, I need to recenter my thinking a bit. I grumped around a bit this morning when I realized this, but I think things will get better now. If I'm going to talk to the talk.......

;) Thanks Evie!

Right Now

Lil'Bug is watching Tarzan and imitating Tarzan imitating the jungle animal calls. She's also leaping off the couches and rolling around trying to get the moves right.

:) Oh, for more rainy days like this one!

Photo Challenge 10- Self

I'm sorry I missed last week for the photo challenge. Oops. Totally fried and flu sick last weekend.

This week I have been challenged to take a decent belly photo. I had to learn how to use the timer on the camera, but I'm still working on it.

This doesn't have to be a self portrait though, just how do you view yourself? Through what? How? Where?

(Also, my brain is fried. Any suggestions for themes are welcomed!)