​           We should all take lessons from a cat. Not an evil cat, I mean a lovable, furry, wants to snuggle with you every night kind of cat. They rest more throughout the day than anything else. Theyrely on their owner for everything and they love them unconditionally. Who doesn’t want to rest all day and get free food!? 
            I can be a pretty restless person. Even when I take a day to just do nothing but sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix, my mind is going a hundred miles a minute. But my cat, Pinky? No, he just lays by me, looks at me with those loving eyes and does not have acare in the world. As I mentioned in the last blog, I can get obsessed with certain things, like house remodels. It is hard for my mind to rest which makes it hard for my body to rest. And as humans, we all need to relax a little more. The world today is so fast paced. How can you take the time to enjoy anything?

​            I have been struggling with this for quite some time, but my true colors showed when I worked on my first upholstered chair. I would be at work for 11 hours, finally get home and want to just crash on the couch. But my mind? No, my mind was pushing and pulling. “Why are you so lazy? You can’t sit around! There is so much to do.” I could not find my peace and it was starting to get tiring.  
            One Saturday, I thought to myself, “Today is the day I am going to pull the old chair out of the garage where it has been sitting for 2 years and refinish it!” And when I said today in my mind, I was thinking that I could actually get it done in a day. This no stop, do as much as you can world has brainwashedme to think that if I can’t get it done in a certain amount of time, I have failed. Let’s just say it took a little longer than a day to make the chair beautiful again!
            I realized in a lecture I heard, that God does not want us to feel like this. He does not mean for us to be anxious and beat ourselves up until we get the work done. He wants us towork from a place of rest. We need to work to find our inner peace before we can enjoy doing our life’s works. Think about it. Even the things you love to do the most, ifyou are rushed and you are telling yourself you will never be good enough to make this look right or work, are you really loving what you do? 

​           The old chair was from a neighbor who was throwing them out. Even though the cushions were completely deflated, I could not stand the thought of those beautiful wood frames going into a landfill. I knew that I could figure out how to upholster and I was so excited to go fabric shopping! On that Saturday, I got the chair out, and starting pulling it apart. The ripping of the fabric and old padding was fun. But then came the staples. There were so many staples to rip out! This was a challenge and I started getting restless inside. “This is taking forever”, I thought to myself. I just wanted to get to the making it pretty part!
            Thinking about it, I am a lot like my cat. He can get a bit feisty at times and attack when I am least expecting it. Our human minds can do the same thingto us. We can be so happy to start our little projects, but if something doesn’t go our way or if it is taking too long, we get all riled up, angry, and stressed. 
            There were times when I just had to walk away and take a break from the project. I was not in the proper state of peace to be enjoying the work. However, once the clean up part was done, I was ready to paint! I love painting so much. It is one of those things that I can just get lost in. I cut the fabric and got my staple gun ready. It was even therapeutic to attach the fabric to the chair. Looking back, this was quite the roller coaster of a project!

​             Once the fabric was on, I got some ribbon and upholstery nails to finish it off. This was the hardest part of the whole project. To hammer the nail perfectly straight took much concentration. I was hunched over for 2 hours trying to get those nails in just right! But by the time I was finished, I was so happy and infatuated with the finished product. 
            If I would have been mentally strong enough to stay in my state of peace throughout the whole project, I would have enjoyed it much more. Luckily we all get chances to do things better the next time. God gives us things to do to enjoy doing them, not rush through them just to get to the next thing. We have a whole lifetimeto try new things. I usedto tell myself that if I could just push and get this done, I could rest. But what I didn’t realize at the time was to enjoy life, it is all about resting while you work. Having peace while you go through your day will bring you much more joy in your life. Remember to rest and keep your inner peace so you can enjoy the things you love doing. 

​           House remodels are dirty, hard, fun, exciting, scary, and rewarding. I am a visionary. I can see how I want a room to look before I even tear the wall down. It is a gift and a curse all in one. Have you known what you want, but don’t know how to get it? Have you been imagining your house, relationship, yourself, or your life a certain way, but are so frustrated that you fall short every day? I have been there and I have felt that.
           Remodeling a house has shown many of my talents and many of my flaws. I love creating, painting, and detailing my way through each room. I love mixing colors and textures and old with the new. I love it so much that I am slightly obsessed about house remodels. But remodeling my house has also shown me how impatient I am, how stubborn I can be, and how much self-doubt is in my head. 
           The house remodel started big. We ripped off drywall, tore out the old plumbing and removed the strange closet in the hallwaybetween the bathroom and master bedroom. I am a salvager at heart. My sister and I grew up on our family tree farm learning that you use everything you can, even if it is not for the same purpose. It is why we both love repurposing and refurbishing old junk! Well when we tore out that closet in my house, I wanted to save every last piece of old wood from the shelving that we could. My fiancé Tyler thought I was nuts! “Why do you want to keep old crappy wood?” I didn’t have a purpose for it right then but I knew it would find a new home one day.
           Impatience is something I deal with every day. Which is quite humorous by God. Before I realized how much patience I would need as an adult, I got a tattoo on my back with the bible verse, “Love is Patient, Love is Kind”. A lot of people like 1 Corinthians 13 for weddings or anniversaries, but I found a deeper connection to these words. My reverend growing up gave a sermon that talked about these words. Instead of using all these adjectives to describe love, she asked us to replace it with God. “God is patient, God is kind and he will teach you how to be too”. Such a powerful thought. 
           As I grew more and more impatient with myself each day by going to work and coming home with no energy to keep working on or enjoy working on my house, I turned to painting furniture. Painting is my therapy. As I paint with each stroke, the worries and harsh thoughts about myself get swept away. I found these old side tables at a thrift store down the road from my house and had planned to use them in the guest room we were painting. I knew I wanted to paint them white,but wanted to add some personality to them. I looked around for stuff in my garage and saw the pile of wood from the closet I kept. “Yes”, I thought, “that wood would make a great top for those side tables”.