Playing with Words and Pinterest

So, so busy with this new schedule that I don't have down pat yet and I can't quite understand why so many moms get excited for school to start. I've been a little frantic with the commute, the lunches, homework, just the whole playing by someone else's rules.  I've been the manager of my own time for so long that I feel like the adjustment might be a little harder on me than the kids.

I feel like I've been running around all week with hardly a minute to breathe.  My house shows it.

So, I'm here.  To breathe. To slow.   To find that space where I can sort the jumbled, crazy thoughts and just get down in words some semblance of sense.

And, also, how can I not blog when there's wordcandy to play with





and Pin-terpretation!

How fun is this stuff?  Seriously, I wish I had come up with it.

Maybe I should be finishing dinner but I'm looking at my dominant colors on Pinterest to see what they say about me.   Across the (literal) board, my colors are neutral and soft. That means I'm an introvert. No surprise, there.  But my Art board  contains more vivid hues than my Dream House board.  Maybe, I'm bolder in my creative life than my real life. My Want board has pops of bright color throughout and my Wow board seems to calm down as I scroll up.  What could that mean?

Like I really need more of an excuse to go on Pinterest.  But maybe, just maybe this is brilliant.  This idea that looking at our boards, could reveal more about ourselves than we might have thought.

I could probably do this for a few more hours but alas, the kids are hungry.


You should get the book.  It's pretty cool.
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Procrastination

I have not been able to blog lately.  I'm not entirely sure what the problem is.  I continue to start posts and then realize I'm saying nothing so I save for later.  Going back, I find nothing worth revising.

I've been more tired than usual so that could have something to do with it.  But really, I think I'm just dry.  Spiritually dry and nothing is flowing.

I was telling my sponsor the other day how incredibly busy I was.  This, my excuse for not making step work a priority.  And I believed what I was saying.  Until a few days ago when I was on the computer playing spider solitaire (which I think may need to be uninstalled) and I realized, Oh, well here's some extra time I'm just wasting.

So, is it procrastination? Avoidance?  I don't know.  But I know that the more time I spend in the Word, the more enlightened and inspired I feel.  The more I allow myself to get trapped in pointless time sucks like Facebook or Words with Friends, the more blah I feel.  Hungry but not satisfied.

And there's a million things I should be feeling inspired about.  The kids are starting school, my own life is changing in a drastic and good way very soon and I have an opportunity I've only previously dreamed about.

Maybe I feel like I'm on hold.  Or in limbo.  The kids start school Friday.  I start my new endeavor next week and my dream opportunity is waiting only for me to finish the hard work.  And I keep thinking when all that starts, I'll get a new schedule, really get down to work. But that's a bit ridiculous.  So.....I'm posting.  Crap or not.  Because not doing so seems to leave me in a rut.


Or maybe I can get a job playing spider solitaire.

So, after I posted, I even found myself motivated to write poetry.  That's how the flow works.

Source: designeriphone.tumblr.com via Nicole on Pinterest

That search for balance

I may be back.  In fact, most likely, I will be coming here again....I just don't want to make any promises.

I took time away from here in order to spend time with the kids, to work on the house, to feel less pressure.  And it was good.  It's amazing how clean the house has been looking.  And I found myself sitting more often with the kids outside of school work.  Just playing or talking.  So, in certain ways, it seems that maybe I shouldn't return to blogging.  But I've also missed writing.  That balance is just so extremely hard to find, isn't it? I really don't think we as women (or humans) can have it all.  I think that often, we are forced to choose.  Even if everything I want to do in any given day is wonderful and worthy, maybe it's just that some of it is for a different season.  So, that's why I say I may be back.

I am back in school.  After a five month break.  Yes, the one month for NaNoWriMo turned somehow into five months.  So, that means I am forced to my computer anyway.  Which may mean that poised, with fingers on keyboard for school, will in turn lead me to write here.  Or it may be that the addition of my school affords me even less time. We shall see.

But today, I'm grateful to be here....even if just for a few moments.


- God answering heart prayers
- feeling fresh and renewed after spring break
- spray paint on garage sale furniture
-old photos
-lemon heads
 - thrift store decorating



- a small church where we as a family can get involved
 - this place and time away
- not having to make up my mind

My job

Confession:  (This is a huge one)

I've been resenting my kids lately.  That's terrible, I know. God forgive me.  It's the truth.

I've been restless, irritable and discontent. Denying the fact, for weeks, that I want more time to myself, less mess in my life, less kid chaos, maybe even less time with them, entertaining the fantasy of putting the older two in school. So I could have more me time.

Yes, these thoughts would crop up and I would hush them, not even wanting to admit them to myself. And I would drudge through another day, not giving my children my best.

And then last night, as I lay in bed, this feeling of incredible and huge gratitude came over me.  Unparalleled gratitude for my children.  The reminder that they are gifts, pure and simple. And that I have been called to raise them, lovingly and to put in my best efforts.  And that right now, this is my job.  Because it is a job.  But it's a job I'm blessed to have.

And I was thinking, too, about how my life used to feel so much simpler.  A lot of things went into that but part of what's different is the amount of time spent on my writing.  Though I love it, though I know it, too, is God given, it also takes a lot out of me.

Laying in bed, I remembered how when the first two were young we had all day at home together, and so much got done around the house, as well as in them, in their own personal growth.  More than I feel they've been receiving from me lately.  More than the two little ones have maybe ever received.

And back then I wasn't blogging.  The internet ten years ago, also did not seem to consume me like it does now.  I hardly remember using the computer at that time.  Finally, I wasn't working on any writing project.

And life seemed nice.  So, I made the decision to, for a period, even if only for a few weeks, put all my writing on hold. I have a long life ahead of me and there will be plenty of time to pursue certain goals in the future but my children will not be the ages they are now for long.  And I want to pour more of me into them.  I want to stop holding back parts of me for me.  I want to have more time just to play with them, to work on chores while they work on workbooks.  I just want to find a bit more ease in the now that we are in.

 I know it looks like I haven't been blogging much anyway.  But that doesn't mean that my mind hasn't been on the blog.  There's a pressure I place on myself even when I don't actually make it here.  So I'm lifting that for now.  I'm going to try to recreate a bit of the old days.  Days when I was still in total awe of my children and days when I didn't want it all.  Days when I knew that I needn't strive and I understood that God had me right where He wanted me to.

Days that were less about me and more about them.



submitting at Weekend Reflections

Dwell in the source

December has felt a little mooney, a bit blah.

In fact, I can't quite believe we're this close to Christmas.

Circumstances in my life have shifted considerably and I'm already feeling the 'after Christmas blues'.  Maybe, because November, in many ways was very special. In other ways it was very rough, but within that difficulty I could really hear God. And I'm not hearing Him as well this month.

Last night, a friend and I were talking and she said that she prays and she does her readings but one thing she just can't get is the meditation part.  Meaning, her mind continues to wander whenever she attempts. I almost had to laugh, because she said it as though, she were one of the only ones with this problem.  I told her that I was fairly certain most people had this problem. I'm reading Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood right now and it's a treasure of a book. It speaks quite a bit on going into the silence, hushing the outer man.  If the Desert Fathers recognized the difficulty in meditating, certainly, we in our busy lives will find it near impossible.  But I think that the more we practice, the more we discipline ourselves, we will find that God is waiting to meet with us in the silence.

This section really spoke to me.  This is something I am certainly in need of practicing:

"May I say here that the mind cannot remember easily when it is full of criticism; you cannot afford to take umbrage, to have prejudices, nor hold to yourself these violent human emotions which flare up in human contacts.  Let them go and dwell in the source of all love, infinite love"

The only way I have managed at all during this time is to pray for those I resent.  To try to stay above the human drama and enter instead into the drama of Christ's love for me.  The drama of His birth, His death, and  enter, too, into my own dying to self for Him.

".....Prepare yourselves to be sons of God, rise to your full height and live most of your life in spirit while in the material world....The discipline of the body and the spirit is an exercise as old as time.  The conflict of body and spirit, joy and sorrow, has been an accompanying mystery;"


I am practicing this picture of my inner man rising above. Staying above with the peace that surpasses all understanding.  I heard a suggestion recently to breathe in with the thought, 'I am' and out with the thought, 'Peace'.

"I will give you a talisman to use in times of pressure, of drabness, of temptation.  Say, 'There is no measured time at this place, no future, neither is there a past.  I am in the eternal moment, the limitless, infinite, now.'"


Furthermore, I am in today.  Today only.  Only God know what tomorrow holds, so here and now, I am able to trust.



submitting at Playdates with God

Now and Within

"Each one of us makes his own choice; it is either the way of negation, a materialistic philosophy, or the way of the creative spirit, the Way of Life.  'But one thing is needful,' he said, and 'now is the appointed time.' One has said that 'two of the greatest words in our language are now and within.'"- Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood

wordless wednesday

Time

There never seems to be enough time in the day.

But this I know- there are hours in the morning which I could utilize and I don't.   Because I'm sleeping.

I'm tired.  Very tired.  And I let the illness excuse me from the morning opportunity which I know is a fruitful time for me.

So, I sleep in and I take a couple of cups of coffee to get going and by the time we start our day, it is late.  Later than I'd like.

And I've had whiles when I've woken early, before the kids; and fatigued or not, my day goes better.  Yawning smiles.  Because the quiet time, the prayer, has happened deliberately.  The discipline.  And I'm built up for what may come in any given day.

And this is not a legalistic thing.  Because I don't feel condemnation.  God can work with me wherever I am and if I give Him these afternoon hours while I blog, I'm sure He's fine with that.  But I know in my heart, that mornings for us are better.  I've even asked Him in times past to waken me in the morning, early.  And He did!  For about a week.  And I kept going back to sleep.  That's okay.  Rest, He gives me, too.

But when I come back to the thought, that there's not enough time in the day for all that must be done, the reminder of the morning comes.

Naturally, I am not the best with time management.  I don't need to be.  But if I start my day off on the right foot, chances are, I'll hear His voice more clearly through the day, be guided more easily into right priorities.

Maybe soon, you'll find me here, early.


And counting:
paths and journeys
God whenever
Here
cuddly dogs
boy on the trampoline
September

Submitting at The Wellspring, Katie Lloyd Photography and