one's real life

it's been quite the hour around here.

let me paint a picture for you:

i'm chopping and sauteing and boiling and trying to time everything for dinner for the people.  i want our dinners to be healthy, this is out of no obligation or duty, but because i genuinely desire this and generally enjoy it, but healthy dinners are no doubt extra time and extra work and extra planning.

playing tic tac toe with gg velma

it's nearing 5 and so i call the children to start tidying. we have a 5 o clock clean up time to try to communicate to dave that we love him and are excited for him to get home and we like to start our evenings with a tidy house in order to promote a cozier, calmer family time after dinner. the kids aren't excited about this and right now, they're just oblivious to the timer counting down and the steam rising from my head.

heading to pick up sisters from school.  i can't believe how cute he is in my rear view mirror.

so there i was, prepping dinner, overseeing a defective house clean up and trying to parent and discipline with wit and wisdom all without showing the mounting frustration inside.

and that's when it hit me, doing all three of these hard things well at the same time is just impossible some days.

he asked to do his first reading lesson while the girls were at school. 1 down, 99 to go. 

so i texted danielle.

camaraderie is sweet, my friends. she knows. and somehow just typing out my frustrations with my thumbs on a tiny screen was enough to calm my anxious heart, smile at the realities of so much life in my home  (and in our collective homes) and rest in the grace that makes it okay to not have this mothering/chefing/cleaning thing nailed down quite yet.

 we found a little free library.  did y'all know that was a thing?!

the house is mostly clean (the main level, at least), dinner is healthy enough and almost ready, i sent the kids outside to watch for daddy and i poured myself a glass of wine and opened my computer to get some thoughts down.

slow dancing in the living room

i'm trying to remind myself that being frantic in this moment in order to try to manipulate or control the next moment, is kind of foolish.  sometimes i genuinely feel that in order to be okay in a future moment, i have to feel stressed right now.  like, i'll only feel okay once; the house is clean, the laundry is done, the kids are in bed, the kids are grown and out of the house, ect.  there are lots of problems with this line of thinking, one of which is we work so hard for that "moment" the one that we are actually supposed to enjoy and then the kids start fighting or someone spills something or starts bleeding and inevitably that "moment" gets ruined.

this is just terrible news.

they fixed uncle wilbur so we finally got to cross it off of our list!

the only way i can figure out how to avoid this vicious cycle is by somehow enjoying the moment i'm presently in.  this involves choice and perspective and seeing each moment through the lens of thankfulness.

we have to believe somewhere deep inside that enjoying this current moment is more important than our productivity in the next one.

part of our summer routine has been bikes right after breakfast and chores before it got too hot. 

we did this so many mornings and i loved having a chance to read more on my beloved bench. 

i really think that we so often let our hope or plans for future moments steal joy from our present ones.

it's tragic, really.

super man on his bike.

i don't know exactly how this is supposed to work.  i mean, we have some pretty stressful, frustrating moments around here.  but i do know that there is something so compelling about finding the joy and pursuing the peace right here, right now. 

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day."

oh, c.s. lewis, you slay me.