When I'd Rather Pitch A Fit

I've made some serious progress in the world of materialistic winnowing around Costa Cottage over the last several months; well, years.  Rooms can be cleaned quickly even at their worst.  There is a place for most everything.  But when it comes to "everything in its place" I'm resolved to the truth that it don't come easy, baby.  There is, after all, another independent adult with a differing mode of operation when it comes to "stuff", and three children that seem to need to make messes or hang on to scraps of paper or inconsequential toys because of budding sentimentality.  It really is a day-to-day work in progress to keep us sifted, shifted, and stewarded well.

Because of the realization of this perpetual nature to winnowing and the bigger awareness of other things being of higher importance (things that aren't "things" like our relationships with each other), I haven't bent over backwards to tackle any major winnowing projects in some time.  There are a couple of areas that need the most attention: paperwork and laundry.  We're handling these, but there isn't real order in place to keep us from being behind the eight ball with these two areas.  I'll get to working on a system for these soon.

But the last room standing in my house needing serious attention is my garage.  Now, I know, we've been here before.  But remember there was a move two+ years ago, the addition of a kid, several more years of life, and the nearly inevitable accumulation that accompanies all of the above.  For reasons that confound me, it appears we are to never have a garage with a working garage door.  At the last house the door stopped working within a week of moving in.  Here it took a little longer; a month.  So in both places, the garage stopped being a place for cars to dwell, but rather became complete dumping grounds for a sundry discarded items: furniture no longer used, boxes that never got emptied after the move, off-season clothes, old toys no one plays with, stuff someone gives us that we should've said "no, thank you" to.  My guts churn at the bedlam in that room.  I'm not even kidding.

This week is spring clean up week in our small town.  It's brilliant, really.  The city sets out dumpsters on Main Street and city-limit dwellers can bring everything (excluding household trash) to the dumpsters for free the entire week.  It seems like the perfect time to do the garage.  And boy, I have been gung ho.  Until two hours ago.  After wrestling and wrenching myself and the garage door to get it open, surveying the situation, tears, and a flood of complete frustration, I realized cleaning out the garage...once again...isn't going to happen.  Not this week.

The last several weeks have been amazingly busy.  Fulfilling, but fall-into-bed busy.  They've also included out-of-state and out-of-country trips for Ma Luffin Mayun.  He will come home tomorrow from his latest trip.  I've had an increased work load in and out of the house, related and unrelated to him being gone.  Here's what I realized today staring at that cesspool that is our garage: I could get it done this week.  I could.  I'm not afraid of hard work.  There are a lot of times I can work circles around folks.  But to do that this week, it would come with a cost:

-It would be at the expense of my husband, whose trips haven't been vacations, but full of hard work coupled with the challenge of being away from home and family and the familiar. 

-It would be at the expense of my kids who have already been down to one parent (who absolutely doesn't act the same when she's flying solo) so much the last several weeks, and who could use the comfort and beauty and chaos that is the five of us together in a "normal" week.

-It would come at the expense of myself, which is worn out from the hectic schedule and could use some rest and recovery and self-imposed grace this week.

When I count up the cost and make the decision to say no to winnowing the garage this week, I sound so level-headed and well-prioritized.  But I'm incredibly grouchy about it.  I can tend towards self-reliance and I don't like to not be able to do something, especially if I think it is several clicks past overdue.  I've cooled down, but I wanted to flat-out pitch a fit; stomp my feet, cuss, go on a tirade about how this family let the garage turn into a dump and that it is not just my job to keep things in order around here, and demand that everybody stop everything until it's clean or until I say otherwise even if it takes days.

Man, that still all sounds really appealing, actually...

But I am wise enough at least to know that to not do it this week is right.  I do know that I will not be sorry for saying no to the good thing of cleaning out the garage and choosing the better thing of deepening relationships with my four treasures and giving grace to myself.  As I resign to it and practice that "no", it will get easier as the week progresses to lose myself in the "yes".

And one day, my garage will be clean.  Hopefully sooner than I can imagine...

     

Working With What I've Got

I don't think I'm any different than anyone else when I say that I felt more than a little stressed about setting goals for myself at the-end-of-2011-going-into-2012. I never think of them as “New Year's resolutions” simply because the connotation in my head for resolutions is their inevitable and swift demise; what Mary Poppin's describes as “pie-crust-promises: easily made, easily broken”. But there's actually nothing inherently wrong with a resolution since it literally means, “a firm decision to do or not to do something”, which is actually what I think of a goal being. So, apparently calling it a goal or a resolution is just semantics.

But I digress...

I felt stress making resolutions for 2012. It's not news here that I try to approach life within the balance of changing what isn't wholly beneficial while accepting imperfections as part of living. But when I stared the clean slate of 2012 in the face and tried to think of how to make it somehow better or more – or even less imperfect, perhaps? - than 2011, I just felt discouraged. That's it, discouraged; completely without courage to formulate the formula for improvement. If I knew how to bring about the positive change that would be my goal for 2012, wouldn't I have done it in 2011? Who would I be kidding if I said 2012 would be any different? All the same shortcomings and deficits in my person that had existed in the last one would still come into a new year.  Staring at the yet-to-be-discovered year of 2012, all I saw was the stuff that I failed at in 2011.

Le sigh. No wonder I felt stress.

I definitely think that part of what I like to call “reflecting rightly” requires looking at the fullness of things; discerning the good and the bad, the whole truth of a thing or person or situation. But on occasion that assessing looks less like discernment and more like harsh judgment, and never more so than towards myself. In contemplating what my goals would be for 2012, it seemed every failed goal of 2011 - each financial woe, all relational conflicts, the glaring behavioral flaws of myself or the kids I parent - was all I could see. And though I knew that all the wrongs of 2011 did not, could not, rest squarely on my shoulders, somehow the weight of them seemed to. The awareness of my faults – and the gross magnification thereof – lured me into feeling like the sole proprietor of the Little Shop of Shortfalls.

But then I snapped out of it. THEN, I reflected rightly...

I got to thinking – instead of feeling, for pete's sake – about it all. 2011 was a good year, like all of our years are. It had great stuff in it, like all of our years do. It had crap in it, like all of our years do. I did awesome and stunk it up, like I always do.

Get over it. Get up. Fail forward.

A year or so ago, the prince among men that is my father, gave us kidlets and kidlets-in-law a book called StrengthsFinder. Though its novelty should not be so, it is a hugely unique and innovative tool for approaching goal-setting and life-living. What is so different about it is that it starts from the place of your strengths and builds on them.

Rather than putting a magnifying glass to my faults and flaws, why not start at the places that are strong? In fact what if the things I am good at, the places of my strength, were allowed to overshadow the weaknesses? What if the strengths were given such support and reinforcement that they became strong enough to improve or diminish or eradicate the failings? What if I believed that this non-cookie-cutter, unique, one-of-a-kind person I am was created by God on purpose to be just that . . . me?

I believe in a three-personed God. I believe in God the Father. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Holy Spirit. And I believe that I need this triune God to help me every step of the way. I know there is a supernatural needed in my natural. But I have to stop refusing to see that the person He so meticulously and intricately and thoroughly created me as was done by Him intentionally, with a wealth of strengths He wants to build up and build on.

Now that is a resolution: to stop starting from my weaknesses and to begin starting from my God-given strengths. It's different. In fact, it is a paradigm shift. But apparently, my top strength tested out as being adaptability, so that should help.

So let's get crackin' . . .

Recalibrating The Eggdicator: The Demise of Veruca Salt

I'm distracted.

Yes. Again.

How about a little stream-of-consciousness-bullet-point-prose as a sampling of said distracted-ful-ness-er-ilation?
-I want chickens. Live ones. With their own coop and run in the back yard. Laying eggs aplenty for our FabFive. ("atleast a hundred a day...and by the way...")
-I want mulch.
-I want to build, prepare, and plant raised garden beds.
-I want to buy lots of flowers and shrubs and trees and put them in the ground.
-I want ten pounds of worms for vermiculture.
-I want the garage cleaned out.
-I want the garage closed in.
-I want hardwood laminate throughout the house.
-I want a minivan.
-I want the idiot on the Kawasaki motorcycle to stop speeding up and down my road everyday.
-I want everyone to stop piling stuff on the piano when they walk in the door.
-I want Brilliant Beauty to take more responsibility with helping around Quaint Cottage.
-I want Little Big Man to put his bodily refuse in the toilet.
-I want to be about four clothing sizes smaller.
-I want to blog with amazing consistency, full of amazing content that's amazingly insightful.
-I want to wait and see and be patient and faithful and rightly focused and trust God for the "if" or timing of all of this stuff.
-I want to make it all happen myself, put it all on credit, and let it eat.

"I want it NOW!!!"

Sheesh, and Good Grief.

Some of this stuff is just wants. Some of it may qualify as a need (until you look around in comparison at the millions of others that do with less than we've already got). I don't feel condemned or guilty for wanting any of it, but I do feel frustrated; about not having it, about spending too much time thinking about it, about maybe never getting it.

Here's a definition: Contentment - the state of desiring no more than one already has; satisfied.

Sigh.

Big sigh.

Hmm. Really, I want to be content.

You can't buy that on credit.

Shakespeare said, "Poor and content is rich and rich enough". And Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Poor.
Content.
Poor plus content.
Poor (in spirit) equals heiress to a kingdom.

So I don't have everything on my list, but does that qualify me as "poor in spirit"? Here's how one theologian describes "poor in spirit": "In our more honest moments, we recognize our profound neediness, our intellectual limitations, our spiritual inadequacy, our moral failures. In our helplessness, we turn to God. Our response of gratitude and trust, itself a grace, means that the kingdom of heaven is ours". Another adds, "Blessed are those who are convinced of their basic dependency on God, whose lives are emptied of all that doesn't matter, those for whom the riches of this world just aren't that important. The kingdom of God is theirs."

How's that for a winnowing project?

Paul, having the change in his pocket to speak of such things since he lived a life that ranged from highest rank and robe to that of a prisoner serving a protracted sentence, wrote, "I am not complaining about having too little. I have learned to be satisfied with whatever I have. I know what it is to be poor or to have plenty, and I have lived under all kinds of conditions. I know what it means to be full or to be hungry, to have too much or too little. Christ gives me the strength to face anything."

Nope. Can't buy that on credit. And sometimes, it's hard-won.

But, oh, satisfaction.

A Lucky Poor (E. Peterson)
A beech tree in winter, white
intricacies unconcealed
against sky blue and billowed
clouds, carries in his emptiness
ripeness: sap ready to rise
on signal, buds alert to burst
to leaf. And then after a season
of summer a lean ring to remember
the lush fulfilled promises.
Empty again in wise poverty
that let's the reaching branches stretch
a millimetre more towards heaven,
the bole expand ever so slightly
and push roots into the firm
foundation, lucky to be leafless:
deciduous reminder to let it go.

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."

Look at what I already have. Enough is as good as a feast.

Monday, Monday (ba-dah, ba-da-da-dah)

There you go, a little Mamas and the Papas for you.

I just finished an epic game of Bananagrams (read: in the top two of Best Games Ever) with Ma Luffin' Mayun, so my daily allotment of intellect (wanting to begin with) is beyond spent. (I won, by the way. We finished at almost the exact same time, him a little before me, but he misspelled a word so I win. **Find the word he misspelled and I'll send you a cookie. Seriously!)

I'm tired. REALLY tired.

We're blessed around here to generally have weekends that stay pretty free from plans other than just being together as a family, getting into whatever we decide in the moment. Some weekends are a polar opposite to that and seem to be full from closing time on Friday straight through to Monday morning. This weekend fit the latter description. I had big winnowing plans for Saturday and made sure the FabFive knew about them on Friday night. They nodded and went on with life. Then Saturday morning arrived and almost from the outset, not one thing I planned to do got done. Not.one. All day. The entire day. Not.one.thing.

It certainly wasn't a bad day. In fact, it had a lot of good in it. But there seemed to be a huge presence of the tyranny of the urgent throwing it's grotesque weight around. I am not easily ruffled or worn down in my patience, but I ended Saturday really exhausted, more than a little befuddled, and beyond ready to just go to bed and hit the reset button.

I'm tired, but there are lots of good things going on around here. And since I recently heard there was a study done by every other person who has ever lived in the history of the world that determined sleep is a good thing when you're really tired, I'll try to keep it brief using Ye Olde Bullet Points...

-Brilliant Beauty and her messy room, paired with the subsequent meltdown when she was told to clean it, got an unplanned bedroom beatdown on Saturday. I consistently help her winnow her room (otherwise her sentimental illness would dictate saving a scrap of every little thing she's ever touched), but we still filled one thirty-gallon trashbag with clothing and toys to give away, and another one half-way with just plain trash (papers, broken toys, etc.). Sheesh. I just started writing out some more of the details, but I think it deserves it's own post, so we'll save it for later.

-Laundry is the order of the day for tomorrow. I've got to get it caught up. The air is starting to thin out near the top of the pile.

-Little Big Man is still riding the PottyTrain and doing pretty well. We're not to the destination, but we're getting there and the ride isn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

-It's time, no Time, with a capital T. Time to get a grip and winnow some weight. I'll tell you what's in the plan for making this happen. I'm excited and already have my feet on the path. We'll see.

-The kitchen's winnowed, Brilliant Beauty's room is winnowed, the living room is in process, and Little Big Man's room is next. Hopefully, it will be quick, fast, and in a hurry. Afterall, how much can a person have who's only been on the planet for under three year? (you don't want to know...)

-I'm loving Ma Luffin' Mayun's and my upcoming thirteenth anniversary. I'll post about it this week.

skj OIr fs .ffs.;kioooooooooooooooooooooooooo . . . okay, I'm basically falling asleep as I type. I think I'll go conduct my own research study to see if all this talk in praise of sleep for curing tiredness is really accurate.

I got nothing but love for ya, blogosphere homeslices, but I've got to go to bed.

P.S. Here's our Bananagrams game** (on the table my mom used to do her homework on when she was a kid...I love it, ESPECIALLY where the finish is rubbed off) Don't forget to find the misspelled word!

A Facelift Without Plastic Surgery

Things are looking a little different around here, both at home and on the blog. Have a look around and enjoy.

I'm wrapping up loose ends on projects at Quaint Cottage (posts and pics to come), but simmering (not stewing, mind you) again in the truth that I have to keep the priorities in check; choosing the better thing(s).

Like God...

Like relationships...

Like eye contact...

Like starting with meeting the needs and not jumping to the wants...

I also have to remember that this blog is to serve the purpose of helping me along on the journey; not to hinder me by my shifting into serving it or giving it some purpose it's not intended for.

I love to write and share and create; all good things.

But I'm having to learn choosing the better things.

Higher things.

I think I'll go simmer some more,
lift my face,
and look for the higher ground.

Do you ever have one of those days where you're just not "feeling it"? If you're breathing in and out, I'm guessing yes. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I woke up and enjoyed breakfast with the other members of our Fab Five, but once that was over with, Brilliant Beauty was off to school, and Ma Luffin' Mayun headed to work, all I wanted to do was vegetate. I mean, do.slap.nothing.

I understand it. Life, just by being what it is, is busy. It's tiring. It's been, oh, so cold and dreary outside. Everybody needs down-time. Yesterday, however, I just didn't want to be tired. I wanted to have the energy to conquer a million-and-one-item to-do list. I wanted to be a go-getter within the walls of Quaint Cottage and accomplish monumental tasks. I wanted to have the gumption to tackle projects and see them through to completion. I wanted to finish some things I've started. And I wanted to blog about it with samplings of the most descriptive of photographs, in the most perfect of prose.

But, risking outing myself as a moderate Aerosmith fan, all I can say about yesterday is, "my get-up-and-go must've got up and went". Even now I wish I could've mustered more stamina yesterday, or even today. I can tell I need another cupajo to help with the afternoon lull.

It's not a big deal. Nothing truly important went neglected yesterday. And in a lot of ways some very important things got the focus of my efforts. There was a walk after school with my sweet little us-es, a trip to the hardware store to help hang something beautiful and helpful in being more organized, time taken to fill up five bird feeders around our little acre, lots of jump-roper watching, introduction of another new flavor to a four-month-old palate, supervision of a backyard-tromping toddler, dishes washed, and a creative supper prepared.

Wow. Not until I wrote that paragraph did I realize what a lot of things were actually accomplished yesterday. Hmmm ... All about perspective, huh?

Why did it bother me so bad to be tired? Why did I resist my resistance to getting things done yesterday? Lots of reasons, of that I'm sure. Some good ones, but some bad ones, too. Some about a challenge and commitment to stewardship, but some about saving face within my family and the blogosphere.

I like to be a go-getter. I like to get things done. I like to be efficient. I like being strong. I like to be self-sufficient.

There it is. Did you see it?

I rest it all on my own efforts, my own strength, my own internal drive.

Uh, that reminds me of something. What was that? Hmmmm... Oh, yeah. That's it. Grease-stained rags. Yep.

"Our best efforts are grease-stained rags." Translation: my self-sufficiency leaves me covered with a filth Ajax can't take off.

What about days that I don't have anything to contribute? What about days when I may only scratch the service of the bare minimum? What about the days when my do-er is in hibernate mode?

Be. That's what.

Easier said than done.

Ma Luffin' Mayun challenged me yesterday morning to "choose the better thing". He may not even remember that he said that, but it stuck with me. I knew that meant to keep the priorities in check, to keep the main thing the main thing.

Somedays the "better thing" will be to, well, be.

So, some days the best way to winnow is to leave it all on the threshing floor. Let Him winnow. Glean from Him.

In the bleak mid-winter
frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
in the bleak mid-winter
long ago. . .
What can I give Him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
yet what I can I give Him,
give my heart.