Right now I’m sitting in my office surrounded by paperwork, random props, cameras, a shredder, and some party supplies.  It is so not classy.  But cleaning it isn’t even on my to-do list today.  Why?  Let me back up for a second.

At the end of October we bought our first home.  I’ve had a Pinterest board titled “Future Home” for awhile now, so I was beyond excited to make some of those dreams come to life!  We signed on a Tuesday morning & I went straight to the hardware store to buy paint and had the dining room painted by that evening.

It was awesome.  With a lot of help from friends, we got the living room, nursery, and hallway painted before we moved everything in three days later.

Then everything went downhill.  The day after we moved our stuff, Josh had a wedding in Washington, DC, three hours away.  For the next several [very cold] months we got very little done around the house.  Six months later, we still don’t have anything hanging on the walls in our dining room.  It looks exactly like it did the day we moved in!

How depressing is that?

And don’t even get me started on my office.  I finally painted it in January & made an awesome chalkboard wall.  It was exciting, but I had this one Craigslist piece that I’d bought earlier to paint & use as an organization system.  Where was it?  Sitting in the garage with dirt and chipped paint all over it.  I’d started sanding it and realized it was a gigantic job, so I stopped.

But last week changed something.  It was warm outside.  And if you live in Hampton Roads, or anywhere on the eastern seaboard, then you know that this was a light at the end of a very cold, wintery tunnel.  In a matter of two days I completely finished painting the giant bookshelf, several frames, and a stool.

That’s when I realized… it’s not just me being a slacker. There is a time to do everything, & the time just wasn’t right.  I’d been beating myself up all winter because I hadn’t drug a 6 foot bookshelf out into the yard and painted it in the middle of a snowstorm.  In fact, I actually painted it on the first day that was even warm enough!  Instead of being behind, I was on top of it!

I wasted so much time thinking about that dumb bookshelf and how to paint it in the garage and not get paint on everything else.  I’d contemplated just scrapping it and buying something that didn’t need to be painted.  I wasted time. I beat myself up for it, thinking I was lazy.

So that brings me back to my office.  Today, I could beat myself up about it being a mess or I could accept it.  Yes, it’ll be cleaned up soon enough, but today it is much more important to serve my clients.  Some days there is less work and it’s a great time to clean an organize, but that’s just not today.

PS: I can’t wait to finish the office and show it off!!