What are your accomplishments for 2017?

This year is almost done and as I sit and reflect on everything that happened for the last 365 days I regret none of it.  The good the bad and the ugly, all of it was worth every laugh, cry, heartache, cheer and stress.

I've spent 41 years on this earth, watching season change, people change, babies growing up and lives happening in fast forward.  I was recently listening to a TED talk with my husband on the way back from out of town.  We were stuck on the interstate miles behind a wreck for about 45 minutes.  The TED talk was about time management and was it possible to grab a few more extra minutes in our day because there is never enough time.  As we sat in the car with NO kids, we both laughed and agreed with what the speaker was saying.  There is only 24 hours in a day, which can seem like enough but when you factor in sleep, commutes and work hours your day slowly melts away until you realize it is 10pm and your high hopes of accomplishments didn't get done and today's To DO list will have to roll over to tomorrow yet again.

The TED talk speaker ask someone she was interviewing would they have extra time in their day and the answer was always NO.  You have work, kids, school obligations, dinner, grocery shopping, clean the house, laundry, bills!! No, I have no extra time in my day.  But as she spoke about how when unforeseen event arise we ALL do find the time to deal with them and amazingly time opens up in our busy schedules.

If anyone had ask me this past summer if I had 3 months of time to give up I would have laughed in their face and ask what they had been drinking.  I had my families summer laid out.  Easy going, lazy summer days filled with pool fun, picking ripe vegetables from our garden, grilling out every night, bonfires, visiting art museums, scout trips, picnics in the park and late night movies.

That all changed the end of June with our house fire and suddenly I was forced to make TIME for something I wasn't prepared for.  I wasn't given a chose and it wasn't up for discussion; it was something I had to deal with and give my time to.  Did I have time for a fire no, no one has time for the unexpected BUT somehow that time is made.  Everything else gets put on hold and we find ourselves shifting our priorities to another focus.  That immediate focus needs our attention.

In the same respect we make time for what we priorities in our lives.  But what are those priorities in the 365 days we have in a year?  We all start with the same amount of days but how we use them depends upon us and the choices we make.  Are my hours going to tick by sitting in front of a tv or my cell phone looking at endless click and bait links, am I unconsciously going to spend hours scrolling through the same old Facebook post about "friends" vacations, work rants, yet another one of their children's achievements?  I've gotten sucked into that loop many times and find my face buried in my phone.  Finally, when I come up for air I realize just how much time I have wasted on such useless things.  I tend to refer to Facebook as Fakebook to my children because we only see peoples lives through the rose colored glasses of their post.  Glimpses of their digital reality.

How do you want to spend your 365 days in 2017?  As suggested by the speaker from the TED talk, instead of writing a resolution list for what you want to try and accomplish, write a list as if it was December 31, 2017 on WHAT you DID accomplish.  Think about the difference in those two statements.  Instead of writing a list of hopeful dreams for 2017, write a list of 2017 accomplishments.  Where do you want to be in a year:  New job, new city, new home........  This time next year where do you see yourself, have you used your days to the fullest or wasted your precious time on blinded priorities.

We are all given precious time, 365 days to face the world with strength, grace and courage.  Take those minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and make them your 2017 achievements!

Happy New Year!  

Cheers to new begins and fresh starts.  

I pray you walk through this coming year with love, grace and compassion. 

 

This Old House Part 2 / Moving Day and Demo begins

   

Even though the fire was contained to a small area just above our stove, the soot, smoke and fire extinguisher powder was in every room.  That required that our whole house be packed up, everything cleaned and then stored while each room was repainted and the kitchen was redone. I've never seen so many people in my house at once.  And not people I even know, complete strangers and they are everywhere and they are all working and packing and seeing all that is to be seen.  I am standing there in the way of everyone and everything thinking to myself, I wish I could bake everyone something, I love cooking and feeding people is how I show them my love...but then I realize, ohhhhh yes that isn't possible because my stove is sitting in my patio burned to a crisp.

There is noise in the air everywhere, cleaning tools and vacuums, and a HUGE Hepa filter running in the middle of my den.  I don't like noise, at all.  I see box after box being packed up.  Thank goodness I packed up my underwear before they started moving things out.....  Lord this is overwhelming to say the least.  I know they deal with traumatic situations every day but I don't and my family doesn't.  Every one is very kind and sweet and very soft spoken when I mention anything about the fire.  I feel embarrassed over all of it, my messy kitchen, the amount of stuff we have in this small house, the ridiculous mess in my son's room because I just shoved everything in his room before the party. (Easy clean up right?) Seriously there was my nephew's baby car seat, hairbows in gallon ziplocks I had for sale, two boxes going to Goodwill and a box of vintage (old) clothes I was getting ready to sell to a consignment store.

Finally everything was packed and in a big truck. I was left in an empty house that was only a sad reminder of the home I built.  BUT I never wavered from remembering how luck we were because it could have been the whole house.  Walls can be repainted, cabinets can be rebuilt and kitchen items can be repurchased.

Demo BEGINS!

We decided to demo our main bathroom during this time also.  My husband did all of the demo work plus a whole lot more work behind the scenes.  We hired all the painting, cabinet building and bathroom reno work out to professionals. 

  Our kitchen was a blank canvas, I'm nervous and excited all at once...

The next few post will be mainly photographs with a few descriptions of the 

process of renovating and redoing the inside of our home.