8:00pm on Sunday evening. Right now I am almost in the exact same position doing the exact same thing I was doing about 12 hours ago. Sitting on the couch watching America's Next Top Model. OK--what I'm picking up here, is that every Sunday, they will show an entire season of America's Next Top Model, from a season past. It takes all day to do this.

I could tell you a lot about the girls on this particular season of A.T. M. Some of their weaknesses . Some of their best moments. How they interact with each other. There is one girl who is just so sneaky and manipulative. But, somehow she has made it to the final four. And I don't even think she has done the best shoots. I don't want her to win.

Well, it would appear that Colleen has wasted a whole day laying on the couch watching TV. But, really I haven't. Actually, I knew there was a potential for this to happen. And I didn't want the day to come to an end and feel like I had wasted the whole day. So, I called a friend who has some of my same qualities. We access our "to do" lists. We see that we have a lot to do. We get frustrated because we cant do it all. We don't know which thing to do first. So, we end up not doing anything. Then, when a whole day is wasted, we feel even worse that nothing got done. Vicious cycle. We know that we will feel better if we get out and do something. Anything. But, it just seems hard to do sometimes.

So, I called my friend. She and her husband have been working on gutting out and completely remodeling an old two story house for several years. Her husband actually started working on it before they even met. Up until recently, he has done almost all of the work himself. No contractors. He has worked as he had time and money to work. He work has been delayed by two trips to Iraq and he will be heading back to Iraq again soon.

When I first saw this house a few years ago, it was a complete mess on the inside. At one time, the big beautiful house had been divided into apartments. Then, it set empty and neglected for quite sometime. So, my friend's husband had to gut it all out to make it a single family home again. There were holes in the floor so that you could look down and see the ground below. But, someone had a vision and determination. Now, there is a beautiful functioning living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. But, there is still one bedroom downstairs and the whole upstairs that needs to be gutted and remodeled.

My friend has been a little down because her husband is away in another state preparing to leave for Iraq. He will be coming home one more time before he heads to Iraq. She wants to show him that she has made some progress on the house while he was gone. And that she will be able to make more progress while he is gone. She is going to be gutting the rooms out, but contractors will come in and help with other things. She has not made a lot of headway the last couple of weeks since he has been gone. I have never been in her exact situation. But, with our personalities so similar , I knew she was gonna need someone to get her moving and get her motivated.

So, even though I wanted to just lay on my couch the whole day, I called her and committed myself to coming over to help her. Then, I watched another hour of America's Top Model before I made myself get up and head over to her house. When I got to her house, guess what she was doing? Watching America's Next Top Model! We watched a few minutes of the show, then headed upstairs to do some work.

And work, we did. We spent a couple of hours in the hot, non-air conditioned second floor. We sorted through a whole room full of boards that had already been pulled from the walls and floors, as well as lots of broken up pieces of old drywall. We had to decide which boards could be salvaged and used again, and which ones needed to be trashed. We had to pull out old nails from all the boards that will be used again. And I did some cleaning up, just so it would help to look like progress had been made. I did have to make a couple of trips down the stairs to the first floor to get some buckets to put debris in. And to get the broom and dust pan. On my trips down, I did take little peeks at the TV to get updates on the models' fates.

When we were covered in dirt and dust from head to foot, my friend announced that she needed to go to Home Depot. OK--fine. It is so unlike me to go out in public all dirty. But--it was Home Depot. OK--I'll go for it. We went by to pick up a friend who also needed to get some things from Home Depot. So, here we go. Girl's trip to Home Depot. Ground in dust on the knees of my pants and dirt under my fingernails.

We decided we were hungry, and after our shopping, we headed out to pick up some Chinese take out. Then we settled in at our friends house to eat and, of course, see who was still in the running to be America's Next Top Model. After we ate, I was taken back to my car, and then I headed on home. Full from too much Chinese food. Tired from working in a hot house tossing wood. In need of a shower. But, first I had to turn on the TV and see my girls again.

I was going to just watch till the first commercial and then go hop in the shower. But, then I started writing here. Now its just too close to the time for the winner to be chosen. I'll just have to wait on that shower for just a bit longer. So, here I am. Right back where I was when I started my day. Thankfully though, I have not been sitting on the couch all day. Thankfully I actually did something productive and spent time with friends instead of being a hermit on the couch all day. Thankfully I don't have to say that i did NOTHING but watch some show all day about a bunch of girls trying to be models. Whew. OK--so now I need to go. I don't want to miss the next few minutes here. They are close to announcing the winner! I need to get relaxed on the couch and enjoy the rest of this! PS--The girl I didn't like finally got voted off. Down to two girls now. Can't bite my nails in nervous anticipation though. They are still dirty.