Smithfully: the golden goose

I almost named this post "to blessed to be stressed," but then I remember that I seriously dislike those kinds of platitudes and cliche sayings. So I didn't. But in reality, that's kind of how I feel. Like, I'm totally grateful for this house and space but I'm also so totally overwhelmed and stressed. And my brain is like, stop being stressed because things are good, lady! Remember how you begged for this dang house for ~~months~~ years? But then my eyes see the stuff in the boxes and the empty rooms and the mint green paint in the kitchen and I'm reminded of how much work there is ahead of us.

I have always lacked patience. It may be my worst quality. (If you have another suggestion for "my worst quality," kindly keep it to yourself. I'm not impatient for that information.) My utter lack of patience is the reason why I have trouble sticking with diet & exercise plans. It's why I have trouble finishing my scrapbooks. It's why when I do chores, I wander off and start working something else before I finish the first thing, all the while being exasperated that nothing is finished. In short: I like results and I like them quickly.

Ideally, moving day would have gone something like this:

All of the boxes are packed perfectly and labeled. All of the purging of the useless junk has been done - by someone other than me - and hence there is nothing in the perfect boxes that lacks purpose and meaning. Everything was dusted and polished before being boxed up. The books were organized by genre and then alphabetized. You get the picture. The friendly movers move all of these boxes and furniture into the house, and Wes and I share a bottle of wine and smile knowingly at each other in our new home. Then, a quirky coming-of-age song plays over a montage of us unpacking boxes, laughing while putting away dishes, raking leaves, painting, putting tile up in the remodeled bathroom, and hanging curtains. At the end of the song, the house looks like a Pottery Barn/Etsy collaboration and absolutely no time has passed in real life.

In reality, moving ~~day~~ weeks have gone like this:

Things are haphazardly thrown into boxes, trash bags, and laundry baskets. Every time a piece of furniture was moved by the movers, seven cubic feet of cat hair emerged. All of our things are coated in a protective layer of dust. Instead of sorting through junk drawers and piles, those are just dumped into giant Ziploc bags to be dealt with at a later date. A closet door is opened and a mover is suffocated by pounds and pounds of cat hair. Despite having already boxed up nine hundred pairs of socks and 14,000 t-shirts, they continue to multiply like Gremlins. The boxes continue to pile up in the house yet there is no furniture in which to put the things that are in the boxes. There is one box filled entirely with cat hair. Six weeks later, I still can't find any socks or baking sheets.

To keep my sanity, I have decided to focus on small things at a reasonable pace. It's seriously hard though, because, you know, patience. I don't have any. At all. But in an effort to give it the 'ol college try, here are some little things that I am really loving: