The Gift for Getting Things Done

I have been in a melancholy mood lately. Maybe I am tired. You know those days you want to eat worms and moan "Oh me.I am the only one who does anything around here" song. As a kid I remember my mother reading to us before bedtime. She never read those "Once upon a time" fairy tales, or "and they all lived happily ever after" myths. Instead she read stories like "The Little Engine that Could." One of her favorites was"The Little Red Hen" who went from friend to friend asking "Who will help me make the bread?" The old "If you don't work,you don't eat story!" Or she would read "The Three Little Kittens" to us. How I loved those little kittens. But I cringed when we got to the part where the mother cat scolded them for loosing their mittens! "You bad little kittens. You lost your mittens.Then you shall have no pie!" Meow! Meow! Meow!

My husband says I have a gift for getting things done. Making dinner, keeping a clean house, etc. but let me tell you it is nota gift, but hard work! Or maybe my work ethic is a gift. A gift given to me from my hard working parents who grew up duringWorld War ll.So why do I find myself getting mean and tired?Running from task to task trying to keep up with three dogs and a dirty floor. Like the Little Gingerbread Man. "Run, run! As fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man!" But remember how that story ended? Gulp! He does get caught, and by a sly fox. The tyranny of the chores can be that sly fox.

I need to find a healthy balance between my overactive German genetics and reality. Who wants to live with a mean women in a clean house? The seven dwarfs in Snow White had it right. "Whistle while you work!...and when there's no work to do, don't let it bother you." What? No work to do? Now that is a fairy tale.