itsawonderfilledlife

“Time to take chances, make mistakes, get messy,” said Ms. Frizzle every day in our house, when the kids were younger.

I wonder who learned Ms. Frizzle’s motto better, the kids, or me?

For the past week and a half I have been living her motto, although not in the area of Science, but the area of home renovations. This is always a perfect way for me to start my summer break. I have the opportunity to get creative, and to get projects that have been taking up head space done and filed away.

This year I started with the room our ‘faux daughter’ (International student) occupied for the past two years. She is off to a different school, in a different city in the fall, so all of her belongings were moved out … then the work began. Furniture moved out and sold (thank-you craigslist), walls needed to be washed, sticky ‘stuff’ scrubbed away, nails removed, paint touched up, ceiling re-oiled, and edges of the carpet cleaned. Once it was all clean and fresh, hubby moved his office furniture in, so as to have a private place to work, as he often works from home.

Then the pièce de résistance, the remodel of the basement bedroom into a new, more private (for she and we …) space for our almost twenty-one year old (is that really possible?).

I started with the very outdated bathroom. The cabinet (as old as our thirty’ish year old home) got a fresh coat of paint, as did the walls and door. Still to come is a new sink and toilet, then a really good floor scrubbing!

Next was the bedroom. The carpet was rolled up (to be moved into the room our daughter will be vacating), as was the under-pad. The walls cleaned, cracks filled, floor swept. Then the primer and paint were applied to the walls, and now the floor is littered with baseboards and moldings that will be installed after the laminate.

Each day ends, and I am dirtier, more messy than the day before. I haul my tired butt up the stairs, scrub all of my 2000 body parts, then fall into bed, where I drift off to an exhausted, dreamless sleep-land. Then I awake the next morning, feeling the presence of more muscles than I ever thought I had before, and do it all over again.

And I love it!

I get to create.

I get to redeem the old, the broken, the ugly.

I get to bring life to the dull, the faded, the hidden.

I get to spend my hours listening to music and speakers whose messages speak into my tired heart, mind and soul.

I get to feel real, well-earned, physical fatigue.

I get to get messy … then see the difference that a good cleaning will do (after-all cleanliness IS next to godliness, right?).

As I awoke the other day, I realized how very rested, how very revived and refreshed I felt from this process. Perhaps more of us should try ‘getting messy’ when the stuff of life takes over our thoughts and sleep.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might”
Ecclesiastes 9:10

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