Trail Ride- Day 2 and 3

Day 1-- Look at that CLEAN floor!! no picture of laundry, folded and put away... cause it's not done.

Confessions of a Bull-Rider...

When I ride bull, I just hold on and ignore everything else. I'm not stressed because I don't think about anything except the bull I'm riding. Example: On Wednesday night Jakob started throwing up... it was bad, miss the bowl, nasty. (I'll spare you the details from the other end.) All my grand plans for Wednesday and Thursday went out the window... I just put my "to do" list in a numb, coma-like state and focused on my sweet, sick boy. It was a bull-ride. Not a planned adventure, but we came through smiling. Thursday night I ran to a friend's house and Todd called me panicked... there was a bull ride, i mean hail storm coming. He didn't want his car to get pummeled so he asked me to drive to sonic (it's like McD's with a covered parking lot). So, I sat in the car... eating tater tots and drinking Sprite for an hour or more... watching the rain. Todd finally called and said he thought the storm had passed and it was ok for me to drive home. Nope. On the way home i thought i was going to die. I couldn't see, it sounded like rocks were smashing into me, and i was scared... but I put on my bull-rider mentality... called Todd to let him hear what i was driving through... laughed and made it home without major incident. So much for my Thursday evening. This is a real picture from Lubbock-- Hail.

Friday-day 1, trying to clean my floors, it almost killed me. I was tormented with 100 things i should be doing. Even when i tried to focus on my job of cleaning i had to stop myself 1000 times from cleaning the doors, walls, refrigerator, pantry, cabinets, etc... my mind swirls and fills with all the things i need to do and i get overwhelmed and distracted... i crave my numb-happy place where i'm just floating without any goals. Anyway, what i learned was... I need to pretend that I'm riding bull... the only difference is, I get to pick my horse. I choose to clean my floors-- pretend that is a throwing up kid or an anxious husband. Focus on the task at hand and ignore everything else that needs to be done. I do this with my kids. When they are miss-behaving in public, instead of loosing it with them, i simply add to a mental list of "things i need to teach my children..." It totally works. I feel peace knowing that they aren't finished yet, i still have time to teach them everything i wish they would know. I can love them in an un-finished state. On Monday night, when we have Family Night, I mentally re-read my "things i need to teach my children" list and pick something. Teaching during un-stressed times is 100% more effective. Applying this to my housework, i started a list of "things i need to clean sometime..." I'm a bit worried that I'll NEVER get to that list, but i have hope that someday I'll find 10 minutes to attack the woodwork in my kitchen.

Taneil and I remembered this Covey image... you can read all about it here...

I have renamed the firefighting-quadrant 1, Bull Riding and quality time-quadrant 2, Trail Riding. I spend my life doing things that are either Urgent and Important or Urgent and Not Important. I wish that I did more things that were Important but Not Urgent.

Saturday- day 2, I got sick... really bad puking and stuff. And, so did Anna and Ellie. Bad. Puking in the bathtub bad. Puking over 30 times in 10 hours bad. It stunk. (literally.) Taneil and I wrote up a nice, trial riding plan for next week and I'm already 2 days behind. So, I called my cowgirl MIL to get permission and decided that I was going to RIDE THE BULL all day today. Yup. Sunday. I'm feeling better and I'm going to clean my house like I'm in a rodeo. I HAVE to. I can not start Monday with puke sheets everywhere and all my laundry from last week half-folded on my family room floor. It's bad ladies, real bad. My sweet husband did a great job of comforting and cleaning the little girls while i was indisposed... most of the nasty stuff is washed and dried and sitting on my laundry room floor. He tried, but he's not the bull-rider that I am. I think I can maintain life doing one simple job a day, but I can't recover from a throw-up fest. Forgive me, but I'm REALLY EXCITED to ride the bull today.

Sunday-day 3, Yee HAW!! I'm riding the BULL!!! I'm cleaning like a mad woman. I'm so excited. Even the most seasoned trail rider has to deal with a bucking bronco every now and then, right?! Nope. I'm not even going to church {gasp...} Seriously. If you were my church pew neighbor you would thank me for staying home. This little bug we got was NASTY. And, I still have 3 kids left- leah, drew and todd- who haven't puked their guts out. please, not today Lord. I'm so excited to ride my house cleaning bull.

Sweet Moments from Day 1--

Todd and I had a fun lunch date-- although egg plant Parmesan is NASTY coming out your nose.

Leah helped me clean the mega-pixi-stick spill off the kitchen floor...

I LOVED hopping sidewalk lines with Leah on the way to the car. I love pure 2 year old joy over little things.

Anna and I wrote out a chore schedule for her... she has a hard time getting her chores done because, like her mother, she is a perfectionist. She can't put away her laundry without re-folding everything in her drawers. Sharing a room with her un-perfectionistic sister creates tears of frustration on a daily basis. I loved teaching her about "daily quick cleans" and "saturday good cleans"... it was a complete AHA moment for her as she ran into her room and straightened-up making a mental list of "things i will clean on saturday..." She finished with a smile. Imagine if she can learn at 7 the things that I'm learning at 31?!

Ellie- about 100 times... it's from some movie... "Oh, that's AWESOME. It's beyond awesome, It's BE-AWESOME!!"

Drew- "Oh, so you think you can spell, try spelling Mississippi bisher-basher-bisher-basher-bisher-basher-boo.... Oh, that's what I thought. You can't spell."

while i was puking... look at these cute kids.