momless week

Omg...This week has been long! My mom has been away since Friday, I really miss her, and feel like I'm the mother while she's away since usually I'm the one home while everyone works. Besides leaving me behind, she also left behind the baby she babysits, and my two little sisters (ages eight and ten.) I have learned a lot. I learned that Monnie does everything slower than Nece, I've learned that they'll do anything to get out of doing something you ask them to do but are always "helping" when you don't want their help, and I've learned that keeping the house clean means going hoarse telling them to clean after themselves or becoming very tired from cleaning up after them myself. The major amount of stress comes from trying to fill my mom's shoes, I want to be as helpful, as strong, and diligent, and (with the girls) as instructive...I have failed. Fortunately though, I have found that I can be some semblance of a great future homemaker/fashion designer. My sister Sarah and I worked on a menu (all of which somehow I'm cooking) and with our budget in hand went grocery shopping; every evening we have eaten a delicious meal although I have missed the daily "what should we have for dinner?" "Ummm." type debate I have with my mom. I taught my ten-year-old sister the finer points of laundry also, rule one being that you don't take any out of the dryer when it ISN'T DRY, and wash all your play clothes together and let me wash the dress clothes...Whew...
Today I cooked lasagna while my sisters cleaned the pantry, and folded some clothes, and directed a bed being made and room being cleaned. Tomorrow we'll clean the bathroom, wash a load of towels, vacuum the living room, and cook coconut chicken with vegetable and cornbread.

Getting started is easy; not getting distracted? Not so much.

Do you ever feel the need to create, the desire to see something coming together right beneath your fingertips? I feel it all the time, and there's an excitement and thrill...and then *poof*. I see that my room is a cluttered mess and I can't possibly sew with it looking like this, or my mom calls from downstairs and asks me to watch the busy little toddler we babysit while she runs out (for about an hour,) and my whole train that was gaining steam has now come to a stop.
Well, so much for that. Try again tomorrow. Nope, not today! Today I'm going to throw that load of clothes in the washer very quickly while I still have steam going. Today I will pick up the stacks of book and make them into one singular stack of books while I'm still humming with excitement. Today I will thread my sewing machine and ignore any clutter because if I stop nothing will happen and I'll never find my happy place even for a moment. Today I'm going to find my happy place and then I'm going to pat myself on the back, because it won't even matter whether I finish the project anymore, I'll just be happy that I started on it, because a project half done is one that I will have to come back to over and over.
Now, right at this moment let me take the first step and put on my "day clothes" lol.

Elisabeth