We've all heard it before. Usually from our mothers back in high school when we wanted to play a sport at school, try out for the drama production, play the piano, volunteer at our church, work a job at the mall and start a band with our friends.
At the moment of inevitable break down from us having stretched ourselves too thin, mom chimes in with
"You have too many irons in the fire, time to take one out!"
Why is that SUCH a mom phrase to me? Maybe it's just a responsible adult phrase, so I therefore associate it with a mom. Well... here's me, a mostly responsible adult and I am saying:
we have too many irons in the fire, ya'll! Something has got to give.
Except nothing can!
I am the queen of saying "yes" to too many things. I like people. I like when they are happy. I don't want to disappoint people. So I say
"yes"
"Sure, I can help"
"Yeah, I should be able to do that"
hashtag peoplepleaserproblems
Unfortunately this time around... I cannot blame my people-pleasing tendency, at least not totally. I can only blame... life. This is life. Mom told me not to do more than I can feasibly handle as a teenager. But as an adult... your irons are in, lots of them, and there's no taking them out!
And I have to say... this Yes-lady married a Yes-man. My wonderful husband is absolutely a people-pleaser! Anyone that knows him knows if you need help with something, if you're moving, if something is broken and we are over your house for dinner - Greg will help out. It's his way. He comes when called and gives generously of his time and talent. Truthfully, it is one of the main traits that really got my attention back in the early days of our friendship. One of my first interactions with him was when I asked him if he would drive me to Lowes in his truck to pick up some ridiculous variety of large items for the school play I was directing.
He said "yes".
Of course.
He then also said "yes" to helping me set up / clean up that production.
and every production since!
Thanks babe!
Well here we are - the two of us - feeling that swirly, whirly feeling of overwhelming responsibility... there's just too many irons in the fire with this whole-house reno.
We feel...
Overwhelmed.
Stretched too thin.
Confused which iron we should be focusing on.
Wondering how we will make all those irons work and work well.
Practicing saying "no" instead of "yes"
Working on being intentional about the most important irons: Eachother, Lucy.
Everything is a lesson in life. God uses all of our choices to teach us something. While we practice GRATITUDE to be able to participate in all we participate in we also learn how to make adjustments for the future.
Okay, enough of my philosophizing. Let's look at that's been accomplished in these last 2 weeks.
Greg and His dad finished the power line hook up and the electrical panel. There was a small set back while digging for the power line. Greg hit the drain pipe in the yard which caused a loss of time due to the needed repair. But that got fixed and was successfully inspected by the electric company so now we just wait for the power switch.
The two of them also ripped out all of the cast iron baseboards!
Bye-bye ridiculously heavy baseboards!
The HVAC is placed and partly hooked up, that was on a big, time constraint as we needed it done for a rebate. ugh, as if that stress was needed!
My mother scraped off the FINAL piece of wall paper from the walls!
did you read that?
The wall paper is 100% DOWN!
And there was much rejoicing!
I finished scraping all the glue from the living room and now we must scrape the glue from the dining room and kitchen - THEN the wallpaper saga will be over! :)
Which means... I can finally start to think about this:
Fun... yet not. :)
My friend Jess (who has great taste when it comes to decorating - and is good at decision making) came to help me flesh out some ideas! She's super great and I am so thankful for her help and ideas- and for her allowing me to text her a million questions at random hours of the day! :)
Another friend, Trevor, generously came to help us finish the demo of the bathroom one evening last week!
Look at that! All empty and ready to be put back together!
We were so thrilled for Trevor's help in the midst of an overwhelming week and then we were even more thrilled when he agreed to allow us to hire his mad skills to work on some projects in the house that we just feel totally inadequate to do! :)
All together now: Yay for Trevor!!
And lastly - Greg ripped up all the flooring in the house that remained. We had already torn up the carpet - revealing lovely wood floors. This was a happy-dance moment since it meant we didn't have to pay for new flooring we were just going to sand and stain...
But then we found this in the kitchen and dining room.
YUCK.
This throws a little wrench into our plan so we may be looking at flooring after all.
Never a dull moment!
And that is where we stand at the end of week 6 of this renovation!
Really... I can't believe it has been six whole weeks!
Thanks for following along!
Moral of the story : give generously to others, but protect your time so that compromise is not necessary in the areas you do commit yourself. As believers we should not be idle but we should always strive for excellence in all we do.
And... hire a professional whenever possible! ;)
Now, we are off to Vegas! Because that's what we do when we have too much on our plate.
Or when your husband's good friend is getting married there.
Either way - a weekend away might be a good thing. Maybe we'll put it all on black and come back and pay Drew and Jonathan to come fix our house.
doubtful.
We'll probably just order room service and watch HGTV.
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