Better Lovin' in the Day to Day

(image borrowed from Google Images)

 
      So, after that wonderful conference I attended over the weekend I came home infused with inspiration and post ideas, a desire to be more focused and intentional in my writing, and a hope to write about things that matter to you and also about things more deeply spiritual and therefore "important" in general.

     As I've alluded to in the last couple of months, my writing time is short and I won't lie and say "sweet"...it's more like short and frenetic when I squeeze it in. A few blocks of 15 or 20 minutes here and there, and a couple of consistent longer stretches when I'm lucky (or planned and organized enough to get out of the house!) With my oldest in kindergarten this year and the little one in preschool I have also managed 1-2 mornings a week for a couple of hours.

     So...after my lovely, inspirational weekend I was all pumped to pack up my computer, notes from the weekend and my journal, plant myself at Starbucks this morning and start typing up a storm of encouraging words.

     Then we get an automated message at 9:15 p.m. last night.

     "This is a message from the Lancaster School District calling to inform you that due to high winds and rains there will be no school tomorrow."

     No school?! No school! Wait, I have plans and they include kids going to school!!

     Blasted high winds...Couldn't you have come on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday when I was planning to be at home ANYWAY?

     I don't mean to make light of the "storm" because in many parts of the Eastern seaboard it was incredibly destructive and my heart goes out to those families...

     HOWEVER...it was nothing more than a slight rain "storm" (quotation marks intended) here in Buffalo. The sun was actually beaming through my window at one point this morning! In other words, the kids could have TOTALLY gone to school and no one would have been in danger...it was a total freebie of a day for them!

     So, after my grumble, mumbles for a short period of time last night and this morning I realized three things:

1) Parenting requires diligent practice in the letting go of our own personal agendas and expectations at a very high rate of frequency. I know this. I even practice this regularly. But...sometimes random weather related school closings throw you a bit of a curve ball and you have to recalibrate the compass.

2) While I hope to someday write deeply honest and moving blog posts that encourage and inspire you...life seems to be necessitating that I keep plugging along with my random day to day mommy musings for now.

3) If you can't ship them (the kids!) off to school for a couple of hours on a given day you might as well jump in and join them.

     I dug into my craft supplies, unwrapped a new Buck Denver DVD I received for free this past weekend (woohoo for cool free stuff!), cleaned up the kitchen and let the girls play around the house till their hearts were content, in their jammies (and mine!), until 4 p.m. this afternoon when I finally declared that it was unhealthy to wake up and then go to sleep in the same pajamas and that we needed some fresh air!

     Here were some of my favorite (and most amusing moments!) from the day (please note, I've switched to using first initials for the girls...it makes me feel better!):

* A told E they were playing "school". They dragged a kitchen chair into the playroom and then a whole bunch of blankets and pillows. Next thing I know E was lying, covered up, on the playroom floor with A announcing that E was partaking in her 2-hour "rest" time at school!

After "rest" time A taught E how to do "show and tell"...here is a picture of them showing and telling each other about their plastic pumpkin scoopers.

show and tell!

*There was a relatively competitive and hilarious rock, paper, scissors competition at lunch time. I had never seen them play this before, nor did I know that they knew how so I was quite amused.

*At one point I walked into E's bedroom in time to see several of their larger stuffed teddy bears dressed in E's good school clothes and I happened to catch them just before they were about to apply lip gloss to their bear's faces!!!

(Along these lines I found one bear yesterday with a green heart drawn in marker on its plush soft face...After yelling about the fact that I did not find it amusing that they were defacing their stuffed animals it was reported to me by A that she thought the bear needed a tattoo!)

*We did finally get the craft supplies out and created fun fall collages with Halloween stickers, foam sticky leaves and stencils. E almost had a meltdown because she felt that her butterfly looked like it was crying and it wasn't supposed to be crying (girls!), but I managed to swiftly swoop in and rectify the situation with a new piece of paper and a happy butterfly!

pre-butterfly meltdown (that was the next project!)

It was a good day. I picked up the house, the girls played really well with each other and I think E was excited to have the company of her big sister on a weekday again.

     I also learned (again!) that the "spiritual" at this season of life can be extracted from being present to my girls' laughter, to engaging in their games, by offering them opportunities to be creative and by responding to them in patience and with enormous amounts of love...in our pajamas, without leaving the house.

    What had I planned on writing today? What important inspirational stuff had I had concocted in my head?

     Well, I had planned on confessing to you that I want to be a better mom and wife; more loving, more patient, more graceful. A mom drawing closer to God more intimately on a daily basis and allowing her reactions to those in her life to flow intimately from that first and most important intimacy; my daily relationship with God. I promise I'll tell you more about why I'm desiring all of that (aside from what might seem obvious) in my next post.

    I had all sorts of plans to start getting up earlier and embracing the wee morning hours...and then my first moments to talk to my husband were at 9:45 p.m. last night and school was cancelled today and the list could go on and on.

     I just started reading a book that has already changed my heart from the very first chapter...It is called "The Fruitful Wife" (about the fruits of the spirit) by Haley DiMarco (I mentioned it on FB last week) and it is profound!

     In my next post I'll also tell you more about the story of how I came across the book and why I was compelled to pick it up, but for now I'll just leave you with a quote...The topic of the first chapter is "love."

     "When I started to see what true love is, when I took a look at the Author of love, I started to get a more accurate, wholesome, and beneficial understanding of this seemingly unfathomable concept. According to God's Word, much to my surprise, love is less about how I feel, but more about what I do. It isn't about getting, but giving. It isn't about reward, but sacrifice. And it isn't about excitement, but endurance...love, if purely lived, strips us of all our self-interest, self-promotion and self-protction." 

    Wow!

    The more that I think about it, the more I realize that God had other plans for me today...He was less interested in my writing about love and more interested in my practicing it...

    Here's to hoping I received a passing grade...

    Hoping to get my next post out to ya'll by Thursday or Friday...

 
          Hugs,

          Lisa