My 2015 Intentions

Happy New Year!  Time is still flying past me at a crazy speed, and in this first week back at work after the break I've had meetings or classes to teach every night of the week, so I'm late getting to this blog post that I meant to write first thing in the new year.

Which is both fitting and a little ironic in light of my Intention Setting for this year!  I decided that what I needed to focus on the most moving into this new year is

To live with attention to the little things that make my life the daily experience I want to live.  This means that I will make sure I'm comfortable, things smell nice, I'm eating well, getting enough sleep, living according to my values, and doing the little things (like reading and hobbies and exercise) that make up the texture of a life well lived.

In other words, I'm choosing to pay more attention to the background rather than the highlights.  I'm not setting any lofty goals or planning any big accomplishments or "once in a lifetime" peak experiences.  Those are fine and good every now and then, but the problem I encounter is that they add stress and can throw life out of balance.  I don't thrive on adventure and change, I thrive on routine and domestic chores.  And I want to thrive, not just "do well". 

This doesn't mean I'm quitting my job and becoming a homebody ... I love my work and it would crush some part of my soul to leave the work I do.  But even at work I want to focus more on the background feel of things and less on the big events. 

May we all live well, with the time that we have.

The Walking Challenge, a year in review

Well, it has been the full year for our walking challenge, and here are the results: We FAILED.

The backstory:

Last Thanksgiving we went on a Black Friday hike with my mom and the kids, on a busy and popular trail.  The kids were, in my opinion, ridiculously lame about it and whined and sat down and claimed to be unable to walk on.  I have a crazy inner drill sergeant in my head (who yells, and I know that's not nice, but well ...) and before you could say "she's gonna blow!" there I was giving my children the full brunt of it.  "You think this is bad?!!!! Alright - if you can't handle this then clearly you need to WALK 100 MILES!"  Or something like that.  And so we had the challenge; we would walk 100 miles before the next Thanksgiving.

Here's the post I wrote about it last year, for the fresher perspective on how it went down.

I set up an excel spreadsheet and instituted a policy of one diet breaking treat for every five miles logged (diet breaking in the sense that I let the kids have gluten after five miles - our convoluted dietary story can be another post for another time).

We were amazing at first.  I was getting them out and making them walk local trails about three days a week, even through the cold winter weather.  Then it started to be an issue ... how much time did we really have for this? 

Then we ran out of local hikes that we hadn't done already, and that was a downer ... driving farther afield took even more time and then we couldn't do that on a weekday. 

All of these are nothing but excuses.  Excuses! screams my inner drill sergeant.  But you know what?  I'm OK with that.

We walked 50 miles together this year. Only half of the randomly selected huge scary goal I pulled out of my a$$ when my kids irritated me. We didn't count any miles I did by myself, and we didn't count miles done by bike.  We did some urban walking - especially when on trips to Portland and Boston - but mostly we explored all the walking trails in our town and did some close-by hikes.  And the kids got better at it.  They have more stamina, and they have a reference for long walks.  How long will this be?  Oh, about as long as the loop around the creek.  When will we get a break?  When we see a nice spot for getting out our sandwiches. 

We went out together again this Black Friday.  The kids wanted to drive out to a cool trail we had done earlier in the year, but the website warned it might be closed for the season, so we opted for a close stand-by trail.  The kids weren't thrilled to be doing "this one again!", and my daughter bailed and sat down and we finished the last half-mile or so without her and then collected her again on our way back. 

But, folks, we did a 4 mile walk together without much fuss or bother.  I didn't freak out - I'd come to understand what motivates the kids and when they can't be pushed any further.  The kids whined but not too much.  They know the drill now.  And we talked about it and decided that this year we want to do another challenge - 60 miles, so just 10 more than we did last year. 

That, I think we can do. 

In our Homeschool: A Little Change Does Us Good

A few posts ago I lamented that things had become rough around here: kids fighting more with each other, kids complaining and being rude to parents, parents rushed and cranky and yelling at kids, and general deteriorating conditions all around.

At this point, as a veteran of many such episodes throughout my life as a parent, I know what these symptoms point toward.  We get like this with each other when the routine that shapes our lives is no longer working, and when no one is getting their needs met well enough to feel resilient to the little irritations that are an inevitable part of life.  When my children were very little it was easy - if we started to all feel cranky with each other it meant I needed to take them outside to a playground and run and play until they were exhausted, then bring them home and take advantage of their rest time to read a book or put my own feet up (or get some work done, but no matter what, it was Fill Their Tank, then Use that Time for myself).

Now that they are older it's not as simple as outdoor play until they drop.  They want different things now, like for us to play video games with them, listen to a story idea that they thought of as they lay in bed this morning, or help them sew a costume for their medieval role play game that they have made up with their sibling.  That's the kind of involved quality time they want from me.  But they also want space and autonomy now!

They want long stretches of uninterrupted time on the computer, or alone in their rooms with an audio book and their lego collection, or out in the woods pretending to stalk deer.  And they want to have a lot of choice about what they are learning and how and when.

The other part of the puzzle here was that I took a sabbatical from work this year, and during that time our expectations of what would get done in a normal "school" day (many of which are also "work days" for me when I am NOT on sabbatical) ballooned into a much larger thing.  Now that I'm back at work, the expectations for homeschooling time still stayed high - and it's been too much for me to really keep up with so I always feel rushed and harried and like I'm failing at Doing It All, Well.

So, clearly time for a change!

We have scrapped our old routine, and are instead doing:

1.  Morning Basket



This is one of Charlotte Mason's ideas.  In our interpretation, it is a basket that I fill with different things each week, such as: literature to read out loud, poetry to read out loud, flashcards, sketch books and drawing exercises, educational board games, music to listen to, art books to do picture study with, etc.  These are all the lovely things that sometimes end up feeling like "extras" when we are too invested in "getting curriculum done", and they are also the sort of things that we would want to do together.  We sit down with our basket at the table and spend just about 45 minutes with the contents, give or take depending on the day.  We do it first thing after morning chores and breakfast, so we are all fresh and don't feel too rushed yet.

2.  Daily Files



We had been using an assignment chart that showed all of the months assignments, but a few things were happening: they wouldn't check off something they had done, they would check off something they hadn't done, we would fall really far behind and I would feel the pressure to make them catch up, they would look at it and feel overwhelmed and not sure where to start and freak out.

The daily files are a nice solution to those problems: there is a file for each kid for Monday-Friday and I've torn out the pages from the math books, etc. and put them in for each day. I also write out a short checklist of things that need to be done that don't fit in a file (music practice, language CD's, stuff like that).  When the work is finished it is handed to me to quickly assess and then either recycle it or 3 hole punch it and add it to the growing portfolio of finished work.

They have a very simplified view of their work: what is in today's file?  So far they are cruising through this work on their own without it being a time burden to anyone. 

3.  Unit Studies

Instead of plowing through curriculum for science and history, we are going to do monthly unit studies for each of them, on topics of their choosing.  They will work with me to choose a topic, I will get a bunch of resources from the library for them, then they will work for about an hour a day for 3 weeks on studying the topic how they wish.  Week 4 will be Presentation Week, with a written report and one or two other projects being completed and presented by Friday of that week.  This autonomy and interest-based work makes them much happier, which of course makes us all much happier.  (Their topic choices for November?  He chose "written languages around the world" and she chose "Norse Mythology").

After only one week of the change, so far we are really happy about it!  Sometimes you just need a Change.

The path can be rough at times

I'm going through a rough patch with my kids and our homeschooling.  The going has gotten tough, so the tough get ... cranky?  tired?  ... creative?

These times come and go, and I know what I really need to do is shake our routine up, put in more fun, change the schedule, or something like that.  But I'm too tired to be creative right now, and I wish they would just ... just conform to the routine we have right now and stop making waves. 

Of course, that's not going to happen.  My children are not exactly great at conforming or not complaining to me when they are unhappy (that's not to say they can't cope in social situations where they have to conform for others - they can - but with me they are going to complain eventually).

Big breath.  In. Out.  Ok - I can do this. 

Is There an App for Life?

While I don't think there is an App that can live my life for me, I have found an app that is either A) Ruining my Life or B) Making Me Win at Life.

The argument for A) Ruining My Life:

• I'm constantly aware of how far behind on my chores and To Do's I am, and feel a sense of panic if the OverDue section gets too large
• I can't ever relax quite as well since I know I have a Lot to Do!
• It adds to my phone addiction to also have my To Do List and Life Management Tools on the phone

The argument for B) Making Me Win at Life

• If I've put the chore or the task in my app, I won't ever get too far behind on doing it - so those nagging nasty chores that are easy to ignore actually get done
• My house is cleaner, my work is more organized
• I can sleep better at night without having a mental To Do List - once it's in the phone I don't have to keep trying to remember it

It's a fine line between productivity and work-obsessed, a fine line between organized and fussy.  This app, for me, is right in that zone between those things - but so far it tips just to the good side of things. How do you manage your life's To Do's?

Shifting from Summer to Fall

It is clearly turning to Autumn here, although we are still having a warmer and dryer than normal September here in the PNW.  But the trees are turning, the geese are flying overhead, and the school buses are once again driving down our rural road.  It's Fall.

Letting go of Summer is bittersweet, as always.  I always find myself regretting that I didn't do more during Summer, and not because I am a slacker and don't take advantage of the season.  The problem is that Summer just seems like such a season of Vast Possibilities.  I expect that I will Camp, Hike, Garden, Read a Whole Stack of Books, Travel, Do Home Improvement ... all while Living Slow With My Feet Up.  Clearly summer (which realistically is only 2 1/2 months long) cannot live up to these contradictory expectations.

Then there is Fall.  Even when the weather is still nice, there gets to a smell in the air.  This smell is the smell of Better Get Busy.  In contrast to Summer which seems endless while you are in it, Autumn comes with a ticking clock and is clearly an end-between time.  It is a time of preparations.  Preparations for the coming Winter, of course.  If that home improvement project didn't get done during the summer, now there is a rush to finish it before the Winter comes.  And if you want to camp or hike this year, better do it Now before the snows in the mountains.

The sense of Time Slipping By, of Opportunity that must be Grasped Now, is actually more comfortable for me than the seemingly endless Forever of summer.  In this season, I am not tempted to put my feet up but am instead filled with crisp industry.  Now I know that the winter is coming, and that will be a time of enforced quiet and rest.  Before that happens I just need to get stuff done!

Why Blog?

I haven't been blogging as much lately, and part of that is that I just haven't found myself with the time on my hands that blogging requires.  I blog because I have more to say than I have people sitting around wanting to hear.  In other words, it is an impulse born of both idle time to think and a certain amount of loneliness.

Both of those things have been lacking in my life of late.  I'm booked up, my plate is full, my calendar is full, my To Do list is long, and I'm hardly ever alone.

And, then, like many bloggers who have focused on their parenting or their homeschooling I see it changes as the kids get older.  Privacy of course, but also the stuff we are doing is just less cute and photogenic.  I still want to blog, but the blog is about me.

Me?  What me?  Where is the me in the center of juggling work and homeschooling, chores and errands, hobbies and learning and the slim chance of a small social life or a bit of alone time with my husband.

Maybe that's the best reason to keep trying to blog.  Maybe it can hold me accountable to myself; maybe it can keep me paying attention to myself.

Lessons Learned in June

My monthly reflection, looking back at the month just past with an eye toward lessons learned and challenges faced.  What did I learn in June?

• Although the process of trying to go back to work and still keep up all my home duties started in May, June kept up the relentless grind of a long long To Do list and family needing me for things at the same time I had paid employment work sitting there needing to be done.  I am learning that I need to put everything in its own place, with a designated time for each, and put on blinders to what is happening outside of the designated task at hand.  I cannot worry about my laundry to fold if it's time to do school work with the kids, or worry about the kids being bored when it's time to be focusing on my church work.  Carefully balanced compartmentalization is the skill I am trying to work on.
• Simple routines are better than fancy schedules for getting my family to help.  I overshot by making a complicated chore chart, which the kids couldn't keep track of and so I was always having to check if people had done their chores.  It wasn't working, so now I'm focusing on just one chore - the after dinner dishes.  The kids each will wash the dishes two nights a week, and their dad will wash them one night a week.  Keep it Simple is my new (old) lesson to re-learn.
• Baking cannot really only be done once a week.  I had designated Mondays as "Baking Day" because it is my day off work and it seemed like it would be good to start the week off with bread and muffins, cookies and homemade granola bars.  But really we just gorged on baked goods on Monday and Tuesday, and then whatever was left went quickly stale.  So my new idea that is working out much better was to add Baking to my daily morning chores.  I get up at 6am and do: 1.  put away the dishes from the drain racks, 2. wash any dishes still dirty, 3. make coffee, 4. bake something, 5. throw a daily load of laundry in, 6. fold laundry on the drying racks, 7. hang the new wet laundry up to dry.
• We need to create more products to show what the kids are learning, I realized when I was trying to gather up samples for our end-of-year assessment through Northwest Untest.  We learned a lot, but samples to show for it were a bit weak.  The kids and I talked about it, and one idea they want to implement is to keep a daily Learning Log journal and write down what they learned at the end of each day.  That's lovely, but I think I also need to assign more reports/report-outs of some kind.
• Screen time (specifically in the form of Disney sitcoms) was creeping up to unacceptable levels.  Although I can watch those shows with my kids and think "it's no worse than what I watched as a kid", I still don't like the disrespectful way they seem to start treating me after too much exposure to that stuff.  Those shows are undermining the values that I'm trying to instill, it seems. So I re-instated the 1 Hour Limit for television/youtube/movies (not for gaming - we decided passive vs. active applied here not just whether it involves a "screen").  The limit has been really good for the kids.  They are playing with each more.  They are building things, creating, drawing, reading.  They are also demanding more of our time and attention (play this board game with me, go on a bike ride with me, etc), and I realize part of why screen time gets out of control is because I am too busy/tired and it's always easier to just let the screen hypnotize my family than it is to stay actively engaged.

Now, onto July!

Lessons Learned in May

What did I learn last month?  Once again, I'm using this space to reflect back on the previous month for lessons learned, challenges faced, and ideas gleaned.

1.  The process of re-entry into home life (from the road), into normal homeschooling routines (from the roadtrip style learning), and into church work (from sabbatical) has been exhausting, but not nearly as stressful as it could have been.  I have actually found myself keeping some of the let-it-go/let-it-be calm that I found during my sabbatical.  I want to commit myself to remembering what this feels like, and striving to be accepting of life as it is.

2.  The concept of "Scruffy Hospitality" floated through my feedly this month, just as I was also pondering whether I could embrace my home as it is.  My husband told me at one point this month that if there was a home-dysmorphic disorder (like body dysmorphic disorder) then that would describe the way I always see the house as much worse than he thinks it really is.  Now, I don't know which of us is actually seeing it realistically, but maybe that's not the point.  Maybe the real point is that it hasn't done me much good to be always unhappy about the cleanliness of my home.  I gave up on trying to have a magazine perfect personal appearance, and it was a good thing for me.  I'm going to try and give up the idea of a picture-ready home at all times, as well.

3.  My kids keep surprising me with how independent they are growing.  My parenting role is changing rapidly, and I find it bittersweet.  Mostly sweet.

4.  I've tried to "give up processed foods" in my grocery shopping, and this month has been a learning curve on that.  The first week or so the kids felt like they were starving.  Now, although I miss the ease of breakfast cereal and I'm spending more time cooking than before, we are all pretty happy.  But what counts as "processed"?  Dried fruit and roasted nuts have been one of our arguments.  Yes, they are processed, but I think we will keep them in our diet.  Giving this effort a label or strict rules will probably not work.  The effort to make our diet healthy, environmentally sustainable, ethical and fair, tasty, and affordable will continue.

Another good month in the life!

Lessons Learned in April

Each month I'm taking some time to reflect back on the last month and what I learned from it.  This month I:

• Realized that my efforts to accept myself and be OK just Being Me were no match for my Anxious Self.  Anxiety before my big road trip and before my big credentialing interview was almost more than I (or my nearest and dearest) could deal with.
• BUT ... I also learned that I could survive the anxiety and that all was well in the end.
• Found myself newly re-inspired to live an environmentally conscious lifestyle, and to take a moral stance on climate change.
• Took on a big adventure with the kids and found it not only survivable but actually fun.  I think more travel adventures are in our future now.
• Also learned tons of facts about America in the course of our trip - too much to list it all here.

It was a good month!

Things I Learned in March

I'm a few days late with this, but here is my look back at the last month to see what I learned from it.

1.  I stopped ordering from Amazon this month, after deciding I could no longer support their employment practices, and I learned that I could do without it except for hard-to-find used books, which is going back to the original Amazon business model.  All the other odds and ends I had gotten into the habit of ordering through them can be found in local shops, ordered from different online businesses, or we can simply do without them.

2. This lenten season my husband and I gave up alcohol for Lent, and learned just how much alcohol is part of the normal social life. I had expected to find it difficult to not enjoy a glass of wine or a cocktail in the evening with my husband, but I had not thought about the times when drinking is part of social interactions with others. Whether it is beer at soccer games, wine at a professional gathering, or drinks with a nice dinner at a restaurant, we just hadn't noticed how much alcohol moves the social scene.  I have a whole new sympathy for those struggling with alcoholism or who simply do not drink, when it seems to be so saturated in our culture.

3.  Reading the book Six Degrees has been horrifying and galvanizing, and I've been reminded yet again that I need to dedicate myself to a low-carbon lifestyle and advocating for a collective shift to a low-carbon society.

4.  My mother and I studied the Psalms this month in our Mother-Daughter Bible Study, and learned that we were both disappointed by the psalms and disturbed by how much "my enemy" language they contain.  I still struggle to pull the religion of universal love out of the religion of tribal loyalties and judgment.




5.  I learned that the kale I planted in August was able to overwinter and is perfectly lovely to eat in March.  I also relearned just how much I love my land and my garden and life here once we are past the winter.  The sun really does come back and spring returns and I can happily live here without ever leaving the gates of my own property.




6.  I had heard it was possible, but this month I verified that I can sprout leeks from the cut off bottoms of other leeks.  I kept the bottoms from some grocery store leeks, started them in my kitchen window, and then planted them in the kitchen garden after they were a few inches tall.  Now how well they fare will be the April learning. :)

Ten Things I Learned in February

I'm writing this for the link-up over at Chatting at the Sky, which you might want to go check out.  I'm intrigued by this idea of a monthly post that reflects back over lessons learned during the previous month - so let's give this a whirl!

1.  Change is really hard for me.  I'm a creature of habit and routines, as much as I also have to be adaptable and flexible in my schedule, and big lifestyle changes can just put me into a tailspin.  This isn't really a new learning, but rather a lesson that keeps coming back to slap me in the face all over again.

2.  I Love my job.  Being away from it for an extended period of time doesn't actually feel restful - it feels stressful!  I filled February with a week of angsty self-pity, a week of crazy de-cluttering and cleaning my house, and then by the last week of the month, and the 3rd for me on sabbatical, I sort of hit a stride of just living in a more relaxed way.  It's still a work in progress, though.

3.  The vagaries of February weather can either drive you crazy or you can find a way to go with the flow.  Really, it's remarkable how much the weather affects our lives, and must be constantly taken into account.  I'm also keeping an eye on the temperature and trying to guess the last frost date, because I have a rose to prune and seeds to plant.

4.  My relationship with my husband needs to be a higher priority for me, and for him.  I need to have more time with him, as adults, no kids, and it needs to be more fun than just the weekly business meeting of "what's on the calendar, who's going to do what, what issues have come up that need a decision".  It makes me super cranky when he spends all his recreational time off without me, but I am going to have to be very proactive and clear about that if I'm going to get couple time anywhere on our calendar.

5.  I learned how to take a screen shot of something I was working on, to be able to post it as a jpeg to a blog post.  It's not rocket science, but I'd never done it before.

6.  My children seem to need more sleep than they used to, and to have more trouble falling asleep at night.  I see a shift toward needing to sleep later in the morning, unless I want cranky bears.  Everything I read about youth sleep patterns tells me this is normal, however, so I just feel blessed that we have the kind of flexible life that lets me let them sleep.

7.  I found the right way for me to read poetry and integrated that into my morning routine this month.

8.  I learned some distressing things about Amazon's employment practices, and decided to try and wean myself off of purchasing everything through them.

9.  A friend pointed out to me that as a homeschooler I could get an institutional library card, letting me have 50 more books out at a time - and that has been a lifesaver!  I also realized that I need to always take a book cart on wheels with me, as a couple weeks I had so many books I hurt myself carrying them all.  The library is my favorite resource and we are reading up a storm around here!

10.  Reading Hands Free Mama, I discovered the inspiring and practical idea of a life list, and have been working on crafting my own life list.  I hope that having a sense of clear purpose will help me decide what is important and what can be a lower priority in my life.

Dreaming of March during the February Blahs

I get the "November Blahs", and I get the "February Blahs" too.  These two months are the worst for me, and I frequently feel pretty depressed.  But soon - soon! Dear God, please make it soon! - I will be out in the garden with the sun shining on my head.

In the meantime, I'm getting a few things organized as I prepare for that day.

Time Management is Life Management

How you spend your time is how you spend your life.  It seems obvious on the face of it, because we only have this one wild and precious life to live, but somehow I think most people manage to hurry through life without stopping to think about that.

How you live your life day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute --- that is your life.  




This is really hitting me in the face right now because we've had a geological scale shift in our lives (a temporary one but still huge), as I have gone on a 3 month Sabbatical from work and so I'm home full-time this month.  Suddenly, I don't have the schedule and the weekly due dates of my job, and instead I have a list of projects and studies that I've been wanting the time to do, but they are all Big And Have No Deadlines.  Last week I finished up the last few loose ends from work, and then just ... sort of floundered.

I'm not comfortable not being Busy.  It feels weird.

This week I'm settling in to it and recognizing it as a chance to look at how I and my family are spending our lives.  Is this the routine, the space, the schedule, the practice, or the organization that helps us live the life we want to live?  What is truly important and what is just a bad habit of busyness? Why does it feel guilt-inducing to spend a rainy afternoon listening to music and reading, curled up under an afghan?  No matter how much I put on my To Do list, if I finish it I just look around for more work to do, instead of claiming my time as my own.

Am I scared to live my life for myself?  Am I afraid that I won't be a "useful little engine" and get a brief word of praise from Sir Topham Hat?  Or is it that in our society we seem to take pride in being "terribly busy"?  Others will disapprove if I'm not running just as crazed and tired as they are, but is that a reason to stay in the rat race?

This seems to be Step One of my sabbatical:

1.  Spend time with myself.  Get to know myself without the rushing.

After that, we'll see where Step Two takes me.


Linky Love, to a few posts that have resonated with me this week and been part of my thinking process here:

Paradigm Shift: Curriculum is Not Something You Buy by Simple Homeschool

Overscheduling, Outliers, and the Olympics by The Happiest Home

Secrets of Adulthood: Schedule Time to be Unscheduled by The Happiness Project

Treat Yourself to These Luxuries of Simplicity by Home Your Way

Weekly Book Post: Replenish and The Dance

In my quest to practice better self-care, I have just read two very different books on the subject of self-care for women:




Replenish by Lisa Grace Byrne is a practical step-by-step explanation of what the author calls the 7 Habits of Self-Care (Calm Mind, Sovereign Thoughts, Nourished Body, Restorative Rest, Joyful Movement, Anchored Quiet, and Authentic Connections).  Byrne's voice is very "motivational speaker"-ish, but in the good way - I think she would be a good motivational speaker and would get everyone pepped up about going home and taking better care of themselves.

One metaphor she uses that really struck me was to envision yourself as a children's wading pool, rather than a well.  To keep the water in the wading pool, you need at least one garden hose putting water in it.  Or, if you aren't getting enough water from that one source you could have several hoses, each just dripping in.  The water-level in your pool would stay steady, as long as it was getting at least some input from those hoses.  I like this because it takes away the idea of "deep-well-springs" that you are supposed to just possess, which always makes me feel bad when I feel all used up.


 

Oriah brings a very different voice to The Dance.  Rather than being a motivational-speaker or coach, she is a poet, asking more questions than she gives answers.  Throughout this conversational, personal, and melodic book she challenges the reader (and herself) to accept who you really are and engage with that self.

"What if the question is not why I am so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?"

Indeed - what if that is the question?  A provoking question that I would like the answer to!

"When we avoid the emptiness, when we fill the stillness with too much doing, we are often trying to outrun our sometimes unconscious conviction that who we are will never be enough.  The things we try to hang on to - our work, our relationships, our reputation and perspective - are the things we believe will make us worthy of life and love even though we fear we are basically and inherently flawed.  If we can simply be with the fear that we are not enough, and with the vastness of what we do not know, we discover an emptiness that is not our failure but is the very source of the fullness of who and what we are.  We discover that who we really are - compassionate, gentle beings capable of being with every moment - has always been enough. 

Simple.  But not easy."

Yes, decidedly not easy!

An interesting pairing, which I did not design ahead of time, but I liked the conversation these two authors had in my head this week.

What I'm Grateful For

(Feeling grateful even for small harvests)

This month my Facebook newsfeed has been full of people posting their 30 Days of Gratitude.  I blogged my 30 Days of Gratitude last year.  But this year, I decided not to participate.

It's not that I'm against feeling grateful.  I'm not ... we should reflect on what we are grateful for and as a mindfulness practice I find it very helpful.  I think we should pause to note the abundance that we already have, especially in the season of harvest and before we hit Consumer-Christmas.

But, at the same time, the public naming of gratitude has a bit of the image-crafting problems that Facebook has brought into our online culture.  Although I'm sure folks are usually just being genuine with their gratitude, the over-all effect of everyone listing all the things they are grateful for is ... a bit braggy.  A bit off-putting.

Maybe it's just that, as Americans, we can turn even the 30 Days of Gratitude into a competition.

I found this quote in a book I'm reading right now:

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy: but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

--Charles de Montesquieu

When we edit our lives to highlight the best parts, we are projecting a fake life for all to see and admire.  It's something most people do all the time, and I do not believe it to be malicious.  It may even be appropriate to a large extent - airing our dirty laundry or complaining on the internet all the time would be a bit of a drag and show inappropriate boundaries.  But still .... cumulatively we are all guilty of raising the bar of expectations so high that now we can all feel like failures.  Cumulatively, mind, so please don't feel bad individually.

So, I'd like to say this about my own gratitude:

• I am so grateful for the blessings I have received, which are many.
• I love my family very much.
• I can lose sight of my blessings when I think of all I want or all I should do.
• It really is true, that it's not having what you want, but wanting what you have. 

I wish all a joyous and gratitude-filled Thanksgiving.  

The November Blahs

OK - I've been feeling more than a little like this poor Jack O'Lantern pictured above looks - worn out, falling apart, molding, and sad.  I woke up one day recently, looked in the mirror, and saw Depression looking back at me.

I can list current "causes", and trace their vicious cycle.  In a nutshell:

• People disappoint me.  I wish they would be one way, and they just won't be like that.  I expect them to step up, and then they don't.
• I start to doubt myself, and to seek validation from those people - the ones who are disappointing me - and they don't validate me either.  They say unhelpful things, things like "people treat you the way you let them treat you".  I start to feel like everything is my fault, and that the only reason people disappoint me is because I just can't manage people properly.
• I sit with this disappointment and discouragement for a few days, and think about things like just quitting my job or quitting homeschooling or quitting this organization or activity, because what's the point really?
• Then I get mad. I reject this world view, and get pissed that people are basically trying to make me feel bad for clinging to the ideal that if one is nice to people, it will ripple effect into a nicer world.  
• At which point anger burns out into depression, and I'm back to feeling disappointed, discouraged, depressed, etc.

But why now?  People are people all of the time, and frankly, they rarely measure up to my hopes for them.  I consistently want and expect the world to be a bit better than it actually turns out to be, and most of the time I consciously choose this stance.  I'm very fond of the idea that a pessimist may turn out to be right more often ... but an optimist gets more done.  I'd rather get more done through willful rosy-glasses thinking than be right about everything being crappy and just contribute to more crapiness. I know I'm choosing to be wrong, and I'm choosing it anyway, because that's the world I want to live in and I hope my choice will make it ever-so-slightly more real.

So why am I depressed now?  

I found comfort in this recent blog post from Simple Mom: Everyone Wants to Quit in November and February.  Aha!  Yes, it's just seasonal.  It's just the November Blahs.  Nothing else has changed, and I just need to put up some holiday lights, give myself a little extra rest, get re-inspired, and charge ahead.  

And I need to plan ahead for February so this doesn't jump out at me unexpectedly again.

The Balancing Act: Homeschooling and Having Your Own Life Too

I've always known that I loved homeschooling - after all, I was homeschooled all the way through and I loved my own education and the lifestyle we had in my family.  But there is a twist when you know you love homeschooling, because most often that means that the mother would need to stay home and not have an outside career.

My mother balanced her need for income and her desire to homeschool us by running a home daycare. When we were little she could only take in a few kids, but by the time I was legally old enough to count as an assistant we were able to have 10 extra kids in our home all day long.  She spent 11 hour days supervising our schooling and all those babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, she did all the housework, and she took on lots of volunteer tasks for the community theater company that our entire family got heavily involved with.  She also continued to play the cello, which had been her pre-children passion.  She played for a community orchestra and in a string quartet.

Now, my mother has no regrets, other than this: she says she wishes she had taken more time for pursuing her own lifetime learning goals.  She wishes she had set herself more learning challenges and had homeschooled herself at the same time.

I am balancing my role as a homeschooling parent with a full-time job running the religious education program for a church, as well as with the housework, garden, animals, and all my crafty/homesteading experiments and hobbies.  And I am taking a cue from my mother's regret, and taking time to continue learning and reading for myself and not just for the kids.  It's a lot to balance, or I'm well-supported by the pillars of my life, depending on how you flip the organizational chart.  How do you balance your life?

No Apologies

I recently found myself trying to make conversation at a dinner party with someone I didn't know ... a relative of a friend of my husband's ... who asked me "what's new with you?"

I found myself floundering, saying something lame like "nothing really.  Between the kids, the house, and work, I don't have time for 'new' things."  The conversation then proceeded in a direction of this well-meaning lady telling me I needed to "get out more", put the kids in school, and basically "get a life".

It's not really her fault.  The way I presented my life, my inability to answer that simple small-talk question, did make it sound like I really don't have much of a life of my own.  By starting off from a position of apology - making excuses for why I couldn't think of anything "new" - I had already undermined my own life.

Thinking about it, I've come to a few realizations:

I don't need to have anything "New", when the everyday is just the way I want it.  

The whole question "What's New With You?" is really asking for you to give a highlight reel, preferably with some kind of major transition or adventure (travel!).  But people may just ask it because it's an easy conversation starter.

I am not really a collector of adventures.  I am more of a homebody.

I will not apologize for living the life I want to live.  


So I wish I had replied something like "Nothing 'new' really, since I'm so happy and content with my everyday life.  It is rich and full of things I enjoy like books to read, cooking and enjoying good food, homeschooling and getting to go on learning adventures with my kids, birdwatching from my window, taking care of my home and land, and trying out new homesteading projects like raising turkeys or making blackberry wine.  All of that keeps me busy and I love it."

We don't need to apologize for living the life we want to live.  Maybe it's not the way someone else would live - that's why it's your life and not theirs. Claim it proudly.  No apologies.

Small Victories

 Sometimes the trick is to break life down into small bites. An overstuffed linen closet is frustrating because you can never find the right sized sheets for the various beds in your household? It took me 30 minutes to pull all the sheets out and sort them and decide which to donate so the closet isn't so full. Some bags I already had lying around served to hold all the queen sheets in one bag, double sheets in another, twin in a third, and pillow cases in a fourth.

  

Or maybe it's the office at work that is dirty, cluttered, and driving you crazy?



A good use of summer slow down time at church is to clean that office all up!



They were actually small investments of energy in the big picture, but I am feeling so relieved and happy with these little victories.