8.09.2015

tackling all the STDs

I was standing at the stove tending bacon when Andy passed through the room asking whether T2 was registered for preschool.  Not yet.  The paperwork may have been due in January?  The day I called about late forms, the lady I apparently needed to speak with was not in.  I put it off.

We repaired a dining room chair that broke when it tipped over under the weight of blanket tent plus boy.
We called the insurance company because we'd been double billed for homeowners.
We traced chalk outlines on the sidewalk.
We went to the pool.
We read all twenty seven books on the front porch.
We mowed the lawn and mopped the floors and wasted time on the internet.
We hung some shit on our bedroom wall, finally.
Tuck first read the new print as "get shirt done." He knew it didn't make sense as soon as he said it out loud.  But then he wanted to know what "shit" meant, and how to use it in a sentence.  We talked about synonyms and explained that shit should never be a first choice word.

So, we had a conversation about showing respect and using imagination to choose interesting words.
We smoked eighteen pounds of brisket.
We took the boys to the state fair.
We took after dinner bike rides.
We laundered all the linens on all the beds.
We watched a movie.
We booked hotels and ordered airline tickets and shipped wedding gifts.
We had family over for tacos.

All of these things mean we are blessed.  Too much food to eat, too much stuff to clean, money to spend on making the walls of our home more interesting.  Chairs to sit around a table, towels to dry after a swim, toys to pick up and shoes to locate and floors to sweep.  Shit to sort out.  Oil change appointments and auditions and lesson plans and a to do list as long as the Shoe.
Considering all the things we want to do - visit the caverns and check out a new park, go to campus for fall pictures and go to the Cowboy for chips and queso, it sometimes feels like not enough time to do what should be done.

But Tolliver is, with two weeks to spare, enrolled in a preschool class.
Our bedroom is a little brighter.
And we do have cooked bacon in the fridge. Because, priorities.

Resources, clockwise from top left:
Clouds watercolor by RoRo
"get shit done" typed and printed at home
Paper Hearts by Ink Dot via Minted
Flowers, another watercolor by RoRo
hummingbird by Sara Shashani via Minted
Confetti by Blair Culwell Staky via Minted
Beatrice by Cari Humphry from ArtPaperGarden on Etsy

3 comments:

rht said...

I really like your new collection -- especially that cow. And I think you've got your priorities just about right.

Poppy John said...

Jenni Baby,
Beatrice is my missing cow. Are you sure the picture didn't come from a milk carton?

Gotta go...and get some shit done,
L2A

Emma! said...

That cow print IS MY LIFE. Love her!