Have Fun Now

Ok, so last night after reading the "Power of Now" I could not sleep and then thoughts started coming to me - so I grabbed a journal beside the bed and wrote this. I have done some editing, it's close to where I want it.

L. Hull 9/22/08

No time like the present. My new mantra, "have fun now," coined by my daughter is tightly-coupled with that old time sentiment. This past spring while taking on the arduous chore of organizing a 5 year old's room, the awareness came.

We were trying to motivate Mary and ourselves to make some sort of order out of the chaos that her room had become. Needless to say, this was not her idea of a fun way to spend Saturday morning and it wasn't high on my list either.

After much fussing, we tried words of wisdom. "Mary, just stop complaining and start having fun."

Without much attention, she started helping and the whining stopped. Miracle, perhaps not. Conscience decision perhaps.

Mary had written a very simple and inspiring phrase on her chalkboard -- "Have fun now."

That day we were energized by her words.

Days later, Matt took a photo of the chalkboard after he had noticed it was still there. We talked about it and it fueled our creative juices. We realized it was the perfect phrase to adorn our t-shirts for the upcoming pig roast.

We had all intentions on making and selling t-shirts in honor of my father, Kel and donating a percentage to charity in his name. These were good intentions, but we all know where that can lead...So, it never happened and we often talked about - what if...

Present day - our near and dear friend Mike decides to launch an organic t-shirt thing and asks Matt for advice. We kindly advise, but start to ponder our own project and what the heck, it's the anniversary of my father's untimely departure and since there is no time like the present.

We are launching it now, right here and now. Why wait?

Old House

I haven't talked much about the house, but I should. It was built in 1727 and deserves some respect. We love it, it has the style and charm of an old house, but has been so well maintained that non-do-it-ourselfers (which we are) can handle it. Now that's not to say that there's not stuff we need to do or to get done.

Here's a fun one: This is the time of year when I get to start worrying about water in the basement. Hurray. Our first house had that fabulous problem, too, so we buried a nice and expensive and extremely effective dry-basement system into it. It was great. Never had to worry about it again. Problem solved. However, I don't live in that house anymore. And the new house (err, OLD house) has a nice water-in-the-basement problem to deal with. Fabulous. So this will probably be my last Spring of up-and-down the stairs with the wet vac because the peace of mind of having a dry basement - not to mention how that will help preserve the house from water problems in the floors and walls - is tremendous. I just need to part with all the money. Which is not fun to think about.

Oh, and did I mention I probably need a new driveway this year too? And that its about 200 feet long? No? Well chalk that one up to "preservation" as well.

Well doing all this will get me excited for our annual Spring Pig Roast - never too early to start planning for that.