Painting and Writing

by Rebecca Talley

One of my daughters has moved home from UT to attend college here because tuition is about $500 compared to $6500 in Provo at UVU. Her move has prompted us to rearrange bedrooms. With that rearrangement has come deep cleaning and painting.

My sons' room was a disaster. We took 5 large bags of trash from their room and donated almost as much to the thrift store. And this after they'd told me over and over and over again that they'd "cleaned" their room. Apparently, they are better hiders than cleaners because when I'd look at their room, although it didn't meet my definition of clean, it was okay. Little did I know there was so much lurking beneath.

We've been painting their furniture as well so all of their stuff is stacked in different rooms, including mine. We've painted their new room and are almost finished with painting the second bedroom. We'll then have the third bedroom to paint at the end of this week.

Years ago, I painted the kids' bathroom with a seascape. The upper part of the walls and ceiling were the "sky" with wisps of clouds and the lower part was the "ocean" with fish, sea creatures, and mermaids all painted by my children. My oldest daughter even painted Eric standing on his ship looking for Ariel from The Little Mermaid. We also had King Triton and Ursula. My oldest son painted a guy water skiing behind a boat with a huge open-mouthed shark right behind him ready to eat him. It was fun. But, with time, the figures had lost details and it no longer looked so cute. So I've also painted that bathroom.

As a result of all of this cleaning, moving around, and painting we are all pretty exhausted and my house looks like it belongs on an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive.

I'm sure when we're finished it will all be worth it and we'll marvel at all the hard work we've done. Kinda like writing a book. In the midst of writing it, it may feel like it will never end, that we'll be writing that book forever, but when we finally finish we see that all the hard work has been worth it and we marvel at what we've accomplished.

Lots of people want to write a book, some are even writing it (or have been for years), but how many of us actually finish a book and submit it? That's something to be proud of. Even if it isn't accepted for publication the fact that we've finished such a big project should make us feel proud of ourselves. Publication may be the destination, but the journey is where we truly learn.