Good Intentions

I look around me in my study and I see good intentions all around. I see coupons saved from the daily paper that are piled up, waiting to save my family hundreds of dollars on groceries and eating out at restaurants. Too bad they have expiration dates that happen to be back in 2010 and 2009 and 2008...

I have menus printed off the internet, meal plans purchased from online stores, cookbooks from all over the place, recipes cut out of magazines, shared with me by friends and family...all intended to help me to nourish my family and myself with a variety of foods. Not to mention the diet plans and diet cookbooks and diet tips and lifestyle change ideas and healthy snack ideas....to aid in my 20+ year  battle with my weight.

I see blank cards...thank you cards, birthday cards, congratulations cards, sympathy cards...all there so I can let someone know I am thinking about them at good or bad times in their life.

I also glimpse piles of cards received...for Christmas, graduations, birthdays...cards I can't part with because they contain the handwriting of people who are no longer with us...or they contain a heartfelt message for me or for one of my kids or for Brad...or they contain a picture of friends and family we don't see often or not at all anymore.

I take a look at the several storage pieces that house my scrapbooking supplies. These things were purchased intended to help me stay on top of the memories my family has created in pictures, artwork, stories...

I have many tools and aids for the kitchen housed in my study because they just don't fit in the kitchen. Crockpots, George Foreman grill, breadmaker, popcorn maker, fondue set, wine glasses...and much more...all things that have helped me feed large crowds or just our family or make meals for friends or entertain or actually have a business selling kitchen stuff (the amount of Pampered Chef stuff housed in my study is slightly ridiculous).

All around me...good intentions.  All of this stuff is not meant to stress me out, or to stress my husband out (which is absolutely does).  Instead, most of it has been the attempts of a woman, mother, wife, daughter, sister, niece, grandaughter, friend...to preserve the memories of her family...to save money...to give to others...

What I realize as I write this, is that this room is me. I am full of good intentions...and yet I fail.  I have all of this stuff inside of me and it's a mess. I am so hard on myself because I want it to all be in order...I want it to all make sense...the stuff in the room and me.

There is much about my life that I am happy and proud about. But this room in my house has been a burden...a room where we shut the door so nobody can see it when they come over...a constant reminder of how much I try and fail at things. And now, the revelation that perhaps the room is a reflection of me...I am full of good intentions but so cluttered and burdened that I just want to shut the door so nobody else can see the mess that I am.

I guess this is why I write this darn blog.  I really had no idea what I was going to write when I sat down at the computer in this room full of stuff. Yet somehow, out of my musings, I may have figured out that it's not only the room that needs to be put in order. Wouldn't it be good if this is the day?

Someone shared this song today...and I think somehow this songwriter was inside of my head.

Well you didn't wake up this morning 'cause you didn't go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red
The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters
You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days

You pull back the curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place

You could've done anything, if you'd wanted
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together like glue

You pull back the curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place

This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change....

                     This is the Day by The The