How I procrastinate

When I was lying in bed this morning, the day stretching endlessly before me, with a Relief Society lesson to plan, a husband gone to work for at least the next 36 hours, another day of the two week wait to endure, and kid #3 begging to be removed from his prison chamber, I had an idea.

I've been struggling with what to do with my playroom for the last few weeks. It's been a big, white, messy expanse since we moved in. A few days ago I decided that I wanted to switch it around a little bit, but the new storage stuff I wanted was going to set us back about $300. I've also been thinking of painting for a few months, but hadn't plucked up the courage to do it.

An hour later we were at Home Depot, buying paint. The kids and I spent the morning rearranging and taping. While Isaac napped and the kids watched Annie, I painted. Here is the result:

I figured that if I do get the happy news I'm hoping for in the next few days, I won't want to paint much for the next nine months (even though I know it's safe, I'm just paranoid like that. And yes, I know that if I end up testing positive in a few days I would have already been pregnant when I did the painting, but I'd rather just worry in retrospect than worry while I'm doing it too). And if I'm not pregnant, I can distract myself in future two week waits by hanging the license plate border (which I'm still collecting), making curtains (I'm thinking a red bandanna print, maybe), and tackling the painting of the entry and upstairs hall.

And how, you may ask, can I paint with little kids underfoot? I am a neglectful mother. I let them watch tv and feed themselves. I cleaned up the paint when Isaac woke up from his nap, and decided to fix the ravages done to the rest of the house while I was occupied. I let the kids out in the yard to play, and it had been raining, and while I was vacuuming, Bryce ran in breathlessly to tell me he and Isaac had found a "swamp" that they were playing in. Instead of rescuing my baby from the swamp, the Bree VandeKamp in me kept vacuuming, then went out in the backyard to retreive the baby from the swamp (which was about 3 inches deep). And while I'm writing this, they're all playing with (Isaac probably eating) play-doh in the kitchen.

But the good news is, the painting occupied my mind for the day, keeping me from obsessing myself into oblivion. I still have three more walls to paint and a lesson to plan to keep me occupied tonight. But by tomorrow, I'll probably be going crazy again.

--originally published 2/25/06