It's the most perfectly perfect September blue sky day in Virginia.
I am thinking:
about women and friendship. My sister and I were talking yesterday about how much easier it was to nurture our friendships when the children were little since so many of us were stay at home moms who desperately needed each other to get through our long days. It's too easy now to get bogged down in kids' activities and work tasks and volunteering and to forget how important it is to make time for our girlfriends. One day these children and their activities will float away. And as Melanie Shankle wrote in Nobody's Cuter than You, "We absolutely need our girlfriends because no man wants to hear all the words we have to say in the course of a day." Amen?
I am thankful:
for the technology that let me watch the Texas game while in Delaware on the beach with my toes in the sand this weekend. I often think that the smartphone will be downfall of humanity, but then I remember the WatchESPN app and I quickly recall Romans 8:28. I'm not sure that the apostle Paul was exactly referring to college football when he said that the Lord works all things together for good, but it was awfully good.
In the kitchen:
there's been a remodel going on for what seems like 6 years. I have some serious patience issues when it comes to this. I blame Chip and Joanna Gaines. It appears that this stuff doesn't occur in one day, so that you walk in to angels singing and a Magnolia Market candle flickering on your giant island after a brief one hour episode. One day we had a beautiful new island but it was covered in a piece of cardboard. Then one day we had appliances and then one day we had counter tops. Still another day we had some bar stools. I have a backsplash now. Things are looking up and it's going to be beautiful, but just so you know Chip and JoJo are pretty little liars. ;-)
I am wearing:
running shorts, a #mathiasstrong tshirt and running shoes
I am listening to:
contractors installing an oven and range hood.
I am going:
to have to do a bunch of sandy laundry from our trip to Rehoboth Beach this weekend where we were for a baseball tournament for the littlest man.
I am reading:
Joe's college application essays (pause for deep, cleansing breaths). I also just received Love Warrior by Glennon Melton and Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist in the mail. I read exactly two books this whole summer. That is a record low. I miss reading and I don't think it's an accident that I didn't write much more than I read this summer. As a teacher, I always told my students that good writers read. A lot. I didn't do a lot of either this summer and I miss both so much.
I am hoping:
for a fabulous dinner idea to just pop into my head at any minute. Better yet, that it might just pop on to the table, too.
I am looking forward to:
celebrating our high school golf team tomorrow night at our end of the season banquet. We'll be specifically celebrating this guy and his senior teammates. How in the world?
I am learning:
to say no. This is not necessarily about needing to say no to other people's requests. It's not really about being a people pleaser. It's not about having a better system or a new organizational plan. This is really about figuring which things on my list most fill me up and make me the person God intends me to be. It's about finally choosing what I really want to do and how much of it I can honestly, feasibly do while still understanding that I have four other people in my home who need to eat and wear clothes. ;-) To do the thing that is really my heart's desire, it means cutting out other things I really want and like to do. It's hard to make choices like these. It can hurt other people and it can hurt me. I hate it, but the truth is I cannot do everything and anything I want to do. Last week, as I screeched into the high school parking lot for College Information Night, I had to sit in the car before I walked in because I realized that I wasn't breathing right and my head was pounding. That wasn't about Joe being a senior, although that makes me lose my breath, too. It was because there is just too much. That day, last week, last month. It's all too much. And the "too much" is not all frivolous and unimportant. The things I'm doing. The places I'm going. The people and tasks on my list. There is not one thing I'm doing that does not feel vitally important when I write it on the list. And yet, I don't think God wants me to do all of this. What I have found in the last month is that I have one foot out the door no matter where I am or who I am with lately. God is not requiring me to have just part of me in a million different good things. I am learning that decisions will have to made that require me to take both feet out of some things I love, so that I can put both feet in the things He is really calling me to do. That night in that parking lot, trying to catch my breath, I learned that His still, small voice is getting pretty insistent and pretty loud. It's time to listen and learn NOW.
I am praying:
for patience and calm and serenity.
On my Ipod:
I've been running through several of Jamie Ivey's Happy Hour podcasts. Jamie interviews a different woman each week. They are mostly Christian writers/moms/bloggers/charity volunteers. It is honestly like having a glass of wine and chatting with a friend. They talk about serious things and fun things. It's a delightful way to pass the time while running errands, watering the 50 plants you just had put in your backyard or just sitting on the deck watching the clouds.
I am wondering:
If there is anything more beautiful than a sunset over the bay in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
I am pondering:
. . . writing requires work. Kind of hard, brutal, sanity-threatening work. All the writing dreams in your head have to transition to your ten fingers on a keyboard, and I’m afraid there is no other way. Work requires time, which of course, you have none of. This is the writer’s dilemma. You will not miraculously become a writer by carrying on exactly like you are. It’s a whole thing and you have to make room for it. . . Writing will take time away from other things: sometimes kids, sometimes spouse, sometimes a thing you used to do, sometimes sleep. Work does this. You don’t get to keep everything as is and also add writing. That is not how the time/space continuum works - Jen Hatmaker
A verse for today:
"For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay." - Habakkuk 2:3
One of my favorite things:
A group of 11 and 12 year old boys who transform from little kids screeching and riding the waves one day to fearless, focused competitors the next day. They won three games in a row on Sunday in their tournament and took the championship from kids who are older, taller, bigger and have more facial hair than they do. I can say with all honesty, that I will never tire of watching them play.
A few plans for the week:
ordering things for the kitchen, sending things back, baseball practice, orthodontist and eye doctor appointments and the first day of the new year of Community Bible Study.
A peek into my day:
Some rest for the weary.
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