Daybook: Seeking Peace
/Outside My Window ...
The days are growing shorter. The nights are cool and offer the promise of crispness.
I am listening to...
the dishwasher, the washer, and the dryer.
To Live the Liturgy...
I'm hoping to spend some time at Adoration.
To be Fit and Happy...
I'm sticking faithfully to eating a protein and a carb every four hours and avoiding sugar as if it's poison.
I'm promising myself at least a little nap every day.
I'm getting outside for fresh air with my babies.
I am thankful for...
my children. Every breath is a gift.
I am pondering ...
From the kitchen ...
Cream of tomato and corn soup with grilled cheese.
I am wearing ...
A really darling green top that isn't a t-shirt. I've resolved to give up t-shirts as every day wear. They aren't the best fashion choice for well-endowed middle-aged women.
I am creating ...
a new home management notebook. (Links to the other versions.) The goal is for this one to be dynamic and, so, more functional. I'm using iCal. I've long known that if we are intentional, life can be lived in a fuller, more purposeful way. If we are intentional, we don't live our whole lives just managing the crisis of the moment. At least that's the premise.
Most of our lives can be planned to some degree. We can set goals and then set aside time to use to achieve those goals. Routines are a mom's good friend. Several years ago now, Katherine and I started to set all our different routines in Google calendar: school rhythms, housekeeping, meal prep, liturgical year. We shared calendars back and forth and got a little too happy over all those neat little boxes.
Then, Katherine discovered the iCal button on her Mac. And I had major issues with envy. She could make a calendar rock. She could make a whole Homemaking Notebook go digital, in perfectly beautiful shades of every color under the sun.
I acquired a third-hand, cobbled-together Mac last year before Michael left to go back to school. It's lapbook with a screen that doesn't work and a keyboard that doesn't work--so it's a desktop with a Dell screen and a wireless keyboard. Whatever. It has iCal. Last summer, I started making beautiful calendars of neat, pretty colored charts and boxes.
And then there was bedrest. Somehow, in my brain, the more organized I was, the more I was tempting the universe to knock me on my backside;-) This is, of course, theologically ridiculous and patently stupid. Order is good in a crisis. Order doesn't create a crisis. Still, I avoided iCal for a long while.
But now, we're in love again. And I'm tinkering with all those rhythms and routines. I think it will take me a good month to nail down the basic outline for each area I want in my management notebook. I'm committing to paper, printing, living it, revising, living it, revising again...you get the idea.
Here's a peek at what we're attempting to do. I put these up on Sunday. Sunday night, before I went to sleep, I realized that I had completely forgotten tea time. I'll revise today. Picture quality is terrible, but the colors sure are pretty as long as I don't think about it too much;-) If you click on the photos and then click to magnify, you CAN read the type (for whatever that's worth to anyone but me).
The largest goal of all in this endeavor is to create very large pockets of quiet and rest in my days. Those have long been missing and I have recently recognized that they are no longer optional, but that I need them for my very survival--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
It's going to be a longterm project. I might just post to Faithful Over Little Things as it evolves.
No promises there, though
On my iPod...
I'm Alive
Nineteen years ago I spent the late summer in the hospital with nary a white blood cell to my name, fighting an infection and praying I would live to raise my baby.
Last year I spent the late summer reading way too many horror stories about placenta previa and placenta accreta.And praying that I would live to raise my baby.
This hasn't been a very good summer. Not as bad as some.
But not good at all.
So, I'm reminding myself that breathing in and out is a blessing.
And I'm Alive.
Towards a real eduction ...
"School" started last Tuesday. And then it abruptly stopped.
Tomorrow, we begin again. Because that's what faithful Christians do.
They begin again.
I am thinking...
about what God wants from me.
What He really, really wants.
.
In the Garden...
It's nearly time to plant pansies and mums.
Around the House
I am testing a theory shared by a dear friend. She hypothesizes that if the whole world is coming down around your ears, if you can just keep up with the laundry perhaps you can hold onto the illusion that you're keeping it all together.
Even if the illusion fades, at least we'll be able to find clean socks.
.
Sarah Anne this week...
Sarah Annie is not crawling. It might help if we put her down occasionally.
Nah.
I am reading ...
I am hoping and praying ...
for the Snow family, the Barrett family, and the Cushman family. May they be consoled by family and friends, saints and angels, and the good Lord himself.
Christa Bartlett and her family
and now,
For the Mitchell family, too.
On Keeping Home ...
When I am stressed, I want nothing more than to be at home. But I recognize that home is where ten other people live as well and so, it isn't always such a peaceful place of respite for me.
I set the tone and I "keep home." If it is to be a place of respite for my family--and for me--I must endeavor to make it so. And if it is very important that it be that way, then keeping home must truly take its place near the top of the priority list.
One of my favorite things ...
playsilks sent with love by a friend.
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week:
It's going to be quiet in this corner of cyberspace for awhile.
