Monday, February 27, 2012

conquer mode

When we were kids, my mom would occasionally get in these crazy moods where she would blast music we hated (like Carol King, who I actually grew to love over the years) and spend the whole day in psychotic cleaning/reorganizing/rearranging mode. We called it Conquer Mode. It was a time to be feared and avoided at all costs, as any appearance of having nothing to do was immediately met with the gift of extra chores.

I'm happy to say that now that I am an adult, and have my own indentured servants children, I too suffer from occasional bouts of Conquer Mode. It is a time to be cherished, and utilized to its utmost potential, as it's very likely I'll be back in lazy "ugh" mode at any moment. I, too, force my free slave labor kids to clean and organize while I blast music and work myself silly. Only I let them pick the music, just to offset any hatred.

They invariably pick the sountrack to Tron Legacy, which is totally fine by me.

Today was Conquer Mode day for me. I woke up after a lousy night where I only slept three hours, and I prayed that God would help me to be in a good mood and not use my yucky night and exhaustion as an excuse to be irritable and complaining. I got up, and decided to start checking off my to-do list. So, I:

Transplanted seedlings.

growing

Took care of my weird animals.

angry bird

is this the face of a crazy person?

Cleaned the kitchen, my bedroom, the fireplace, the air mattress, and did all the laundry. That was satisfying but certainly not picture-worthy.

Got a nice start on my back room renovations, which included varnishing the giant ruler I made as a growth chart for my boys, painting a bunch of frames in various shades of turquoise, and painting a dresser yellow.

back room start

I also painted the coffee table a pale gray, and topped it with some chalkboard paint just for fun.

chalkboard coffee table

put to use

I cut a piece of masonite to fit a cheap Ikea frame, painted it with chalkboard paint, and now I will be using it to make a rotating chore chart for the family.

chore chalkboard

Helped my oldest put together a Tie Fighter kite that doesn't work but makes an annoying awesome mobile for their room. It's a yucky picture but their room is a cave.


Now it's pouring rain and all I want is to snuggle up on the couch and watch re-runs of something that likely involves unbelievable characters and alien spaceships. I'm very glad I got this all out of my system because I can already feel my motivation winding back down.

What about you all? Ever get in conquer mode?

5 comments:

Rachel at Stitched in Color said...

Oh, I LOVE conquer mode. But I really just clean and organize in conquer mode. I've only once touched up paint in conquer mode. Your work today kicks but. Enjoy the couch. That's one of the best perks of conquering... you know you deserve dessert and lounging.

leanne said...

wow - you sure got a lot done in that conquer mode - love the chalkboard coffee table :)

Lynz said...

So THAT is what it's called!! Yeah, I suffer from this, too. Although mine is often triggered by deep unhappiness - so it really DOESN'T happen too often and only involves deep cleaning. *grins*

Your painting is awesome!! And I totally remember (and still covet) that green ribbon-haired drawing you did!

P.S. One of my WV's is "ndsele" which I totally thought was nacelle for a minute - as in "there's phaser damage to the port nacelle, Captain!" I got embassasingly excited that there was a ST geek in the Blogger machine!

rachel.lyn said...

so that's where zac gets the conquer mode thing from. usually his kicks in on a saturday morning and he says, "i can't stop babe, i'm in conquer mode." haha...

anyway, as i was reading when i got to the picture of the bunny i literally LOLed.

and LOVE the coffee table! and frame...and all of it :)

Hitch and Thread said...

If only my child labourers were old enough to be truly useful. I love conquer mode, even more so when I have the house to myself and can really turn the music up! That ruler is a great idea.