Thoughts

As we were going through our day yesterday I found myself composing chapters of my "book". It wouldn't so much be about how to raise a whole bunch of kids, or funny stories about a house full of boys as much as a "book" about letting go of I thought I was. It's interesting how people define themselves through childhood experiences leading into adulthood. What are the things they decide are important. I have found that I am an amalgam of things each of my parents find important, but the life and mate I have chosen don't always allow me to hold onto those preferences. With Dave I am able to be the happy-go-lucky person representative of my dad, but I'm frequently not able to be the person who has plans A, B, and C in place ready to go in the event of a hiccup. I hope that I have held on the the gracious beautiful person that my mom inspires me to be, but I am frequently have to kill the clean freak that rear her ugly head inside me. Every so often when I feel tired or overwhelmed I have a complete breakdown about how dirty and unorganized our house is and I wonder how I can add to that. The thing I have to hold tight to is that this life is not about my preferences, or those qualities I have brought from my family of origin. This life is about dying to self, and giving my life, my whole life away. I have the joy of giving my life away to little people I'm surrounded with. Some people give their lives away in business, or organizations and they get to see their work on graphs, and reports. I see mine in smiles and hugs and whispers a constant background drone of "MOM..." I would like to believe that I am so much more selfless than before I had kids, and then again before I had adopted kids. Dave used to bear the burden of hearing me fuss over whether or not his vacuum lines looked the way they should, or whether or not the towels were turned the right direction. Now, I'm usually glad if we have towels and they don't smell. I found that a lot of the "rules" of housekeeping I put on myself were passed down from my mother, being the consummate teacher, who taught me the "right" way to do pretty much everything. It's hard when you are a rule follower to decide that this and that rule are just not important to you anymore and you are not going to abide my them. It sound funny as I right it down. Contrasted to pretty much anything in life that is important this little difficulty seems like nothing, thought I have spent more than a moment agonizing about a task that I feel I should accomplish that I am just unable. As I continue on this journey I hope to be able to let more temporal things go as I am convinced of the eternal things I strive for.

Life

I haven't blogged in awhile, so now I'm having a hard time deciding what to blog about. In some ways it seems like we have so much going on and in others we are so boring. Today I am delighted to be spending the day at home. It's been several weeks since I had a day with nothing planned. Today wasn't one of those days either, but fortunately both of my appointments canceled. This is something that would normally make me sad. I'm always one for community, but today I was tired and the idea of sitting in my pj's and taking the day however I wanted it was very appealing. So far I have spent 4 hours balancing our budget. We are saving for a new roof and a new car. As much as I like to see that number grow, it never grows as fast as I would like. I'm always trying to figure out what else we can cut out, and then not actually wanting to make the cut because it will eventually inconvenience me. The boys have started swim team. Dave has taken them since I have been at work. For the first time, as I watched them swim I wondered if we might contribute something to the team this year. Would be nice. We've been the hanger-on'ers for too many years. Mostly we do it so that they can get the exercise and team experience, but it isn't bad to actually help the team out. They seem to enjoy it. Bryce is always a menace. He does what he wants to do regardless what anyone tells him to do. It's so hard for me, sitting on the sidelines, not to get up and start yelling at him. I understand that the coaches can do it, but I still feel responsible as the parent. I had to settle for threatening him when he got out of the pool. I will re-threaten him before he gets back in the pool tonight. We've gone through 3 kids birthdays now. All was fun. I am enjoying them being this age. It is much easier on me. I think it's the only reason I can work full-time now. Besides the fact that my current job is far less stressful than my previous job. It's an odd thing, in that all I ever wanted to do was be a stay at home mom. I have less of that domestic time now than ever, but we seem to be getting along and I am not unhappy. Now I am off to take a long hot shower before starting some much needed laundry and baking. Enjoying the simple pleasures of life!