He said yes!

Because our landlord is the bomb, he let me paint. I love love love it. It's exactly what I envisioned. You can't quite decide if it's blue or green. It looks like a robin's egg color. It's crisp and refreshing.

After a long day of painting, and a longer day yesterday planing, I am pooped.

My poor husband is hoping that I can perk up for our date tonight.

I was pondering on why it's so important to me that my house is beautiful, but I care so little if I am beautiful. What I mean is, I shower on a need-to basis. I almost never do my hair. My toenails get painted once every 3 months. I don't mind if my clothes are completely average. I feel very comfortable in no make-up. Spending $20 on a flattering shirt puts me in a guilt crisis. However, if it's for my house, I drop $20 without even blinking. I consider the time spent doing my hair as wasted, but spending the better part of my day doing some beautification of my house seems like I'm pampering myself and like a necessity at the same time.

I think the reason is, my house kind of feels like my job. Some women are pharmacists or yoga instructors, or construction workers, and they come home and make dinner and bathe children, just like I do. But I stay home. So what do I do with all that time? I stay home to teach my children personally, create more time for us to spend together as a family, consistently eat healthy delicious food, and design our home to be our retreat. My job is to make my home a calm and meaningful place for my family to be. I believe that it is easier to feel the Spirit and to feel love if you are in a beautiful and clean place. Most of the time the beautification process and clean don't happen at the same time, so I try to switch off. Have a clean day, have a project day.

Also, I've decided that the girl's minds need to be more stimulated, so for the past month I've been spending 30 minutes with them individually teaching them things. Lucy is learning how to correctly hold a crayon and is learning sounds of letters. Maggie is learning how to read and do simple math. We've learned about butterflies and experimented with finger paint. We've learned how to control our crayons and color in the lines. Lucy is learning position words, and Maggie is learning to recognize numbers up to 20.

I think I feel energized and creative if I'm surrounded by color and pattern. And I'm trying to decorate in things that are meaningful to our family that will remind us of our family history, and of our faith, and of our love for each other. So I am expending a lot of energy, that Paul usually thinks is unnecessary, but I consider of the greatest importance.

And that's why if you come to my house, and I look rat nasty, and my house looks beautiful, I will be very comfortable.