When your eyes are bigger than your weekend…

I ran out of weekend. My eyes were bigger than the time I had allotted for the chores I wanted to complete. My goal had been to transform an overflowing bedroom into a pristine guest room with much, much less stuff. It turns out that emptying a room and painting are the easy part. Sorting through stuff — making determinations as to what I should toss, keep, or give away — is what’s tough. And so I didn’t finish.

Indeed, part of the problem with reestablishing order in one room — not that I’ve yet achieved it — is that it becomes its own mouse. (See the weekend’s tribute to my husband’s Ford F150, aka “the mouse,” or simply read the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.) As in the book (and my husband’s life as a truck owner), one thing leads to another; in my homemaking kingdom, one task leads to another.

Instead of sticking to completing one room, I attempted to tackle an overfilled utility room and then a linen closet. Once the bedroom was painted, I figured I could easily paint the hallway, our “hall of fam” that contains loads of outdated family portraits. And if I were going to take down all those framed photos to paint, I should go ahead and update them — since all my children have graduated, two have married, one has born a child, and all have definitely changed since I last added photos in 1999. (I tell you the truth.) The “hall of fam” leads to the bathroom, which hasn’t seen a coat of paint ever in the 21 years I have resided in this home; it is sorely in need. And it might be time to change the decor from cutesy fish (and photos of my youngest when potty training) to something more mature? My quest for “less is more” is my “mouse.” One task leads to another — and the first is not yet accomplished.

I had had Friday off from work for the university’s homecoming in addition to the weekend, and I worked in the bedroom until 5 Sunday evening before my husband said, “Sara, why don’t you take a break?”

And so I did. Once I sat down, I was done for the day. Actually, for the weekend. Now, instead of joyfully viewing a beautiful room completed, I am reminded by the piles of stuff — in that room as well as the places I filled as temporary storage — that my eyes were too big for my weekend.

But tomorrow’s another day, and as luck would have it, that “another day” just happens to be a midweek holiday in celebration of Veterans Day. Whew. I will continue listening to the audiobook Unbroken, listening to the horrors that befell Louie Zamperini and his comrades during World War II, and give thanks to those veterans who have fought (and suffered) for the freedoms we U.S. citizens experience today. (Thinking of Zamperini’s trials certainly puts my namby-pamby attitude into perspective.)

Having Wednesday off is almost like having a weekend midweek. I just need to size my eyes to that one extra day.

Posts for NaBloPoMo 2015:

1. Why I love my hairstylist…
2. To NaBloPoMo or not to NaBloPoMo? That is the question…
3. No AC November…
4. That dubious gift of an hour…
5. I can’t wait to be discovered…
6. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher…
7. Of mice and men (or when you give a mouse a cookie)…
8. When you replace people with possessions…
9. Do what you know is right…
10. When your eyes are bigger than your weekend…