Celtic saying

water lilies by Monet

“Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

For years, I have hammered that saying in my mind. I live with internalized cliches that tell me to expect perfection every time, the first time.  This constant demand for personal perfection does not leave any room for me to be a beginner and learn a new skill or even to be an amateur and learn to love a craft.  Voices of excellence ring in my head saying, “Be the matter great or small, do it well or not at all” (Zig Ziglar).

More often than not, I opt for “not at all” because I can’t “do it well” enough.

What if there was more to excellence than perfection.  What if doing it well means putting your heart into a project and spending your best effort regardless of skill level.  What if excellence is always striving to be better than you were the last time. The practiced concert pianist didn’t become a professional overnight, she got there through practice.  She probably began with chubby toddler hands beating antique ivory keys on an out-of-tune piano, simply delighted with the noise and blissfully unaware of scales, harmony, or Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

She began with noise and eventually learned to peck out “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”  It wasn’t by accident that “Mary Had a Little Lamb” eventually became “Moonlight Sonata”.

What if it was okay to just make noise (even out of tune noise)?  What if it was okay to just throw up some colors on a canvas, or just string words together on a page? The same way that noise became music, colors become Monet’s Water Lilies and words become Romeo and Juliette.

Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Money all knew what I have forgotten anything worth doing is worth practicing on, working at, and doing poorly with enthusiasm.

“When a task is once begun, leave it not until it’s done.
Be a matter great or small, do it well or not at all.”

Right now, my bedroom is more similar to the honeymoon suite in It’s a Wonderful Life than it is to the romantic bed and breakfast we stayed in on our honeymoon in Kitty Hawk 5 years ago.

Instead of thinking about soft wall colors to paint and pretty framed mirrors to hang on the walls, my focus is soft pink fiberglass insulation and drywall to hang on the walls.  Flowers on the nightstand have been exchanged for a baby monitor.  Fluffy rug to sink your toes into first thing in the morning, I’m waiting to get flooring installed over the plywood and then someday we will get to sand and finish that flooring.

Still, Melissa’s article is great.  Her first point is abosolutely on the money–keep it clean.  If the house was clean, the rest is just window dressing.

The enchantment of a bed and breakfast is not the decorations, it’s forgetting the to-do list and focusing on your spouse and yourself (and family if it’s a whole house retreat).  So tonight, I’m going to do my best to ignore the cheerios ground into the living room carpet, Pretend like the mega blocks scattered across the floor are a path of rose petels, light a candle and snuggle with my Honey.  If I ignore the cheerios, he won’t even notice them.

If you need a reminder about attitudes, skip to about 5:45 on this video.  Romance can be found anywhere. It’s all about attitude.

Looking back I can’t believe how much I have gotten rid of.  There are only 2 things that I regret giving away–a denim jacket and a leaded glass window pane.  All in all, the freedom from hundreds of pounds of junk is well worth getting rid of those 2 items along the way.

But my stuff is still holding me back.  When I get to my death bed (many many years from now, Lord willing), I want to look back with no regrets, but I can’t seem to get my act together.  I see my days slipping past like pearls dropping off a string and shattering on the ground.  I’ve wasted too much time trying to get my act together already.  I’m running out of time.

Right now someone is thinking, “You’re still young.  You’ve got plenty of time.”

Either way, I’ve got a lot less time than I did 27 years ago.

At the end of my life, I’m ot likely to say, “I wish I had accumulated more stuff and spent more time cleaning house.”

Decluttering again because when I get the extra stuff out of my way I can get about with this thing called living.

While making apologies for the condition of the house, they say, “Cherish these moments, If you blink you’ll miss it.”  My heart skips a beat and after they leave, I sit in the pile of mega legos dumped in the middle of the floor again, blink three times and say, “There’s no place like college.  There’s no place like college.  There’s no place like college.”  I open my eyes to find screaming baby, dirty diaper and living room covered in toys.

I sigh and get about changing the diaper and putting him down for a nap.  Peace, sweet peace.  It never lasts long enough and just about the time I am unwound and ready to start cleaning he wimpers and wakes.

I go to pick him up out of the crib.  He is holding on to the side rail, not crying just wimpering loud enough so I know he is awake.  I pick him up and groan.  “You are getting so big!” I tell him.  Then I think, “Weren’t you a newborn when I put you down for your nap?”

I spend the rest of the day playing with legos.

trying. not. to. blink.

Psalm 37:7

Last week, on 5 different unrelated occasions that verse came up in my life–Bible study, blog, book, church, (different) book.  The thing is, I have no idea why I am waiting.  I feel like if I were any stiller in life then I would just be stopped, and that’s where I’ve been for most of the past year.

My only prayer right now is that I can be still and wait and that when He comes and it is time for me to move again that I will recognize it when I see it.

After 5 years, I’m still looking for that 1972 velvet sofa.

Losing weight is hard.  Waking up at 4 a.m. so I can get uninterrupted work out time and time for a quick shower after, is hard.  Having tired muscles all day from early morning strength training is hard.  Having your hamstrings so tight that you can’t bend over and pick up cheerios off the floor is hard.   Building new habits and patterns of life is hard.

Self-discipline is hard, but all that stuff goes away quickly.  Losing weight is hard, but staying overweight and unhealthy is even harder.   Risking getting sick with heart disease or diabetes while I am still young isn’t just hard, it is soul crushing.  Wondering if I are going to see your kids and grandkids grow up because I’m not taking my health seriously, that’s hard.  Having to hold back on activities I love is hard.  Ending every hike or workout with a migraine is hard.  Missing out on my baby’s life because of migraines is hard.  Crying through infertility because of PCOS and weight is hard.  That kind of hard doesn’t go away.  That kind of hard is soul crushing, and even after that kind of hard is over, it hurts.

I want this and I am going to give it 100%