FlyLady's and Favorite Nights

It is back to the real world today....as if getting poked with needles and cut with sharp instruments wasn't real enough. It is back to work and back to moving forward with my life. A friend whom I met through another friend (Melissa) has turned out to be a great source of both encouragement and motivation for me recently. As you might remember she was the one who suggested I run in the River Run and she has also given me the motivation to start organizing my life. (I would say my house....but who am I kidding? We all know I need a full life overhaul). I guess I must thank my blog reader Angie too for suggesting I clean out my bedroom closet. It kind of got me on a roll.

I have decided to start with small jobs (note I said "small") that I really hate. I have always found in my life if I do the stuff I really don't like first.....then I stay more motivated and the other stuff just falls into place. This week I am going to work on organizing paperwork and pictures. These are two things I despise and both seem to clutter my life and suffocate me. Once they are all gone through and sorted.....then I hope to organize everything in a way that won't get me into this situation yet again.

Melissa introduced me to a site called TheFlylady.net (I will blog more about this later) but in essence.,...The Flylady gives you no nonsense advice on how to get organized. One of her selling points for me was her emphasis on decluttering 15 min. a day. Now even on my worst day (usually) I can find 15 min. to do some small decluttering job. And while 15 min. may not seem like a lot....before you know it....you will have spent half an hour getting organized....and then an hour. And if you think about it, an hour is actually quite a chunk of time and the results can really surprise you. The way I look at it.....every 15 min. I declutter puts me 15 min. closer to an actually organized home. Perhaps by December my home will be clutter free!!!!!

So today begins day 4 of the 30 Day Challenge. Wow how time flies.

Day 04 - A picture of your favorite night.

A favorite night? Hmmmm.....by the time you reach my age.....there have been literally too many to pick from and some by now, I have probably forgotten. And since I didn't come from the age of picture phones and digital camera's and didn't get to take pictures every time I took a breath, today's challenge maybe a little photo challenged. 

I can however think of some favorite nights. My wedding night (for obvious reasons) and for the fact that I had finally found the man I truly wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The night Wesley was born. He was the only one of my kids born at night. There was a lot of pain involved....but seeing his beautiful face made the pain so worth it and in the end.....the pain was all but forgotten.

There were the nights my husband and I sat on the front porch drinking coffee and watching the kids play in the yard. The nights where my friends and I in our youth had great fun dragging Douglas (a great but no longer allowed drag street in Wichita) or going to river parties. There were nights when my mother would turn off the tv and have my brother and I do skits and sing songs to entertain her. And there were sleepless nights with a crying baby where I would walk the floor exhausted but happy knowing that I loved the little bundle in my arms and that I had the BEST job in the world. I was Mama!

Another favorite night has always been Christmas Eve. On those cold, dark nights when the world is silent and the star shines brightly....you can almost feel what the wise men felt when they too saw that star and knew instinctively that a miracle waited at the end of their journey. This for me is the true meaning of Christmas. 

And how about those summer nights when the moon is full and anything seems possible. Many is the night that I have sat on the tailgate of a truck and watched the moon lighten the dark. I have always felt that the moon was about dreams and often I have made plans and dreams under its white/yellow glow.

Finally though....my favorite night is the stormy one. There is electricity in the air....literally. There is an excitement that comes with storms (at least for me).....especially the ones early in the spring. It gets your pulse racing as the clouds form, the thunder roars and the lightening dances about. Perhaps it is the unexpected nature of the storm or the sheer force that often comes with the storm that makes me want to watch and hide all at the same time. Whatever the case.....I long for spring with all her beauty and fierceness.

So these are my favorite nights. As you can see......I have trouble just picking one....but in a life well lived (which is what I am striving for) you will always have more than one favorite night!