I am painting the interior of my house what an adventure!

Painting
Over the last few months Matt and I have begun the interesting and complex little journey of painting the interior of our house. It all started with doing a little touching up with the existing paint the landlord had left in the garage. Paint that was so beautifully labled with the room of house it belonged too. Easy enough right. So Matt and I cheerfully went to Home Depot or Lowes can't remember wich and bought the neccesary supplies for the touch up. Simple!! Once home we unwrapped our cool painting stuff. Brushes, paint tray, tape, you know the stuff. Excited, we opened the very large drum of paint. I forgot to mention we took the existing labled paint cans to one of the aforementioned home stores and had them mix up a fresh new batch of the same paint. That way we would have a great big, several gallon, container of all the touch up paint we would need. Save us a trip to the store. Back to our excitement. We unwrapped our paint things, opened the paint can and poured the paint into the tray and then started our little touch-up party. The paint was wet, fresh and glistening on the walls and...wait a minute, gray, not the off-white we were expecting. Matt said, "Oh, it's just dark now that it's wet, it will lighten up when it dries." Fine, so we continue to paint every single tiny smudge in the whole living room and hall way area. We went to bed that night pleased with our efforts yet unsure that once the paint dried it would be the right color. In the morning our wet gray paint had dried into a beautiful shade that I will call murky shadows. It was simply...haunting. Very creepy. Especially when the light changed around 5 p.m. each night and cast an even bigger shadow to our patchy haunted murky shadows. How fun was that. Then I decided I wanted to paint the walls an actual color since it was obvious that we would have to repaint the touched up areas. So a few colors later we have settled on Sand. Matt chose the color after I made a few color blunders on my own (too dark. :) I think we are pleased thus far with the look of our sand paint. We stayed up until 2-3 a.m. last night to get the majority of the work done. We need to apply another coat of paint to the walls and then paint the trim and we will be finished with the living room and hallway. A friend in the ward has offered to come over and help us wrap things up. We appreciate that as we are a little tired of painting and could use a few pointers. All in all it has been a good/frustrating/good experience. I am very happy to have color on the walls now.

Kids
I wish I could extend my days. I never seem to have enough time for what I love the most in this world. Time to sit with my family and do the things that create those warm and fuzzy feelings. I have however noticed a special superhero power that surfaces every now and again. I seemed to have this little thing (holy ghost) tapping me on the shoulder each day to remind me to slow down and just feel. Stop thinking and start feeling my way through the day. When I do this the super hero power comes out. Tears are melted away. Bad behaviour is replaced with smiles. Babies laugh. I cry. When I take the time to slow down and listen to the spirit as it helps me understand the needs of my children. I read to them and it seems to renew my energy. I sing to and with my five year old and am filled with his joy and spontaneity. I cuddle and rock Spencer my 10 month old baby and I am overwhelmed with the love I have for his gentle and fun little personality. Suddenly and wonderfully, my world is changed if only for a while. Every thing seems to be bathed in gold and our home becomes a bit of "Heaven on Earth". I am going to try and conduct an experiment. I want to see how long I can get the feeling to stay in our home. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually help create an enviroment in my home that enabled this feeling to permeate our days. WOW! I have found in my life that just beneath the layer of work, intense strategy, meals, laundry, discipline and stress lies an incredible gift, a buffer of sorts, that takes the harsh and trying things of my world and transforms my feelings, attitudes and even my view of life so that I feel as if I am looking through the lenses of Heaven. I am grateful for my discovery and truly hope that I can tap into this more often for my sake and for the sake of my family that I love so very much.

Time
Do you ever feel like there isn't enough time for all you want to do in life. I have been thinking about learning a new skill. Time only permits the learning of one skill at a time it seems. I could learn to sew that would be fun, I would love to scrapbook. Scrapbooking is especially apealling to me since the time I spend with my kids each day is so precious, if I can physically capture it in a way I can look over once the day is past it feels as if life acually happened. I suppose this blog could serve that purpose. I want to take singing lessons. I have always wanted to do that. What about dancing? The list of things I am interested in is endless. This is one of my big struggles each day. It is difficult for me to make choices when there are so very many good options..

It has been a good week and a good day. I am writing this after yet another Sunday that I sat and admired all the wonderful people in my life who show me a better way by there example. I love Sundays. I learn what I need for the upcoming week and I can reflect on the past week. I am with friends and family that I love and can even go to bed early.