I have so many thoughts swirling around in my brain today. And I'm trying to figure out what they all mean. I think there may be a bit of me that is letting my "sphere of concern" get bigger than my "sphere of influence." So that I'm worried about things I can do absolutely nothing about.
But with the internet making the world smaller, I can do so much about so much more than I used to be able to. But here's the question - what should I be doing with my time now? And how? And what should my sphere of influence be? So much of the time I end up paralyzed. I will admit that I spend far too much time on the computer or reading - and sometimes it's just because the choices ahead of me are so overwhelming. And there is so much to do just here in my own corner that I don't know where to start. I feel overwhelmed by keeping up on my housework, let alone saving the world. And then you get those who tell you to forget the housework and enjoy your family. Well, it's hard to enjoy them if you can't find them under all the clutter! So I keep chipping away, and trying to pat myself on the back when the main floor is kept up. And trying to enjoy my family at the same time.
But then - there is a boy at our school in third grade with terminal cancer. We have all tried to help with the load. And they keep on finding laughter in everyday. This family has handled the whole thing with more grace than I can imagine. They are a beautiful example.
And an old friend whose blog I read has just found out that her father's cancer is progressing far more quickly than they thought. Her mother is dealing with dementia and he is her primary care giver. She is far away, though going out to be with them.
And Haiti is still in rubble and Australia is flooded, and why haven't we heard how they are recovering after those floods last year in Pakistan?
And then my daughter - who has been sitting alone in her room listening to a book on tape - wants a big family project because she's not feeling as close to the rest of us as she would like. (I'm not taking responsibility for that one, as she's been choosing to sit up there by herself.) She also wants to put on a play and walk to raise money for some cause, and, and, and. . . (All of which will involve her mother TO THE MAX if she's to pull it off.)
But just after that I read about this mother who took her kids to help at an orphanage in Thailand for three weeks. And articles about intentional mothering. And meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have a kid getting over strep, a class to get ready for, cookies to make and a present to finish for a wedding reception (missing the wedding because of school and needing to be home while the sick kid finishes up his 24 hours on anibiotics before he can go to school! Missing this big day is breaking my heart), two Christmas packages still not mailed, sharing time and sharing time choosing sticks to get together, a crib to drop off, A child I need to help with fund raising because she desperately wants to go on a band trip and all the family money is tied up in Mom's grad school classes or other important things, A child with a huge birthday next week, VISITING TEACHING, and oh, by the way, chat n chew, that I'm in charge of needs to start soon, my parents are coming through on their way to their mission in a little over a week, and my hair is driving me nuts because I really need a hair cut. WHEW. (And somewhere in here with sun shining through sparkling clean windows I'll take brilliant pictures of my family that I put in the world's cutest scrapbooks and everyone will have clean, folded, ironed clothes, I'll exercise everyday, read my scriptures, and have planned (and, sure, why not, cooked AHEAD), healthy menus that have variety and add joy to my life.) There is more to my actual list, but my head is full. I think it's pizza night.
One friend a couple of weeks ago looked at me and shook her head. "Too busy. Too many things going on." That might just be true. The truth is, if I were more organized and proactive I can handle what I've got. I've just got to get in there and "get'r done" Priorities. And more doing. Less thinking. I'll go do now.
341. Here are a few posts that make me smile. I'll leave you to read them while I go try to get unbusy by quickly knocking four or five things off my to do list.
I read this and felt the need for routine!
The Beauty of Routines
Then I read this, and laughed, and knew we were all alike.
Don't Get Cocky
Friday, January 14, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
So that's the way you do it.
340. The Money is for nothin.'
Mr. C and the S-Train were listening to car talk on the way home one night. A lady was talking about how she lost a ring in the heating system of her car. They asked her if it was very valuable. She said it was about $250, and they were debating if it would cost more to get it out than it was worth.
The S-Train asked his dad why the ring cost so much. Mr. C told him the ring was probably made out of gold and might have a diamond.
The S-Train asked if his dad's ring was made out of gold.
Mr. C said yes.
The S-Train got very excited and said, "Then you should put it in an envelope and send it away, and you'll get lots of money!"
Mr. C and I totally cracked up when he told me this story. Ah, the mind of a little boy. Always thinking.
I guess the incessant commercials have done their job. Hopefully we can teach him what a scam is before he gets old enough to get ahold of one of those envelopes!
Mr. C and the S-Train were listening to car talk on the way home one night. A lady was talking about how she lost a ring in the heating system of her car. They asked her if it was very valuable. She said it was about $250, and they were debating if it would cost more to get it out than it was worth.
The S-Train asked his dad why the ring cost so much. Mr. C told him the ring was probably made out of gold and might have a diamond.
The S-Train asked if his dad's ring was made out of gold.
Mr. C said yes.
The S-Train got very excited and said, "Then you should put it in an envelope and send it away, and you'll get lots of money!"
Mr. C and I totally cracked up when he told me this story. Ah, the mind of a little boy. Always thinking.
I guess the incessant commercials have done their job. Hopefully we can teach him what a scam is before he gets old enough to get ahold of one of those envelopes!
Friday, January 7, 2011
LONG Christmas season wrap up
325. Christmas Cards done by the oldest. Aren't they pretty? We're lucky to have such a talented girl.
326. Bokeh. I just learned this term this year. It means the blurred lights you get in the background when you shoot a close up picture with lights behind it. Here are a couple of my best efforts.
I tried to get the lights to make shapes, but I haven't quite figured that out yet. Mine just looked like I stuck an outline around the lens.
Which is what I thought you were supposed to do. . .
Anyway, it was fun to experiment.
327. Cookie parties. Adult and kid.
Adult party. A friend I met in PTA has an annual cookie party, and I was invited again this year! The girls and some of their friends helped me make lots of cookies to bring, and I went and enjoyed adult conversation and fun. There is such a good group of ladies at school. I enjoy being with them so much. So many of them have kids that are friends with my kids, and by now I've been on a dozen committees with most of them. I appreciate that they do get togethers like this. It's fun to see each other outside of school functions.
Kid parties. We tried so hard to make this happen before Christmas break, but things just kept coming up and not quite working out. So we finally called people the day before we had a free day or two. It worked out perfectly! Sue had friends over one day to make cookies, and the next day was Lou's turn. We didn't do anything fancy, just made sugar cookie dough ahead of time. The girls made peppermint bark, (smashing candy canes is the highlight!) and then made, cooked and decorated their sugar cookies. We sent everyone home with some of each kind of cookie and a new cookie cutter. I'm so glad that my girls have some good groups of friends at school. I know it will make all the difference in years to come. It was fun to watch the different groups and how they did things. Here is the aftermath, so you know they had fun.
328. Unexpected visitors. We had good friends show up who had just moved away. They had come up to take care of a few things. They had a couple of prearranged playdates, but the kids spent most of the day hanging out here. Luckily they came on a day that was almost completely free of anything scheduled, and we didn't have anything pressing. The kids were in heaven. We've missed them so much, and it was good to see them again.
329. Helping. Sometimes it's hard to know how to help out. I'm grateful for friends who are thoughtful and help organize those opportunities. It was so much fun to clean together.
330. Neighborhood Caroling party. We will definitely do this again any year we are in town! And having it the 23rd was genius. All the last minute decorating got done, (Including this fun and crazy wreath by Mr. C.) (Mantle by the oldest.)
the house was clean - and stayed that way! And we still had another day before Christmas to finish up. Lots of neighbors couldn't come with us, because of health or other reasons, but we caroled to them anyway. We ended up with about 15 people caroling to the neighborhood and joining us for hot chocolate. The warm glow of Christmas was beautiful. (Table by Sue.)
My favorite was our sweet Russian neighbor. He came out to listen, but said his wife stayed in because she didn't speak much English. He said "Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for coming!" We asked him if he had a favorite Christmas song he'd like us to sing before we left. He said, "Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for coming!" We just chose one more song ourselves before we left. He was so cute.
331. The Nutcracker. Lou was invited to go to the Nutcracker with a friend. One of the Moms couldn't go and they invited Lou. She was in heaven. Those lights in her eyes were amazing! After the performance they went to eat dessert at a revolving restaurant! She couldn't stop talking about it. Apparently she ate a dessert half her size. We are so grateful for sweet friends who are willing to include us in new experiences and memories.
332. Christmas jokes. What do you call the 23rd of December? My kids went around calling the day Christmas Adam. Because that's what comes before Christmas Eve.
333. Mr. C and Christmas Eve Day projects. Mr. C was done with his Christmas preparations mostly, so for one of his Christmas presents to us all he continued with the back basement reorganization. He added two more shelves to the back wall so that we don't have to stack the green beans and cans of tomatoes three high in order to get it all in. He surprised me with this project when I came home from running errands. :)
334. The Perfect Gift. It's great when an all purple backpack of the right brand drops from heaven at a place where Santa has a gift card on the night before Christmas. In fact, three backpacks to replace three that were on their last legs showed up. Hallelujah for Christmas miracles!
335. Christmas morning picture. I love the glow of tree lights. And I know it's time to take them down. We just had 12th night. But I'll miss them dearly. And maybe I'll leave a string of lights up just to keep that glowing feeling.
336. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We spent some time reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas. We ate dinner with friends. We read the Christmas story. We jumped up and down about Christmas pajamas, and wore them when we came downstairs in the morning.
We spent time excitedly opening presents from each other and from family. We sat around all Christmas day in our pajamas and enjoyed being just us. I talked to my parents and asked them what they were going to be doing on Christmas Day. My mom said, "Not much." My dad thought that might be overstating what they were going to do. I think we were all on the same page for that!
337. Kids and presents for each other. The kids had so much fun with their presents for each other this year. Lou was particularly thoughtful. She made a great pillow case for the oldest. I've written about how the oldest uses vegetable names instead of swear words. Well, Lou and I went to the fabric store to look for fabric with green beans or pickles on it. We couldn't find any, but found a lot of other vegetables: asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, peppers. So Lou sewed them together into a pillow case, and gave it to the oldest with a note. "In case you run out of vegetables, here are a few suggestions. . . "
338. Christmas morning legos. Love Christmas legos. This year I got to build the Buzz Lightyear spaceship with the S-Train! I am quite the expert on that ship now. I repaired it at least a dozen times. It was so fun working together. The S-Train can really follow the diagrams himself, so mostly I let him do it and was just there for guidance. But every so often I couldn't help myself and built a wing without him.
339. Being people people over the holidays. My goal this year was to do things with people over the break. We've decided that what really makes it feel like Christmas is spending time with others. Many years we spend it with my family. It's easy to spend time with people when the house is always packed with 20-30 people, and sometimes more! So this year since we were far from family we went out of our way to include friends and neighbors. I know we didn't get everyone over that we wanted to (we eventually ran out of time!) but we did some festive things that I think the kids will remember.
326. Bokeh. I just learned this term this year. It means the blurred lights you get in the background when you shoot a close up picture with lights behind it. Here are a couple of my best efforts.
I tried to get the lights to make shapes, but I haven't quite figured that out yet. Mine just looked like I stuck an outline around the lens.
Which is what I thought you were supposed to do. . .Anyway, it was fun to experiment.
327. Cookie parties. Adult and kid.
Adult party. A friend I met in PTA has an annual cookie party, and I was invited again this year! The girls and some of their friends helped me make lots of cookies to bring, and I went and enjoyed adult conversation and fun. There is such a good group of ladies at school. I enjoy being with them so much. So many of them have kids that are friends with my kids, and by now I've been on a dozen committees with most of them. I appreciate that they do get togethers like this. It's fun to see each other outside of school functions.
Kid parties. We tried so hard to make this happen before Christmas break, but things just kept coming up and not quite working out. So we finally called people the day before we had a free day or two. It worked out perfectly! Sue had friends over one day to make cookies, and the next day was Lou's turn. We didn't do anything fancy, just made sugar cookie dough ahead of time. The girls made peppermint bark, (smashing candy canes is the highlight!) and then made, cooked and decorated their sugar cookies. We sent everyone home with some of each kind of cookie and a new cookie cutter. I'm so glad that my girls have some good groups of friends at school. I know it will make all the difference in years to come. It was fun to watch the different groups and how they did things. Here is the aftermath, so you know they had fun.
328. Unexpected visitors. We had good friends show up who had just moved away. They had come up to take care of a few things. They had a couple of prearranged playdates, but the kids spent most of the day hanging out here. Luckily they came on a day that was almost completely free of anything scheduled, and we didn't have anything pressing. The kids were in heaven. We've missed them so much, and it was good to see them again.
329. Helping. Sometimes it's hard to know how to help out. I'm grateful for friends who are thoughtful and help organize those opportunities. It was so much fun to clean together.
330. Neighborhood Caroling party. We will definitely do this again any year we are in town! And having it the 23rd was genius. All the last minute decorating got done, (Including this fun and crazy wreath by Mr. C.) (Mantle by the oldest.)
the house was clean - and stayed that way! And we still had another day before Christmas to finish up. Lots of neighbors couldn't come with us, because of health or other reasons, but we caroled to them anyway. We ended up with about 15 people caroling to the neighborhood and joining us for hot chocolate. The warm glow of Christmas was beautiful. (Table by Sue.)
My favorite was our sweet Russian neighbor. He came out to listen, but said his wife stayed in because she didn't speak much English. He said "Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for coming!" We asked him if he had a favorite Christmas song he'd like us to sing before we left. He said, "Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for coming!" We just chose one more song ourselves before we left. He was so cute.
331. The Nutcracker. Lou was invited to go to the Nutcracker with a friend. One of the Moms couldn't go and they invited Lou. She was in heaven. Those lights in her eyes were amazing! After the performance they went to eat dessert at a revolving restaurant! She couldn't stop talking about it. Apparently she ate a dessert half her size. We are so grateful for sweet friends who are willing to include us in new experiences and memories.
332. Christmas jokes. What do you call the 23rd of December? My kids went around calling the day Christmas Adam. Because that's what comes before Christmas Eve.
333. Mr. C and Christmas Eve Day projects. Mr. C was done with his Christmas preparations mostly, so for one of his Christmas presents to us all he continued with the back basement reorganization. He added two more shelves to the back wall so that we don't have to stack the green beans and cans of tomatoes three high in order to get it all in. He surprised me with this project when I came home from running errands. :)
334. The Perfect Gift. It's great when an all purple backpack of the right brand drops from heaven at a place where Santa has a gift card on the night before Christmas. In fact, three backpacks to replace three that were on their last legs showed up. Hallelujah for Christmas miracles!
335. Christmas morning picture. I love the glow of tree lights. And I know it's time to take them down. We just had 12th night. But I'll miss them dearly. And maybe I'll leave a string of lights up just to keep that glowing feeling.
336. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We spent some time reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas. We ate dinner with friends. We read the Christmas story. We jumped up and down about Christmas pajamas, and wore them when we came downstairs in the morning.
We spent time excitedly opening presents from each other and from family. We sat around all Christmas day in our pajamas and enjoyed being just us. I talked to my parents and asked them what they were going to be doing on Christmas Day. My mom said, "Not much." My dad thought that might be overstating what they were going to do. I think we were all on the same page for that!
337. Kids and presents for each other. The kids had so much fun with their presents for each other this year. Lou was particularly thoughtful. She made a great pillow case for the oldest. I've written about how the oldest uses vegetable names instead of swear words. Well, Lou and I went to the fabric store to look for fabric with green beans or pickles on it. We couldn't find any, but found a lot of other vegetables: asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, peppers. So Lou sewed them together into a pillow case, and gave it to the oldest with a note. "In case you run out of vegetables, here are a few suggestions. . . "
338. Christmas morning legos. Love Christmas legos. This year I got to build the Buzz Lightyear spaceship with the S-Train! I am quite the expert on that ship now. I repaired it at least a dozen times. It was so fun working together. The S-Train can really follow the diagrams himself, so mostly I let him do it and was just there for guidance. But every so often I couldn't help myself and built a wing without him.
339. Being people people over the holidays. My goal this year was to do things with people over the break. We've decided that what really makes it feel like Christmas is spending time with others. Many years we spend it with my family. It's easy to spend time with people when the house is always packed with 20-30 people, and sometimes more! So this year since we were far from family we went out of our way to include friends and neighbors. I know we didn't get everyone over that we wanted to (we eventually ran out of time!) but we did some festive things that I think the kids will remember.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Happy Dances
323. Arby's Dipping Sauces. They make me happy. They make my taste buds do little happy dances as I combine my horsey sauce with my golden mustard on the curly fries. Their little happy dance is a perfect little lunch treat after. . .
324. FINISHING THE GRE!! And - oh yes - doing so well. It doesn't seem right to toot your own horn. We are supposed to be humble and unassuming. But - It feels so good after struggling just to keep up with the laundry and the S-Train's creativity, and trying to fit my own creativity somewhere in the middle of dishes and yelling at the kids to "Close the DOOR," to actually go somewhere and do something terrifying (like math after fifteen years of math atrophy. - Oh, by the way, good thing I've been helping with 5th and 6th grade math homework - I've got decimals and fractions DOWN!) and come out of it with a result that says, "Oh, by the way, even though you feel like a bit of a slow top when it comes to running your house, you are ACTUALLY PRETTY SMART." Whew. It's done. I'll have normal conversations with my children that don't sound like. "Sorry. I can't. I'm studying." Now, where did I really want to go to school?
We will now take you back to our regularly scheduled program called - "Getting Ready for Christmas. One week and counting."
324. FINISHING THE GRE!! And - oh yes - doing so well. It doesn't seem right to toot your own horn. We are supposed to be humble and unassuming. But - It feels so good after struggling just to keep up with the laundry and the S-Train's creativity, and trying to fit my own creativity somewhere in the middle of dishes and yelling at the kids to "Close the DOOR," to actually go somewhere and do something terrifying (like math after fifteen years of math atrophy. - Oh, by the way, good thing I've been helping with 5th and 6th grade math homework - I've got decimals and fractions DOWN!) and come out of it with a result that says, "Oh, by the way, even though you feel like a bit of a slow top when it comes to running your house, you are ACTUALLY PRETTY SMART." Whew. It's done. I'll have normal conversations with my children that don't sound like. "Sorry. I can't. I'm studying." Now, where did I really want to go to school?
We will now take you back to our regularly scheduled program called - "Getting Ready for Christmas. One week and counting."
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Christmas Lights
322. My candles. I found some plastic Christmas window candles this year. A steal at 50 cents each! The very BEST part about them is that they have little light sensors built in. Every night they turn themselves on. Every morning, they turn themselves off. They are battery powered, so I'm not worried about chords. And - a bonus - they flicker like real candles! I LOVE coming home in the evening or the morning after seminary to see their happy shining glow. It reminds me of times long ago when candles in the window were a guide home and a signal that someone was waiting for you. It reminds me of the tradition of leaving a candle in the window for the Christ child at Christmas. As I remember these things, I want my home to be a place where my family feels that someone is always waiting for them, and I want to make it a place where we look for Christ in our lives and see Him in everyone who comes to visit.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
UUUUGGGH! The manly grunt.
321. Sending Mr. C out for a week of Manliness. Mr. C just spent most of last week up with his brother hunting deer. Why does this make me smile? Because he comes home so much calmer and happier. That time tromping out in the freezing woods and processing venison seems to be soothing to his spirit. Someone asked me if I was going to "put my foot down" because of something he was going to miss. NO WAY. This is his time to go out and grunt like Tim Taylor and shoot dangerous weapons and endure the freezing cold and come back hauling food to the cave. It makes him happy. And I'm in big favor of things that add to the general happiness of our family.
Of course, I wouldn't want to do it. All that manly stuff will put hair on your chest.
Of course, I wouldn't want to do it. All that manly stuff will put hair on your chest.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Major Accomplishments! (for me)
320. I Made My First Web Page!! This was SO hard and so fun. It took several intense days and all the avoidance I could possibly throw at it, but I got it done. They say that learning something new throws you into disequilibrium and it takes awhile to adjust to what you're learning and get your equilibrium back. Well, several times during this process I thought my brain was going to explode from trying to figure out what I was doing - but now I get it. I can now write a web page in BASIC html. I can even see how this could become easy if I kept at it. For some people, this is so elementary it hardly needs explaining. I needed to be walked through the process with baby steps.
So - here is my ugly little baby. You can get there by clicking here. (And there are even internal links to other pages!) There are lots of things I still want to add and tweak and, and . . . But it's a start!
Now I'm off to conquer the CLUTTER that has resulted from mom not paying attention to any sort of house keeping while working on her project for two days in the middle of putting up the Christmas decorations. Our house looks like a small bomb exploded. Most of the debris is Christmas related. Hopefully I'll have fought the extra stuff down to the basement by the time I have to take cranberry sauce up to the school for the fifth grade's Dickens Dinner.
So - here is my ugly little baby. You can get there by clicking here. (And there are even internal links to other pages!) There are lots of things I still want to add and tweak and, and . . . But it's a start!
Now I'm off to conquer the CLUTTER that has resulted from mom not paying attention to any sort of house keeping while working on her project for two days in the middle of putting up the Christmas decorations. Our house looks like a small bomb exploded. Most of the debris is Christmas related. Hopefully I'll have fought the extra stuff down to the basement by the time I have to take cranberry sauce up to the school for the fifth grade's Dickens Dinner.
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