Motherhood and Guiltless Leisure

This afternoon, after the chores and school were done and everyone was having their own quiet play time, after I settled the preschoolers with a show and after I switched over the laundry, I made a quick cup of coffee and settled on the back porch with a copy of Image magazine that I received as a birthday gift.

I don't read much these days, but as I thumbed through the pages and caught a few breathless sentences, I felt a familiar stirring inside me. Comfort. The warmth of the mug and the the words on the page, the soft breeze and the surrounding silence...for a few moments, anyway. I savored what I read and when the coffee was gone, it was time to head back in. My time outside alone couldn't have been more than ten minutes, but the space, perspective and peace that resulted is carried along with me.

The conundrum of motherhood and leisure is that we either get none, and wind up soul-starved, or what we do get we lace in guilt. Surely, I have other things to do. Who am I to take a moment in the middle of an afternoon to sit and read?

Leisure and motherhood don't have to be mutually exclusive or fraught with guilt. They shouldn't be. I find that the things I choose to spend my precious little personal time are, for the most part, things that make me a better person. Things that expand my horizon, cement my relationships, bring me closer to God.

This wasn't always the case. There was a time in my life when relaxing in front of mindless television was my preferred evening activity, and to be completely honest I still enjoy some of that - though not nearly as often as before. I realized - the fallacy here is that you can take time off. Sure, you can halt any activity of importance or weight, but you can't hit the pause button on time. Time marches on, and the older I get the more I realize how blessed little of it there is.

Perhaps the overwhelmingly positive that I take away from this is that those things that I sometimes feel a bit guilty about, the things that feel like a luxurious indulgence - afternoons sipping coffee with a girlfriend talking while our kids play out back, an evening out with my husband, a nap on a sun speckled Sunday, going out for a beer with my siblings - these things aren't "just" private indulgences with no value. They are intentional acts that improve the rest of my life and the lives around me. They take time, yes, but they are worth time. They are full of real life.

The Moms I know garden for fun while their little ones help out, or sit outside and do a bible study while their kids swing on the swings. They knit at craft nights and in doing so create much needed community for themselves and others. Even when they aren't multi tasking, they are giving themselves the breathing room necessary to be the strong, courageous, life changing warriors that they are. We need that. The people in our lives need us to have that.

It's not that we "deserve" leisure by our merit and hard work. It is that our work, our vision, our calling is positively impacted when we make it a priority.

It's time to start dinner, check homework, get things organized for co op tomorrow. I'm in a better place to tackle it then I was before.


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Life, As It Is Now

Hi there. Remember me? I'm sorry for leaving you hanging for so long without a post. Judging from notes I've received, some of you have been concerned, or wondered if something catastrophic happened to me or the baby. All is well in that department. Baby is still safe inside and we are still looking forward to the day she joins us on the outside.

This week has been intense. There is simply no other word for it. Intense from a parenting perspective. Intense from an adult-ing perspective. Intense from a health perspective (stomach bug at 38 weeks? Sign me up! Wait, no...stop...). And intense from a "baby could be here any day and, that's right, I have 6 other kids to keep up with" perspective. A lot of it I won't be getting into here, which is why I found myself a little speechless when being consumed with life over here. Some of it just comes across as too negative, and that is really not my vision for this space. So I'm left with one word with which to describe it all. Intense. This week was intense.

Still, in the midst of every intense time? Every day when I can't get out of bed, every day that doesn't go the way that I'd want it to, not in a million years? There are still, always, small glimpses of grace. Spring comes slowly here in Michigan and the lilacs in my yard are finally opening up. Watching my oldest son play basketball with his Dad right out my kitchen window after dinner. Rosie's hair reacts delightfully to the humidity (which I ordinarily can't stand) and she runs around with Shirley Temple-caliber curls that just slay me. My second son teaches himself to ride a two wheeler in our driveway. Listening to the happy shrieks of a pack of kids playing out in the first thunderstorm of the season. Friends who text and offer help when I need it, who stand by my side when my legs are trembling in fear, who show me again and again the face of Jesus.

I think it over as we come upon a week of this intensity, and realize what I've just described is just this: life. Always a mash up of the intense and the sweet. The hard, the holy, the hardly-hanging-on. It's a richness that simply wouldn't be possible if everything was saccharine sweetness. There's depth to just this: a life rife with opportunities to grow in grace and humility, to be a blessing, receive a blessing, to shed tears of both joy and fear. This is life. This is good.

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Thoughts On Blogging

One of my closest friends has recently become more serious about blogging. Up until now, I had a few "in real life" friends with blogs, but not really so much that we talked about it beyond liking a few posts here and there. This new development has seen us talking about blogging quite a bit - and has given me reason to think a little bit more deeply about what, exactly, it is that I'm doing here. My friend asks lots of questions and that gives me an opportunity to really sink in and ask myself - well, what type of blogger am I? Why do I write what I write, what is my purpose in this space?

I'm always quite impressed with people who seem to know exactly what they want their blog to look like from day one. They know what they want to write about, what sort of things they will participate in and promote and how they want to come across. It's been I don't know how long since I started this blog, and I still find myself unsure as to what it's for, anyway.

After chatting with my friend for a bit yesterday, a thought loomed and I was unable to shake it. Maybe it's time to quit blogging.

The truth is, I love to write - and that is largely the reason I've kept this up as long as I have. While some blogs are almost more like social media, or giveaways, or clickbait - I've just wanted a place to write, maybe post a few pictures, keep track of our days. I will admit there is instant gratification to blogging. I click publish, and it's done. I don't have to wait to hear back from magazines that will likely reject my work. I can put it right out there and almost immediately receive feedback. It's a bit addicting. But it's not the answer.

I'm not really sure what the answer is, honestly. I like to write but posting here uses up the only free time I have - so I'm unable to write elsewhere. Blogging keeps bringing me back to writing, and I'm afraid if that incentive was gone, I just...wouldn't. Writing here gives me the opportunity to put something out there to bless others. From my little place here with all these babies, I feel like maybe something I say can help someone. And I love that part of it. But, for one reason or another, I feel...stalled. In need of a new vision.

While these thoughts and questions aren't exactly fun to filter through, I'm grateful that they were spurred by such a close friend - and whatever I decide going forward will come from a place of intention.

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Knitting, Reading and Writing

This week has been busy.  We had a few sick kids, I had a few deadlines, and wouldn't you know the sleeves on that shrug didn't get touched. Not once. I did knit a quick hat for a friend's birthday, but only took this horrible cell phone photo of it half completed.  So different week, same knit-in progress. I'm failing this yarn along thing!

Writing has become a bit more than just this blog in the past few weeks and that is something that, while I am  excited about and enjoying immensely, is challenging how I spend my time. I'm needing to define some parameters for myself of how and when I work, which is tricky for me. I'm the girl who gets an idea in the shower, or while making dinner, and has to get it down as immediately as possible before it disappears into the recesses of my baby-addled mind. In the past, when I've carved out time to write, I sit and blankly stare at the screen, completely uninspired. I'm trying to find some sort of happy medium that doesn't see me shirking my other responsibilities or dying an artistic death with ultra-strict scheduling. While I'm working on figuring this out, I hope you bear with me - however it plays out here.

In book - news, I just ordered "Divergent" and hope to read it quickly before the movie comes out. I know, I know, shudder at my teeny-bopper choice! I really enjoyed the Hunger Games and sometimes that mindless type of brain-candy book is just so fun. I'm taking suggestions for something a bit meatier for Lent though...any ideas?

Linking up with Ginny today!

{I'm also sharing over at my church blog today. Come on by!}

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As A Mother Comforts Her Child

"As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you"

~Isaiah 66:13

{Come read my thoughts today over at Frugal Granola}

Why "Living Simply" Isn't Simple At All

She eyes me as I diaper my son in the Parent Room at church one Sunday morning. “It’s really not a big deal” I tell her, depositing the soiled diaper in my wetbag and stashing it in the diaper bag. “Just an extra two loads of laundry a week.” She nods, but still looks dubious. I know why.

Living the simple life really isn’t about making things “easy” at all. It is about choosing to focus on the complexities of things that matter to you, and making space in your life for those things.

Read the rest over at Frugal Granola today

::Words::

Thinking about the New Year, new beginnings, fresh and unwritten pages in our lives, and looking for one thing to hold and remind myself during those difficult days.

I think I have found it.

Ann's simple words, "Only Speak Words that make Souls Stronger" (free downloadable card found here, scroll down) has challenged me - words and I have a love/hate relationship.

Words can be warm and cold.  Words can help or hurt.  Words can be beautiful or ugly.

Words to children "What were you thinking?  Why on earth...What's wrong with you?" hurt, not help.  Words to and about friends and family spoken without love, patience and grace can rip relationships apart.

Words can be very dangerous things, the ramifications of a word sent out to harm someone can be devastating.  Something needs to be done about our words, my words.

So for this year, I'm praying for words that bless.  Words that lift up, encourage.  Words of grace.  Measured words, not an eruption of emotion and mindlessness.  Words that strengthen.

Won't you join me and work on your words?

(Still hatching my plan for the new year that I hope to include all of you in!  More later, have a beautiful day!)

A Year of Gifts

Its almost time, Christmas day when my family will tear paper off gifts and squeal with delight. I'm leaning toward that with anticipation, especially to the moments when they see what I have been working on - the labor of my hands, love woven into every fiber. I hope they see it for what it is: a bumbling attempt at showing them that each moment with them is a treasure and a privilege.

This blog is almost a year old, and in that time some may have noticed the tone change a tad here and there.  I don't write perfection just as I don't live it, and you may notice a stray thread here or there, a mistake, a blunder.  The truth is, each and every word written in this space has been a love labor of sorts - pieces of me laid out in the open, bare and simple but there for you to come and take along if you like.

And for me, the best gift is that you have.  My inbox bulges with your sweet words and my heart overflows when I read your stories, your hearts.  The privilege of one year of words tapped out in the hush of night, sent out into the world and touched by others - it is my humble delight.

You have been the greatest gift of this year, for me.  The words of encouragement you have blessed me with have touched me deep down.

This Christmas, so thankful for the gift of you.

To you and yours, have a Blessed Christmas!