always a project

Always. 
What I mean is this:  At our house, we don't golf on Saturdays.  We don't go to ballgames or go fishing or whatever else normal people do.  Occasionally, we attend a family gathering and sometimes participate in a race of one sort or another.  But!  We do not, I repeat, we do not train for them.  Who has the time for that when there is a patio to rip out? 

I was thinking this afternoon about these situations we always seem to get ourselves into, and it made me recall something I had read in Margorie Pay Hinkley's book, Letters.  (I am a sucker for anything she ever wrote).  I had to smile when I found this paragraph,

"Clark painted their living room white on Saturday.  What a mess painting is!  In the middle of it they discovered their bishop had been taken to the hospital with pneumonia, so nothing would do but Kathleen stop in the middle of the painting to make a chocolate cake and spaghetti with home-cooked sauce, garlic bread, and the whole works to take over to the family for dinner.  They finished up painting and pushing the furniture back at 1:30 am. . .I don't know what it is about this family that they always do things the hard way, but I guess we were not born to be Saturday golfers." 

Amen, sister.

Why do we do this?  I keep asking myself this and have come to a few conclusions.  One, we live in an old house. . .so much to do, so much potential!  Two, TWO stinkin' acres!  Three, I keep coming up with all these ideas.  Four, I am married to this super-cool guy who can take any one of my ideas and make it happen (which feeds the idea frenzy).  He is ingenuitive, hard-working, and capable.  Very, very, capable.

This past week I finally decided to finish the bathroom.  The original plan was that I would be oh! so careful to save money from my budget to put toward the purchase of the wallpaper I had my eye on.  After four months of falling short, Courtney caved and let me order it anyway.  After it's arrival, I talked my mom into helping me (which wasn't hard at all because she's the one who gave me the project gene in the first place.  She loves this kind of stuff.)  After spending approximately three hours hanging the first strip and getting all excited about how awesome it looked we ran into a snag.  (We always run into snags.)  Discouraged, I packed all my wallpapering gear away, swore (maybe), and vowed that for once, I would hire someone to do it for me.  Well.  Wouldn't you know it, but sister Jodi (she inherited the same gene) came to spend the night and by 10:00 this morning she and my mother had me in a mess again.  After a full day of wallpapering amidst 7 neglected children and 1 slightly neurotic dog, I am exhausted.  Better yet?  Still one more day before we can call it finished. 

Last month the project (one of them) of the hour was an extreme makeover on my parents back yard.  My brothers, sisters, and I roped our spouses and children into a sprinkler system, about 1.5 million tons of bark, a truckload of weeds, and a gazillion pallets of sod.  All for a Father's Day present.  You know, who wants to gift another tie?  Anyway, at the end of the second long day, my very honest sister-in-law looked at my sister in exasperation and said, "Your family is very determined.  VERY.  So determined, in fact, that sometimes you don't know when to stop."

We laughed at that.  Just before we attacked the next flowerbed.