Dear Jason,


Twenty-eight years ago today I was born, and you were three months old. There was no way that we could have known what God had planned for us.

But it was good.

Love,
Eleanor

On a scale of 0 to 10 ...

Hello. My name is Eleanor, and I'm a distracted messie.

I don't really know how this happened, or when my family first noticed it. I suppose it's hereditary.
I first learned to recognize it when my mother gave me a book -- one that I think she had been given herself -- called, "The Messie's Manual." In its chapters I found descriptions of myself, nodded my head, and even laughed out loud. I'd never before known that my problem was so common.

I don't think my father is a true "cleanie;" he probably falls in the "4-6" group on the given scale of 0 to 10. "0" = disaster, "10" = perfection. They say "0-1"s don't even come to a Messies Anonymous seminar. They don't care enough to want to change. "7-9"s are cleanies; there is really no need for them to attend a seminar like that. It's the "2-3"s that need help. Although, "4-6"s sometimes come to learn and get a little better.

To be brutally honest, I actually fall into more than one category of messie. I think it was 3 or 4. Yikes. But "distacted messie" is the one Jason and I laugh the most about. I've come a long way since I've been married, believe me. In fact, I have a mental list of things I want done around the house each week, and I'm really good about getting them all done. Well, I was before I became pregnant. But like I say, I was pretty proud of my progress.

Lately one child or another has been waking up in the middle of the night, and sometimes I have trouble going back to sleep. After being up for an hour and a half last Saturday, I decided to get out of bed at 5 in the morning. I figured I could pick up some toys that were scattered in the den, start some laundry, and maybe even wash the dishes I was too tired to tackle the night before. I started out well enough in the den. But when Jason walked out to see what had become of me a few minutes later, I felt a little sheepish.

"I couldn't sleep, so I came out here to pick up a little bit. But then I saw this book I've started and realized that I hadn't read the forward yet, and I really wanted to . . ."

Are you beginning to understand what a distracted messie is?

Vanity sale: $3-$30,000

*Here you go, Heather! :)


Yesterday I was driving alone in my car to Wal-Mart. The "alone" part of that sentence is rare enough, but I was also sporting a new haircut and a scarf Jason brought me from Israel. I was feeling pretty good. Pretty stylish. Even evniable, you might say.

I stopped at a red light and noticed a red convertible on the other side of the intersection. And it occurred to me that I didn't need one. I was pretty sure I felt just as amazing as that guy did in his costly car with just my $18 haircut. Or with just my $3 scarf.

Maybe that's a guy thing, I thought. Needing to spend lots of money to feel important, instead of just having a new hair style or a new accessory.

Until I drove past and saw that the driver was a woman.