One week down...

Four days til Chris is HOME! We get to have him for a couple days and then send him off again for a couple weeks.  It's crunch time! The Digital Signage Expo is this month, which means he's BUSY!
Being busy makes the days go by faster.  I learned this the past week, among other things.  I think I may have also found my personal limit. I realized "I cannot do it all."
I thought I was being so smart by taking on a few extra projects to keep me busy-you know, to make the days go by faster, and then quickly realized I was stupid for thinking I could do it all.
Sunday night I had a client deliver a dining room table and six chairs. They wanted them back in a week.
Monday was rainy and sunny in five minute increments and I couldn't strip the table down for fear it would swell or get wet. SO- I had a couple of my favorite people come over so we could work on a project for church. I was cutting the vinyl for a New Beginnings project. Easy enough. I made a trip to Home Depot for all the supplies I needed for the table and chairs.
Tuesday- I started stripping down the table- I used a belt sander and it was FUN! I also had my sis-in-law over to watch the boys and help around the house while I kept busy.  I spent a good part of the day working on the chairs and continuing to sand the table.
Wednesday- I was well on my way to getting all the chairs and table legs painted. Around 9:45, Ezra was bugging me for popcorn and because I was holding a wet paintbrush and anxious to finish the chairs, I let him have popcorn, which the microwave promptly burned and I ended up taking it out to the chickens. That's when I noticed our goat, Princess, was in the first stages of labor. I spent the rest of the afternoon being a goat midwife, delivering baby goats with one hand and holding my phone in the other so Chris could watch the action via video conference.  It was pretty amazing. I never did get back to the table and chairs, since I was up ALL night worried that the baby goats were freezing to death outside in the cold- and because I was sharing my bed with two snoring, teeth grinding, hacking-up-a-lung little boys. 
Thursday- Ezra stayed home from school with a fever. Kleven got a fever too.  I worked feverishly on the chairs. The antiquing process was taking longer than the paint job. Sis-in law saved me from insanity once again. We went to Olive Garden for Maylee and Skylar's b-day dinner, came home and I went right back to the garage to finish sanding the table.
Friday- Both boys home, both really sick.  I worked on the chairs between cutting Valentine vinyl and the lumber that went with it, and eventually got around to putting the first coat of stain on the table.  I was literally running up the stairs to the vinyl cutter and downto the table in the garage with a stain laden brush in my hand. The table looked awful. I used a pre-stain conditioner and it still wouldn't absorb evenly. It looked like tiger stripes.  I sent a panicked email to the owners and started praying HARD that I could get it to work and then cried.  That night, I loaded up the car and headed over to a Valentine craft party- the one I had cut all the wood and vinyl for. I went with wet hair and no makeup, after sending another email to the table owners that there was no chance I was letting them have their table the way it was.
Saturday- I was working on chairs as soon as the sun came up. Kleven asked me why I would choose to spend time on furniture and not with him.  I cried again. Then I told him that it was mom's work, and I was doing it to make money so we could do fun things. He asked if "fun things" involved the pet store, I assured him it did, and then he forgave me. I tried a second coat of stain. And then I went looking for matches, cuz I was gonna torch the whole dang table.
Sunday- Mom and Carson came and watched my sick boys so I could go to sacrament meeting at church. I needed that more than I thought I did. And when I got home, I worked on the chairs. Sunday night we went to my mom's for dinner and Maylee's b-day cake. I cried some more to my dad about the dang table.
Today's Monday.  After picking up kids from school, and running to a RS meeting, I'm continuing work on the table.  I need to go get more stain and we're running low on groceries. I'm sure it doesn't sound like it, but I'm grateful for the trials I've had this week.  I've learned that I really can't do it all, but that I CAN do a lot. I'm also grateful for a few fellow bloggers for getting me through this week.
If you're in need of some inspiration yourself, go read this:  www.jonesdesigncompany.com/feature/time/