My first project as a butterfly was to paint the interior of the house. It is an arduous process because it had to be done while maintaining the house as living space. The change brought new colors to the walls, and it also inspired others to pitch in to improve the living conditions here at home. For example, doing the dishes every morning was a task that I did for the most part. It was just the way it worked out.
The most difficult part was convincing people to rinse their dishes and stack them next to the sink rather than to pile unrinsed dishes on top of other unrinsed dishes in the sink. One roommate graciously complied. Another roommate required me to put the dishes in front of his door with a note reminding him of my request. A former roommate got told on the fifth time that I would be asking Bryan to evict him, but he moved out voluntarily before that.
However, after I began painting, one of the roommates asked me if he could take over the kitchen duties because that was how he felt he could contribute best to the household with his limited mobility. That was sweet because he is the most eclectic cook of us all. I like the kitchen better as he has it setting up than I did when I was doing it, and that has inspired me to get a couple of things that give him more space for his gadgets.
I started a garden around a really cool exposed tree root when the weather got better. It's grown into a larger project that now has a planting station, a defined line between the grass and the gravel and dirt to make it easier to mow and to eliminate the need to weed eat that doesn't get done as often. What was a cool exposed root and tall grass is now a sightly garden complete with two lilac and a maple tree. There is now no grass to be mowed in the gravel area that serves as a trail and entertainment area.
A third task was to help one of my children with an overwhelming supply of goods from a multi-family yard sale that she was left with last year. We were able to clean it up by utilizing a pick-up service offered by city utilities, and holding another yard sale in which the point was to get rid of as much stuff as possible. We offered deals just to get people to take something else, even if it was free.
We had a table of things for $2 each or 3 for $5. I was surprised both by what sold and what didn't sell, but I was pleased that what didn't sell was easily packed for storage or given away for free. It is now manageable, and seriously improved.
That is what a butterfly does. A butterfly improves things wherever they go, but it does not consider its job done just because it has made some improvements. Change happens. If we are to be content and happy, we must embrace change and strive to make every change an improvement. We cannot avoid change. If we do not make improvements, the natural changes will be rot, rust, and erosion.
I have so enjoyed my time acting as a butterfly that I can pretty much assure you that I will spend the rest of my life doing it. One of the next butterfly projects for me is to help Gemma start a worm farm for her ecosystem. We decided to actually go to the worm farm to get her a worm farm, so it is still a future project. We can use the time between now and then to get things ready for it, but it is likely that we won't be ready for it until after the 4th of July. That is still great time spent with one of the loves of my life!
We each must start the day from where we are using what we have to get closer to where we want to be. All of those are different for every person. Success is often confused with achievement and accomplishment. We are successful any day that ends with us closer to our goals and objectives than we were at the beginning of the day.
Today is like any other day. There are some things that I need to do, and, when those are done, there are things that I want to do. As long as I get done today what needs to be done today, they will not be there to deal with when tomorrow brings its list of things that need to be done.
Nothing is completed. Everything is better and continuing to improve. That, to me, is just how life works!
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