Organization & Reality Check

So I was all set and ready to tell you about my past week.  I have been so sick...in bed most days only to go to the doctor and after a chest x-ray be told that I have a virus.  Ugh.  Today I am feeling better.  The last two days I have been organizing our home.  My kids are now in charge of the toilets, counters (bath & kitchen), emptying the plastic items and silverware from the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, setting the table, wiping mirrors, cleaning out the cars, wiping down the table -- every day.  What does that leave for me...laundry, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, laundry, etc.  I have found myself with extra time and I have done things this week...like clean my fridge out entirely...you could lick any part of my fridge and not die.  I have put the buffet in the bay window in the formal living room, added a drawer unit to the dining room, covered the dining table with a kid-proof table cloth and given my kids a place to color, use stickers, scissors and play dough.  They love it!  Why didn't I surrender years ago?  Well..I am so glad that I have now.

This drawer unit is SO CUTE the kids & I decorated it with stickers!  (click on the photo to see it more clearly).

The table is ADORABLE thanks to a $4 vinyl Spring table cloth from Wal*Mart.  I duct taped the edges, used an upholstry needle and yarn and secured it so it will not move or rotate while the kids do art and other fun things here in our dining room.

I was going to tell you all that and then I read my Aunt Heidi's blog about my Aunt Kitti's recent trip to Haiti.  It was sobering.  Children not sure how to go on without parents and without limbs.  A hospital she has volunteered in on several occasions used to have 70 beds and now has FOUR HUNDRED!!!  Patients have no where to go and no one to go to.  I can go on about laundry but I have a home, a washer and dryer and people in my life to care for.  I've been busy getting organized and not so far away there are those in utter chaos.  Real chaos the kind that changes lives forever.  I didn't want to make dinner tonight. But I have food in my pantry, my garage, my boys' room, under beds, in the fridge and freezer.  There are those out there who don't know when they will eat again.

None of this is new.  People suffer all over the world.  It just makes me appreciate how much I have SO MUCH more!

May God bless all those who suffer, who hunger, who are lonely.