Monday cheerleading

A really good and productive weekend can do wonders for one's mood.

And so can a coat of nail polish. Yesterday afternoon, after I spent much of the day scrubbing bathrooms with my hands submerged in water and Mr. Clean, I was really bummed about the state of my hands. Winter cracking, scraping dried paint drips off tiles and counters, and regular cleaning had definitely gotten the best of them. I was feeling a lot of negative things (I was going to write, "like a failure" but see how I refrained?) because a lot of my school-mom friends had gotten all dressed up this weekend for a big fundraising event and I was not feeling pretty. (I didn't WANT to attend the event, but you know how it is. They were all cute in their Roaring Twenties dresses.)

Life decision: Keep the nails painted as often as possible. It's a small thing that makes me feel a little closer to the "supermom" I'd like to be, and like I'm actually handling stress pretty well.

The weekend was PACKED, but thankfully, packed at home, and not running around town. We had started the bathroom-painting project last Thursday but the guy didn't finish and had to return Saturday, 9am until 5pm. I had promised the kids they could have sleepovers Saturday night and everyone would be arriving around 6pm. !! There was some very fast vacuuming and surface-swiping in the second newly-painted bathroom (naturally, the kids' bath) during that hour!

It all turned out very well, and the bathrooms look great. We've RESOLVED not to let projects like that linger for twelve years, in our next house. Ahem. I will post pictures as soon as I have matching bath mats. They're both very grey-neutral, there are no stinking wallpaper borders and darn if some lovely buyer isn't going to love this house!!

Saturday while waiting for the painter to finish, I also packed away some more books and things. It is going to take a long time but I'm editing and decluttering. Anxious to do more of it, actually. There's a charity clothing pickup this Friday and someone is going to inherit A LOT of baby clothes. A lot of grown-up clothes, too.

And work... Work is probably going to be fine. I've talked myself into feeling more positive this morning, grateful to HAVE A job that pays me well and affords me a painter and new bath mats without a worry. I will plan my daily tasks calendar, I will stand up and take breaks, and I only have two hands - I can only do that much. It is not brain surgery, no one will die if I don't get the websites perfectly updated. Actually, all of Atlanta is looking at the forecasts again (snow, ice, freezing rain) so I expect to have another couple of days of working from my kitchen table this week. No one's taking any chances this time around, thank goodness. So this week shouldn't be nearly as bad as last.