True, so true...

Thomas Jefferson once said,

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

Posted on our fridge is a poem by M.A. Stoddard called One Thing at a Time and the second stanza reads,

All that you do,
Do with your might;
Things done by halves
Are never done right.

On a daily basis I find myself quoting one of the above two sayings quietly to myself, as well as out loud to the children. Sometimes I so badly want to sit down and rest at the end of the day when I really should finish loading the almost-ready-to-be-started dishwasher, or begin giving attention to the overflowing basket of clean, but unfolded laundry. I will plop down onto one of the very accommodating living room couches, then be reminded of the tasks which need completing. With a sigh and a heave I will hoist myself back up to go work on the projects left undone by the hecticness of the day or the futility of doing certain tasks while small children remain awake. In the end, I am always glad for having the item checked off the to-do list, and it feels good to accomplish those things which promote peace and harmony in my home.

But I am not perfect. On occasion I will convince myself that I can buy some time by hiding an unfinished chore, convincing myself I am too busy to do it right at that very moment. I will "sweep it under the rug" then and remember to clean it up later. And sometimes I remember. And sometimes I remember and avoid doing it. And sometimes I just plain forget.

To illustrate the importance of not avoiding work I will share with you about my day. It began with my waking up later than I had planned. I got dressed super fast, and made my bed with the help of a cheerful 3-year-old. I heard kids playing upstairs, so as I went to work on cleaning up the kitchen for a get-together at my house later in the morning I called up to remind the children we needed to leave for gymnastics in 30 minutes. I had cleaned and wiped most of the kitchen counters and table and went to put the few dirty dishes from the sink into the dishwasher only to find it FULL! I should have been happy that it was full of clean dishes, but since I was rushing and didn't feel like taking the time to put the dishes away as I ought to have done, I decided to gather all the unwashed dishes and stash them in the oven until I got a chance to wash them later.

We dashed off to gymnastics, eating dry cereal in the car for breakfast. We were 10 minutes early, whew! All that rushing had paid off. The younger boys had a blast, I ran around after a very fast Micah and cheered on Caleb from across the gym. After gymnastics, we hopped back in the car and rushed back to the house, friends were coming over at 10:30am and the guy who mows our yard had texted me that he would be over in less than 10 minutes. I sent the kids out back to gather up all their little toys that they didn't want shed into a million pieces by the riding lawn mower, and I started the coffee. Everyone came, we had a great time of fellowship.

As soon as that shin-dig was over, another friend popped over with her kids. We are doing the same curriculum with a few of our children and we were both behind on science projects. Weeks ago we had discussed having a science afternoon. We worked on 5 science experiments, and did 2 history projects to break up the time. It was a blast.

After our friends were all gone, we got serious about putting the house back together in preparation for dad coming home. The dishes were finally put away and the dishwasher filled with the dirty dishes of the day, toys were picked up, dinner cooked, books read. We ate dinner, the kids took baths, and then we enjoyed a little dessert treat and family Bible time. The children brushed teeth, said prayers and spent some time settling down before bed, the girls crocheting and Noah reading while the littlest two went to bed.

Elliott made coffee, I got out a cookbook. The fourth Saturday of every month is the Men's Breakfast at our church. Elliott always tries to go and the teaching is wonderful. Since we have a food allergy, the provided breakfast portion doesn't always work out, so I try to remember to prepare something the night before so he can take something with him to eat. Since the kids miss Daddy when he isn't home on Saturday mornings, I try to make it special and this week invited a friend and her kids to come share breakfast with us while all the daddies were at church. I decided on Sour Cream Coffeecake Muffins. I made the batter. I turned on the oven to preheat while I made the topping and prepared the first batch of muffins.

A week or so ago, something spilled in my oven and I have yet to clean it up properly. Following that incident, every time I have turned on the oven there has been an annoying burning smell. So, when there was a funny smell after a few minutes I excused it as being from the other day. I finished preparing the first tray of muffins and went to put them in the oven. Remember, for anyone still reading this crazy long post, how I had hidden a few dishes in my oven this morning. Well, one of them was a 13x9 Pyrex baking dish with a lid. The lid was under the baking dish and in the baking dish I had tossed a blue plastic cup that was left sitting on the counter. The lid of the baking dish was dripping down from the middle rack down to the bottom of my oven. It was oozing down through the rack and forming large pools of blue goop below. The cup was so unidentifiable I almost couldn't tell Elliott what it used to be.

Immediately I remembered how we were early to gymnastics. Then I remembered the Jefferson quote. Then I remembered the poem. Then I calculated how long it would have taken me to do the job right, to wash the one spoon, one knife, one cup, one baking dish and one lid that now was smooshed and oozing from every part of my oven. We still would have been five minutes early. Sigh. I kept the lid to show the children in the morning. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I am hoping this will be a good illustration as to why I recount the two quotes so often. I also hope they take them more to heart, the quotes they so quickly can repeat, that they might be more evident in their lives and mine.

The good news is that the muffins are delightfully good. And thanks to a cool evening, I was able to open my windows so the burnt plastic smell could quickly escape.