Dishes at Dawn?

I've posted before about the joys of late-night sewing; but this morning started out very differently. First of all, last night I fell asleep at 9:30! A far cry from my usual night-owlishness; I think all my late night shenanigans are catching up with me. After feeding Elvis at 5 am; I decided to get up and get some things done. I had already had nearly 8 hours of sleep; which never happens, and I also had a mountain of laundry that I had intended to fold. I was dreading another morning doing the digging-through-the-clean-laundry-looking-for pants-shirts-socks-no-not-that-shirt-where's-my-Perry-the-Platypus-shirt-those-aren't-my-underwear "thing" that I do whenever I get behind; so I put on another classic movie (thank you Mr. Netflix) and started folding. It would've been a perfect morning, except I didn't have any coffee, since I'm terrible at making coffee, James was asleep, and I was afraid to run the coffee grinder for fear of waking up some boys. I held out until 6:30; then woke up James, who made coffee, using his patented "coffee-grinder in between two couch cushions" method of noise-free coffee grinding.

I was thinking this morning about whether I need to switch from late-nights to early mornings, I just might be able to get lots of things accomplished, while still being able to spend the evening with James, and maybe, just maybe, getting more sleep, too! Or maybe it is impossible to "do it all"; I'm sure I'll keep trying!

On a completely unrelated note, I've been looking for a movie that I remember seeing when I was a teenager, it starred Van Heflin, who was famous for doing a coin trick while onscreen; it was his way of making sure the camera was on him and not his co-stars. I remember it was a Film Noir kind of movie, involving a lot of gangsters and a lot of drama; but it was also a very sweet love story. I remember one of the last lines in the movie was Van Heflin saying to the female lead "You're my good luck charm" or something similar. Either I have imagined a very plausible movie plot, or it's a rare movie, since I haven't been able to find it! I've googled, wikapedia'd, gone to the TCM website, read biographies of Van Heflin...what in the world? Any of you movie buffs out there that can help me; please do!

''Sucess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm"~ Winston Churchill

This is a quote I've been thinking about lately; it seems Winston Churchill was channelling a stay-at-home-mother in this. Being a mother is constantly feeling on the brink of disaster; and there are contant "failures" big and small. If I've failed to finish the laundry, clean the kitchen before the next meal, failed to finally get my bed made before my husband gets home, these all seem like "failures". The biggest FAILURE, and the one I seem to struggle with most, is the failure to keep that enthusiasm. That's why I titled my blog the way I did, because really, staying enthusiastic makes all the little annoyances and failures of every day seem meaningless. An enthusiastic Mama makes her family happy, and that's what I'm here for. So, even though I may be far from perfect in this, the ability to realize my errors and get back on that proverbial horse, and stay passionate and enthusiastic about what I do, regardless of how today or yesterday or next Thursday went, is what Winston Churchill meant. So as I sip my strong black coffee, I'm already plotting what I will be doing today, soapmaking, lotion making, homemade lasagna with homemade ricotta, and heck, I may even finish one of my 84,000 unfinished crocheting projects!