Productivity

Do you ever have days where you feel like you accomplished nothing? You know, the days where it's 7pm and you still haven't showered? The days where you suddenly think, Did I brush my teeth? as you are drifting off to sleep? The days where the pile of dishes in your sink continue to grow larger and larger until you aren't actually sure how you are going to ever wash them because the sink and counter top are so full? The days where every time you do feel the least bit productive for a mere 5 seconds, you turn around to yet another huge mess made by your smiling and somewhat regretful little toddler?

A few days ago, I had a day that felt like that. I wondered why I had even bothered to get out of bed. Nothing useful occurred in our dwelling and huge messes were made.

This is a lovely picture of our table after Kayla took the soap out of the bathtub and rubbed it all over...on the carpet too which is hard to clean because it just keeps making more bubbles when you try to scrub it out.

Anyway, I hate days like that for several reasons.
1) I'm a control freak. Huge messes bug me. You probably wouldn't think that if you visited my house because there are piles of kids clothing here, there, and everywhere and toys strewn about the place as well. But, I am also that mom who goes around the room every half hour or so and straightens out the kids clothing piles so that they are folded and neat and picks up the kids toys. 5 seconds later, they are once again, lying haphazardly around the living room, driving me a little crazy.
2) I'm a perfectionist. If I'm a wife and mother, I want to be the BEST wife and mother. I want to have a clean house, be cute and put together, make a perfect meal for my husband, and find time to read 20 books, do 5 projects, and take my kids on a nature walk all in the same day. When does that ever happen? So far, that has never all happened on the same day and probably never will. But part of me still wants to be that awesome.
3) I get more and more cranky the longer I am in the midst of complete chaos. So normally, if I'm in a bad mood, I just get to work cleaning the messes around the house, and suddenly I feel much better. But on days when 'you just can't seem to get anything done no matter how hard you try', it's not a good day to be around me. I'm getting crankier by the second, and none of my efforts to make it better are helping at all.

I have a theory that God allows days like these to remind us that we need Him. We NEED Him! He has given us gifts and abilities, but they were GIVEN to us. We didn't earn them, we don't even deserve them. He just gave them to us. And we very often forget to give Him to credit for things we accomplish. So, to me, it's like God's reminder that I haven't been thanking Him enough for His many blessings in my life.

And suddenly "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me."

You want to see some productivity of late?

I worked on both the girls' scrapbooks.

We did another fun D project using lots of candy corn which made Kayla grin from ear to ear.

And I made these fun Cincinnati Bengals poms poms out of dollar store table cloths using this video on youtube. I am also adding Bengals logos that I drew using an iron-on technique for the girls' cheerleading outfits. I have already failed at it once...

Now don't go getting the idea that everything just comes easy once you give God the credit. Nope. You still have to work for it, but He makes it possible, and gives me the patience and endurance to keep going even when I want to just give up and go get a bowl of ice cream instead. Mmmm, the ice cream actually sounds really good right about now though...