Category: Helpfulness of Habit

Ok, I’ve noticed something about these weekly reports and I’m guessing you’ve noticed it as well.  They’re great summaries of my week peppered with pieces of my heart, but the lack of substantial growth in specific habits is ominously apparent.  That’s not good.

Honestly, I’m in my crazy season.  Yesterday we had 6 games to attend:  5 soccer and one lacrosse.  They began at 9 a.m. and the last one started at 6:30 p.m. at a field an hour away from our home.  In all, the time we spent at sports events to watch our children compete was twelve hours solid, with one 30 minute break when we were all home together.  I spent so many hours outside watching games with my arms crossed to stay warm as the sky drizzled here and there, threatening to dump, that I came home with a sunburn!  Ridiculous.  It’s the time of year when sometimes the very best I can do is simply live through it.  But I’m tired of just surviving, which is why I set my goals in the first place.

Tonight I’m re-committing myself to work hard at the specific little goals that will help our family function better.  I’m going to work harder at my laundry schedule and try to move through the housekeeping faster.   We’ve been so busy that I’ve fallen off my planning routines for meal planning and grocery shopping some.  I’m going to get back on the ball, change gears mentally, and start planning better meals that can be packed up and eaten in parks while we’re on the run.  I need to do a better job of planning in general.

That said, I must also acknowledge my Heavenly Father’s help in so many areas of my life.   I would be such a mess without it.

We’ve had a special Easter week around here.  Good things happened.  I worked hard to make the holiday a special one for my family.  (We celebrate the Easter Bunny version of the holiday on Friday night/Saturday morning and save Sunday for a holy day to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.)  I feel like our family has grown and spent sacred time together.  I hope my children remember it.

Once again, the habit of seeing God’s arm revealed in our lives continues to grow.  I am so thankful He loves me, one of the least of his daughters, enough to work in my life.  I am a decidedly unfinished project and I appreciate the time and attention He gives to my growth and development.

Do you want to hear the latest addition to our miracle box ?  We had a hot water pipe in our basement that was somehow punctured and leaking.  I discovered the leak late on a Saturday night so we put a bucket under it and waited to call a professional until Monday morning.  Miraculously, the hole healed itself.  No more leak.  We can’t find the punctured spot.  Once again we were reminded that He knows us, He hears our prayers, and loves to help us.

I woke up this morning with a hymn in my heart.    He is Risen!  My heart is full.  I am so, so grateful for my Savior.

Hope your week is great (and sunny)!
Jennifer

How can it be that we’re fifteen weeks into 2011?  For some reason that number seems large today.


It’s Sunday evening.  Most of my children sit nearby, absorbed in books of their choice.  My husband naps on the couch as I relish the sound of birds singing outside our open windows.  Could it be that spring, at last, is here?

My tulips are beginning to bloom.  At first I was disappointed that they didn’t all burst into color at once for a big display of color.  Instead they’re opening first in the back while the flower beds in front hold back.  Now I’m grateful for the staggered growth; the beauty will last longer.  It’s funny how we want so many things to be a certain way, only to discover that the way it all works out instead is best.

We’ve had a wonderful week.  No bells or whistles or fancy trips.  We’ve had a week of good, old fashioned childhood: a week of forts built in remote corners of our property, running through sprinklers, naps on the lawn, playing with brothers and sisters and neighbors.  It’s been a week of prayer, fresh worries and lots of love felt in behalf of my 90 year old Grandpa who had a severe stroke at the beginning of the week.  It’s been a week of peanut butter sandwiches and sliced apples, muddy shoes, lazy mornings, swing sets squeaking, laughter and imagination.  Even I sat outside yesterday in the warm sun while the children played and simply read a book.  (This is a partial answer to my question , that yes, some things get easier when your baby is old enough to play without putting everything in her mouth.)  I know my older ones may be disappointed when they go back to school tomorrow and hear reports of cruises and trips to Disneyland, but I’m confident we got what we needed.  Once again, our daily bread.

Perhaps the only real habit I’m developing so far this year is an improvement in recognizing the Lord’s hand in our lives, in seeing Him give us what we NEED regardless of anything we might not have.   I sincerely worked at changing gears this week, trying to shelve the things I’m worried about and live in the moment.  I had a few lapses but made inroads as well.

I admit this is a Sunday evening I didn’t want to come.  School resumes tomorrow and we’re back in the thick of things for seven more weeks.  It sounds so long but I know it will be a whirlwind of activity and suddenly we’ll drop into summer with a sigh of relief.

I remember nights like tonight.  As a child I remember the anxiety that gripped my heart the night before school started.  I felt it every Sunday night, the worry of performing well enough, wondering if I could do it.  It was magnified exponentially on the last night of any sort of break.  You’d think I would have grown out of it by now, but I haven’t.  I loved school as a girl, and would happily go back now for another degree if that was the plan for my life.  Yet here I sit, gripped by the same anxiety, and I’m not one of the people who will shoulder a backpack in the morning and march back to the classroom.  I’m the mom, and I find myself asking the same question I asked years ago:  Will I be good enough?

The thing I know now, much better than I knew as a child, is that I’m not good enough.   It gives me a stomach ache just to look at all the soccer schedules, list the piano and violin pieces that need to be memorized ASAP, consider the homework we need to fit in, and wonder how to make dinner and clean the bathrooms all the while.  But I also know this:  Motherhood matters.  I’m not doing this alone.  I have prayer, and if I’m humble enough things usually work out.  I have to remind myself a lot, but it’s still true.  I’m not good enough, but Jesus Christ is .  So I’ll do my best and look forward to summer.

So I take a deep breath, look around and marvel at the beauty of my family on this perfect Sabbath day, and look ahead to the week.  My notebook contains a list of things to do in celebration of Easter, some fun and many reverent.  I hope I can pull it off.  It’s going to be a great week.

Jennifer

It’s been a week in the trenches.  Sorely behind on laundry, discouraged by clutter and  distracted by some emotionally charged issues we’ve been dealing with, the week ran away with me.   A couple of busy days killed all creative thought and then my little break from blogging became a sincere effort to see if sacrificing the time I spend on it would translate to more productivity, a cleaner house, better organization or at least a more focused mother.

Interestingly, nothing really improved.  It turns out that all work and no play made Jane a very dull girl.  I have a tendency to throw myself into cleaning, working through the entire day without food or breaks of any kind, intent on getting everything done.  Then I pick everyone up from school and watch it unravel.  If I do too much of this I sometimes become resentful.  I place too much value on the cleaning, allowing my own success and worth to depend on it, leaving myself in a position where it’s me against reality.  It’s not a good thing.  On the other hand, if I allow myself to spend 20 minutes doing something I enjoy, I’m able to disconnect from the “perfect house = I’m ok/messy house = I’m a failure” mentality and embrace the reasoning that “I worked hard today and made good progress; I’ll work hard again tomorrow and in the end it will all turn out.”  In addition to this we had a lot of gray days.  I realized that creativity is my self-made sunshine and if it won’t shine outside I mustn’t neglect it inside.

As the week wore on I noticed that my productivity and focus were being negatively affected by some things I’m worried about.  I tend to stew about things, and we’ve had so many mini emergencies as parents in the past six weeks that I feel like I’ve got emotional ADD.  I had a hard time focusing on what was in front of me and instead carried unnecessary worries.  I’ve always known that I’m a serious person which is sometimes a virtue and often a fault.

I had two interesting experiences this week.  On Monday I felt so stressed about things I can’t control that I felt like I was being squeezed physically.  I knelt down and prayed, expressing a desire to cast my burdens at the feet of the Lord.  I asked Him to carry the stress, knowing that the work was still mine to do.  I was willing to work, but couldn’t work properly with the weight I was carrying in my heart.  I got up and went back to work, still worried.  I’d been looking for a babysitter for my three youngest children in order to attend the temple with a friend on Tuesday.  Suddenly I knew who to call.  I made the call, arranged everything and emailed my friend.  The instant it was done my stress evaporated.  My problems didn’t change, but the worry was lifted.  My prayer was answered.  For the rest of the day I lived the reality of Christ’s promise that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The second experience involved a phone call from a friend.  We were giving one another mini reports on the challenges we’ve faced recently as mothers and I shared my observation that I’m stewing too much over things.  She then passed along something her Dad once told her.  He said that his observation had been that the people who are most successful are those who become good at changing gears.  I realized I’ve been stuck in high gear emotionally and it was wearing me down.

Little did I know that within minutes of talking to her another problem would surface involving one of my children.  The 24 hours immediately following required me to make a couple of difficult decisions and have some hard conversations.  Her counsel about changing gears was the answer.  When school was dismissed on Friday our spring break began.  Within a few hours we had family arrive in town for the weekend.  Nothing more can be done about the problem until school resumes.  Once more I prayed for help with surrendering the stress as well as focusing on what was in front of me.

I was able to change gears and we had a wonderful weekend.  My parents were here, along with my sister and her husband, my brother and his boys, and another brother and his family were in town as well.  On Friday night we rented the movie Ramona & Beezus.  We’d wanted to see it for months but hadn’t found time to watch it.  The children enjoyed it, but I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in a long, long time.  It was therapeutic.  It wasn’t until I was laughing uncontrollably that I realized how wound up I’d been.  The emotional release was so healthy.

Saturday morning 19 of us went to the BYU Art Museum to see the Karl Bloch exhibit.   I could have stayed for hours, just sitting in front of several paintings.  My appreciation for Jesus Christ has grown in recent weeks, leaving many tender places in my heart.  The exhibit was food for my soul and I am anxious to return again before the exhibit closes in early May.

Saturday night we took my parents and our two oldest daughters to the BYU Ballroom Dance performance.  My husband and I go together every year and I was particularly happy to have my parents come.  It did not disappoint.  The colors, music, lights, costumes, choreography and execution were inspiring.   Some of the performances moved me to tears; others made me want to dance along with them.  ALL of them made me yearn for excellence in my personal life.  As I watched the dancers I found myself making observations about life, movement, precision and balance.    It happens to me every year.  Heavenly Father always teaches me beautiful things during the show.

We’ve had late nights talking with loved ones, children thundering through the house with cousins, good-byes said.  Today we had a wonderful visit with my brother, his wife and baby, and another brother who came for lunch.  We went on a walk to see the lambs in a nearby pasture.  We played a game of keep away with a bean bag in the back yard.  We talked about both trivial and weighty matters.  We were together.

Tonight I am grateful for many things.  I’m grateful for my baby girl who had a minor but very painful health challenge this week.  I’m grateful for an unforgettable evening with my six year old daughter spent reading her new favorite (and my old favorite) book, Miss Rumphius.  I’m grateful for my supportive husband.  I’m grateful for my parents who listen to everything that goes on in my life.  I’m grateful for ancestors, particularly those who have gone just a few generations before me.  This weekend I got to hold in my hands and read a letter written to my Grandfather by his brother in the early 1930’s.  The brotherly love that was expressed touched my heart.  I’m grateful for people I’ve never met whose commitment to excellence bless my life.  I’m grateful for art.  I’m grateful for music.  I’m grateful for my brothers and sisters and their families; all of them make me want to be better.

Most of all, I’m grateful for my Savior.  I’m grateful for answered prayers.  And I’m grateful beyond words for two dear friends through whom the Lord met my needs.  The first, who took me to the temple, and the second who shared timely wisdom with me.  If I hadn’t recognized the need to change gears I might have missed all the emotional benefits of our weekend activities.

I’m headed into our week determined to downshift.   I’m also going to live a balanced week.  We’ll keep things neat and tidy, but I’m going to give myself a break along with the children.   I’m going to work on some personal goals.  And yes, I’m going to keep blogging.  We’re praying for some sun (so far it’s been more like Christmas break with all the snow) but if it doesn’t shine we’ll make our own.

Have a great week!

Jennifer