I padded downstairs to shake my daughter’s shoulder, waking her for school. But instead, she woke to my “Oh, no.”
‘Cause that’s generally what you say when you see liquid pooling in the hall in the half-light, oozing from the laundry-room-slash-pantry.
That was the price-club-sized empty detergent bottle on its side, the cap to the air vent lying surrendered beside it, and the laundry room now flooded with a pleasantly lemony, biodegradable, outstandingly viscous liquid soap.
Aw. C’mon.
I mean, of course I wanted to clean out under my dryer rather than work today. I heart senseless cleaning!
But since this is the second day this week of the “O-kay. Plan B” variety, at least my mental script was at hand. (If only I could follow it.)
Memos to myself (um, and my attitude):
- This is God’s day. I live for His purposes. So if He wants to hijack my day and get me, quite literally, on my knees—He can help pry my hands open from my plans.
- Gratitude changes everything. As does a little perspective from Africa. Janel, you have a washer and a dryer and a laundry room and enough money to buy replacement soap. You have clothes and electricity and thankfully, a lot of extra towels and one of those cool mops that sprays water. You woke up with a healthy body that can shimmy through that little space between the machines. Your daughter asked what she could do to help. There’s a lot of things going right.
- God knew I was going to wake up to this mess, and has apparently given me what I need to tackle this day with godliness.
- These little stupid things grow me inside.
I think this was on par with sending my son’s prescription meds in to school last week with his brother, to give to the school nurse. (One child has a considerably better memory than the other.) Take it from a mom sending her kids to public school for the first time: Apparently, this is a no-no.
Or maybe I could compare this to when my husband asked me to cut the back of his hair with the trimmers last week. And then, not one minute into it, I let out another little, quiet, “Oh, shoot.” He was like, Honey, this is my hair.
And yes, I’m the mom who still has to ask at least two of her eight-years-old-and-above children if they’re wearing underwear, and are they clean? My kind of clean?
Those of you who know me are not a’tall surprised by my Pinterest-imperfect life. I’m the sister-in-law who stepped in the dog food bowl while telling that really animated story (true). And who could never get her maternity jeans to stay up where they belong (also true). And who may have kindly told a dinner guest they had something on their leg, and the leg turned out to be a prosthetic. (I kid you not.)
Let’s just say it’s real, folks.
Your turn. What’s your Pinterest-imperfect day looked like recently? (Pics welcome.) And what truths are you telling yourself?
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