Ok, I'm goofy ... I'll admit it (but only this once, and if you try to prove it later I'll only deny it!). I suppose it's only to be expected, considering I grew up in a Rogers household. If you know my clan, that will make perfect sense ... if you don't, well, I'm afraid you're really missing out. Sorry about that.
One of the things that my family has always done is play word games. Twisting words or their meanings, bad puns, changing letters to make new words ... basically whatever we can think of. We've even been known to pirate other people's word creations into our own family's everyday vocabulary. You have to think quickly to keep up with conversations around the Rogers table. As a result of this upbringing, there are times when my thoughts jump from one thing to the next in ways that are entertaining to me, and highly confusing to other people.
Case in point ... my husband asked me a couple of weeks ago if there was a particular reason I was posting quotes from Mary Poppins on my Facebook page. And I laughed, because the answer was yes, but it was probably going to take me longer to explain than it took me to think of it.
One of the main jobs I have had since we married was taking care of our finances. He hates it, and I don't mind doing it, and since I had training in accounting it just seemed to fall to me to do it, which is fine. I can't say I've always been good at it ... it's taken me quite a while to develop a plan that seems to work, and has us gaining ground instead of losing it. This has been especially important since the kids came along, because we've lived on one income for the last 6 years, and for most of that time period we had a very small income to work with. Add in factors like multiple kids in diapers, and sometimes it was quite a challenge. Then about 18 months ago, I finally found a budgeting system that works really well for us. That, in addition to the new job that my husband was blessed with about a year ago, have gotten us to the point that we don't have to hold our breath from one paycheck to the next, but actually have the money for bills and things there when we need it. It's been an enormous blessing.
A couple of weeks ago I was paying bills as I always do at the first of the month. I had balanced our budgeting book, and was doing some final "tweaking" on how I wanted to keep track of things when it suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing in my budget book was a lot like some of the online games that I get such a kick out of ... the ones that give you quests to complete, and rewards once you complete them. The farther you go the more complicated the quests get, but the larger the rewards are as well. Suddenly, in the time it had taken a thought to flit through my head, my budget planning had gone from being something that I didn't mind doing and needed my attention, to being a game that I could succeed at and enjoy. A budget? Enjoyable? What a revolutionary thought!
And it only took a moment from the time that it became a "game" that I thought of Mary Poppins. She says, "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP! ... the job's a game!" In that moment, I actually laughed out loud, which is why I posted it that day on Facebook. It didn't mean much to most folks but me, really, but it reminded me that I need to always need to teach my sons to find the good in whatever situation they are working on, no matter how mundane it seems. And the other thing I want to be sure that they learn was at the end of that same Mary Poppins tune, when Michael complains about wanting to tidy up the nursery again. We don't always have to have all the things we think we want, or constantly be entertained. Because what Mary said is true:
"Enough is as good as a feast."
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