Laboring on Labor Day.

It never fails that the long weekend we've all come to know as Labor Day which is supposed to be our break from laboring turns out to be one of the most productive laboring times I experience all year. Six years ago, I labored for 42 hours and 20 minutes (not that I was counting) and delivered a healthy baby girl. Every year since, I spend that weekend laboring in preparation for her birthday party. This year was no different. In typical Amber fashion, I continued to add projects to my already long list of projects for the weekend. I've come to realize that I don't experience a lot of stress as most people recognize stress. Instead I keep myself in a constant stream of what everyone else would consider stress and if that stream were to stop, I'd probably feel stressed about the lack of stress. How's that for making sense?

Madison wanted bunk beds for her birthday. So in her absence (she was with her dad Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday), I purged her room to prepare for the new bunk beds. Saturday I assembled the bunk beds (by myself because I'm a big girl now) and re-assembled her newly purged room. I ran a million errands and began working on the 24 foot (diameter) crop circle in my back yard that will soon become an above ground pool. At midnight, my friend Andrea and I ran to WalMart to pick up plastic ware, ice cream and the like. While there I decided that I'd buy some plain jeans and a plain sweater for Madison and visit the craft section to pick up some faux fur and other trims to embellish these otherwise plain articles to create an entirely new and exciting outfit to present to her the next day on her birthday. Crazy? Yes, but that's the fun of my life! So, after retiring to bed sometime after 1:00 a.m., I woke about 4:30 and got started on the new outfit, which looked fabulous & was a HUGE hit with the misses. Did I mention that my sewing machine refused to sew the denim and I had to hand stitch it all? That didn't stop me though.

The outfit got done, the bunk beds and room got done, my cork project in my kitchen finally got completed, my house got cleaned and decorated, Madison got made up into the diva that was required of her for her Bratz birthday party (see picture - WHOA!), I finished sewing the little hand bags that each girl would receive as their goodie bags, I got all the grass removed from my crop circle, filled in every hole that existed in my back yard (and there were plenty of them), trimmed my hedges and pruned some over grown trees, mowed my grass, and even managed to squeeze in a much needed pedicure. Plus I caught a concert of Jaggered Edge (www.jaggerededge.com). Three of my friends play in the Rolling Stones tribute band, and the show was great.



My three day weekend felt like a week off from work, because I feel like I've accomplished in three days the amount of work that would ordinarily take at least a week. Where most people would feel completely stressed from so much, I feel exhilarated. I'd be stressed had I spent the weekend relaxing and accomplishing nothing.