First we Work and Then we Play!

My mother always said, 'First we work and then we play.'  Of course, play back then didn't mean we were going to the amusement park, or even the local park.  It just meant we could quit working.  As you may suspect, I always resented that rule.  She was just trying to get help with her housework.  She was a stay at home mom and wife, so I always felt like it was her job and she wiggled out of it any way she could.

As an adult, I am sorry to say some of those feelings are still with me but not as intensely, because I know she had arthritis in her back and hips. Now that I also have that oh-so-aggravating disease myself, a disease which has no cure and reminds me all the time of it's presence by the pain, I understand why she wanted help.  And, even though it's hard to admit, I'm grateful for the lesson. 

I have to do a bunch of stuff.  It seems one or two days of not doing chores means it's hard to walk thru the house!  And, that's about where I am right now.  So before I go back to making messes at play, I have to go to work to straighten things.

Did you pick up that I make messes when I play?  I do because of another thing I learned from my mother, but one that's more fun, being creative.  Painting, making stuff and activities that cause messes are my idea of play.  Today, some of my work will feel a bit more like play. 

We bought a kitchen cart yesterday.  While I was shopping I had to sit down, because of my arthritis.  That's when I saw the cart.  And, I realized all my paints and maybe papers and canvases could fit in the cabinet, paint rag on the towel bar, brushes and pencils in the drawer, rulers in the knife slots, and the cutting board top could be a work table, which can be extended about a foot if I need the space!  And, the whole thing can be rolled from room to room, to wherever I want to work!

I'm filling my new cabinet and clearing out lots of smaller and ill fitting pieces of furniture from my house.  It's gonna be so nice.  But first, I have to do those dishes, make that bed, wash some clothes and etc. and then I can do the work-play.  It's gonna be a good day.  Hope yours is as well.