NO Excuses Thursday

So just after I got all the kids fed this morning and just before I started "Kill Yourself"--I mean "No Excuses" Thursday, I walked down to the mailbox and got the mail.  JC Penny's sent me an envelope that said: "JC Penny knows what you need today!  Look inside!" in bright red letters.  I looked inside.  Turns out, JC Penny's does NOT know what I need.

What I need is about 5 muscley cute guys in tight jeans who want to paint all of the trim in my house, wash windows, and fold laundry for FREE.  What JC Penny's thought I needed was 10% off my entire purchase on my next JC Penny's shopping spree, paid for with the 28.9% APR credit card for which I was pre-approved.  This is why I don't shop at JC Penny's.  They never have what I need.

But, since this is the day of the week when I pledged to get things done on the Summer List, here's what got done:  the mantel, 2 window casings +trim, and 4 doorways painted, all of the downstairs windows and their casings/trim washed, all of the curtains in the house washed and re-hung, the entire downstairs vacuumed, including the kitchen because by that point I was too tired to sweep and I have a Dyson and those babies can vacuum up cars so what's a little spilled dog food, two smelly boys' mattresses aired out, 2 old TVs stored in the garage because my husband tells me he's going to take them to the dump and I'm going to pretend that I believe him, and two boys' bed frames painted.  My husband will come home and not even notice.  Bet me.  And, yes mother, some of the curtains were ironed.  I intentionally buy curtains that don't need to be ironed; but if they do I figure that if they hang on the rod long enough, eventually gravity will pull those wrinkles right out.

Today did make me realize how easy one of my favorite literary villains had it.  Oh to be Ms. Habersham (of Great Expectations), a woman who, I guarantee, never even looked at a paint brush or a broom, let alone washed and ironed curtains.  Some women don't know how good they have it.

And I feel like I worked  my butt off, but it's still there, along with the cellulite.  I had thought that I would run off some of that cellulite in that marathon, but when I pointed out afterward that it was still all there, my husband told me that I had to run more than one marathon a year to affect cellulite; so I guess I stopped eating those Cosmic Brownies for nothing.  I gave them up for an entire week while I was in training for that race--they are usually my breakfast of motherly champions.  I even let Rocket eat the last one, even though she reminded me that I had told her that I was cutting her off.  My son just came in and said, "ooh what is that, scar tissue?  I hope my legs never get to look like that!"  He was talking about the cellulite on the Polish lady thighs that I seem to have inherited.  I don't think there is anything physically good about getting older.

I used to hate Mondays.  Now Mondays are looking pretty good next to Thursdays.