It's All Mr. Barefoot's Fault

Really, it is.

It all started when we realised that we couldn't afford for the whole family to go to CA this year. Mr. Barefoot really needed to go. It is the one time out of the year that he gets to see his Dad, and I would never ask him to give that up. But since we just couldn't swing taking the whole family, that meant I was going to be home - alone - once again this spring.

So I started making plans for some of the things I would try to get done while I had time off of work and could sleep regular hours (thereby ensuring a certain level of get-r-donedness). It wasn't that big of a list, really. I just wanted to get the veggie beds going, transplant some hostas, build a patio and a walkway, plant flowers, finish the shed, keep the lawn mowed, get rid of the massive amounts of weeds in our lawn, fix up the fire ring, clean/seal the deck, repaint the railing on the deck, fix some rotten siding, paint the house, get our new shelving unit painted and in place, and clean the house top to bottom.

Oh, and I wanted some time to do some crafty things, too.

Really, is that too much to ask? After all, I had a whole 8 days to do it in.

Well, Mr. Barefoot made some silly comment along the lines of: "I won't even recognise the place when I come home", and that sent the hamster in my brain-case to running overtime.

"Wouldn't it be cool" I thought " if I could really spruce the place up while Mr. Barefoot was away? Wouldn't it be fun to do like those decorating shows where they send folks away for a few days or whatever and totally redo their home to make it a showplace? Wouldn't it be neat to see Mr. Barefoot's face if he really didn't recognise Barefoot Manor as home when he got back?"

So I started working like a madwoman the minute I got home from dropping him off at the airport. Oh, there have been a few minor stalls in the plan. One happened when I intended to haul brick and ended up planting 71 hostas instead. Another glitch came about when Dad (in an effort to help me) spent more time chatting with the lovely Mr. P than I had time for. And, of course, Little Sprout has not been helping. Constant interruptions as she asks "Mommy? Mommy?" with no actual question in sight have not helped my landscaping and home renovation efforts at all. Having to stop working every 10 minutes to figure out where she has run off to has made things tough as well.

But the real issue is that, on those shows, they have teams of folks doing the work. It's not just one lone Barefoot Mommy trying to do all the work on her own little self. There are, like, LOTS of folks working on those shows. Someone is painting while someone else is building while a third person is sewing curtains. I can't do all those things at once, no matter how hard I try.

So I am trying to be calm about this whole thing, and take it one day at a time. All the projects do not need to be done all at once. Everything does not need to be perfect by Friday at 6pm.

But I wish it could be.