You have to wait!

When I was little and would tell my grandpa that I was so excited and "can't wait!" for something, he would always say, "You have to wait!"  I never liked that realization.  

I've realized something about myself since moving into our house.  I'm not a very patient person.

Rephrase: I'm not a very patient person when it comes to big things.  I can wait for a long time in a grocery store line or to get into a building.  As long as I'm not freezing, stressed about time, or have to go to the bathroom, I can wait for a looooong time.  Getting to places early and waiting for them to start?  Great at that.

But... When it comes to our yard or our basement or other various projects, and I can envision how I want them to be, I just want them to be that way.  And it frustrates me when we don't have the time or resources to make them that way now.  Our yard is great but it's overgrown with weeds.  We don't have a ton of money for plants or special dirt, but when you rip out weeds, you have to replace them with plants and then maintain the area or the weeds just come back.  That's what happened last summer - we ripped it all out, couldn't replace it or improve the dirt, and now we have to rip it all out again.

Plus I have so many pretty organization ideas to help keep our house clean and pretty!  But everything costs money and we're using ours for something we want more right now, which is a finished basement.  

I'm trying to apply this quote I read in Why Do I Love These People?: 

…We generate excessive tension by worrying about whether our experience is abnormal [in this situation, whether our grass is less green than others' or our house less organized than we wish it were].  We beat ourselves up because we worry we're falling short of the ideal… We load ourselves up with guilt and consternation to the point of being frazzled, so much so that we are unable to enjoy our experience.

I love that way of saying it so much more than "Find joy in the journey."  :)

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"…We generate excessive tension by worrying about whether our experience is abnormal.  We beat ourselves up because we worry we're falling short of the ideal… We load ourselves up with guilt and consternation to the point of being frazzled, so much so that we are unable to enjoy our experience."  - Po Bronson, Why Do I Love These People?