Daily Chatter: 12/11/12

Well, I’d be lying to you if I said that everything in my life was going amazing right now.  The truth is, I’ve been struggling with a variety of things and haven’t really been myself for a couple of weeks.  Do you ever have times like that?  Where you aren’t yourself but you don’t really feel like being yourself because it’s your own personality that’s the issue?  Yeah.

As you can imagine, in a family of seven, there is constant noise and clutter and right now it feels like I’m completely surrounded by it – not something I thrive on.  Jeremy has been good to let me get away by myself every week, but it’s difficult for me to find something to do that leaves me refreshed.  Right now, I am praying for “the peace of Christ to rule in my heart” because nothing in my life feels terribly peaceful right now.  I am striving to “seek the things that are above”, to die to myself, and put on a “compassionate heart, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience”.  (All from Colossians 3, the passage that I am clinging to right now.)

For some good news, the baby has been sleeping better for the past couple of weeks, which has been a huge relief.  Thank you to those of you who prayed!  I am really grateful for this – I really need at least eight hours of sleep a night to function well and getting up four or five times doesn’t exactly make that happen.  She’s started eating more solids finally and has been getting up about twice which is manageable for me.

Our church’s AWANA Grand Prix is coming up next month so Jeremy and the three oldest have been working on their cars.  Thankfully, this year they’ve moved their workstation from the kitchen counter to the basement and the garage so I don’t have sawdust all over the kitchen for a month.  The 7yo was sketching out his car design for this year and decided to sketch car designs all the way through the year 2020 – which is comical considering he won’t even be in AWANA in the year 2020.  I don’t think that I’m yet allowed to reveal what their cars are this year but they will be pretty sweet as usual. :)

Oh, and in response to the overwhelming life that happens in our house on a day-to-day basis, I decided over the weekend to – you guessed it – get rid of some stuff.  I know it seems silly but the fewer items that can be gotten out means fewer to put away which is easier for not only me, but Jeremy and the kids as well.  So, I simplified a couple of areas in our house so that only the things that we use on a daily basis are “out”.  The coat closet now only has one coat per person and one pair of shoes per person.  It’s amazing how much easier it is to have a child straighten the closet when there’s not a huge bucket of shoes that’s been dumped over!

I also discarded/donated some broken and unsentimental baby and boy toys, and got rid of some random “single item” toys in the girls’ toy buckets.  I realized that they had a bunch of stuff in their buckets that got dumped out every morning and then put back away at night, and wasn’t touched in between.

I think that I am recovering from the mindset of, “you must be thankful for everything that you have, even if you don’t want, need or use it, because someone else somewhere would love to have what you have.”  While I think it’s good to be thankful for what we have, I don’t think there is anything virtuous about keeping things that we don’t need, use, or even want – even if they are perfectly good things.

Some of you will think I am really crazy, but I recently saw this trash bag organizer and I want one so bad.  So bad that I might even consider spending the Christmas money my parents always give us on it!  (I know, how boring can you get?!)  Mine are currently in a cardboard box with a hole cut in it which functions well but looks awful and drives me nuts.  Yes, I am all about getting rid of stuff so I have less to organize but I also really like what I have to be organized prettily even if my cardboard box functions perfectly well.

Is it any wonder that I drive myself crazy sometimes?! :)