finite speck

This past weekend we started painting our house white. Our home is a ranch so it shouldn't take too long to do, but it looks like it's going to be 3 coats, so along with having three little kids, it may take a while to get done. We did get most of the entire back of the house covered in 2 coats of paint over the weekend. We'll probably tackle painting more this coming weekend. It's amazing the difference a color can make in a house. We're going from a fairly dark blue to white and it looks way different.

I got a new grill. A Blackstone. We splurged a little on this one. It's not a smoker, or charcoal, or really gas. It's more like a giant outdoor griddle. It reminds me of how they do burgers at Steak n' Shake. It does use gas, but the gas heats the plate/griddle instead of the flame heating the food directly. We had our first burgers on it last night and they were awesome. I'm looking forward to trying different things out on it. It cooks really fast once it's heated up. It's also super easy to clean since it's one flat surface and there's a hole in the back where you can scrape anything into that's remaining when you're done.

Thank you for the rain last night and this morning to water the crops and to cause plants to grow. Thank you for my family who I will get to spend time with this afternoon for Mother's Day. Thank you for a kid that crawled in my bed with us last night when there was a huge thunder boom. Thank you for a wife that takes such good care of our family. Thank you for a cup of coffee this morning and a warm blanket. Thank you for an easy way to record my thoughts. Thank you for grandparents that are still alive and will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in a few weeks. Thank you for family that is super close by that can help out with our kids. God I have so much to be thankful for. Help me to be thankful each day instead of unthankful for the things that aren't the way I might like them. 

I don't watch the news very often or even listen to the mainstream news much, but there have been some very unusual things happening lately. We live in Morton, where houses are flying off the market as soon as they go up for sale. Many times the first time I see a for sale sign it says pending. People are paying way over the asking price and even buying without seeing the property. Another thing that's going on is there are shortages in materials. For example in materials to build cars. So most dealerships have very few cars for sale right now. Manufacturers are having to shut down because they can't get certain parts in order to build. I can't help but wonder where all of this is going to end up.

Will we ever be back in the office all the time? It's been over a year and I'm still working from home. Hey, I'm not complaining. It's been really good overall, but I do miss interacting with my team. I'm wondering if we'll eventually be back in the office or at least have a schedule where we go into the office a couple times a week. I never would have thought I'd be working from home where I work for a company. Freelancing, yes. That's pretty normal, but not when you work for a company where most people work at the office. Today I'm heading into the office for the day. It's been a while since I've been at the office for a full day. And I may do it tomorrow as well. They needed helping packing kits for a marketing program around flagging crops that we put together last month that's been hugely successful. Our print vendor that's fulfilling the kits can find enough temp workers to take care of the demand. So sometimes you've got to

All I've been able to think about lately is what's not getting done. Like how I haven't written on this blog in a while. Or I haven't been running regularly. How I need to get going on building a new website. And I haven't posted anything on social in a while for our vacation rental properties. Then I think about needing to back up my phone... I need to do that. What's the point of listing all these things out in my head though? It feels endless these days. Today I'm writing a blog article. Check. I'm going to run in 10 minutes. Check. I can start making a list of things that need to get done and prioritize them. Check. Not everything has to get done today. But if I can plan to accomplish something each day there is a lot that can get done over time.