Category: Yearly Goals

What a week!  I know the purpose of this post is to report to myself my improvement in building better habits during 2011, but my heart is full of gratitude for some simple but wonderful things and I must recap.

On Monday night we went as a family to watch our oldest daughter’s soccer game, where she scored 2 goals!  She usually plays as a defender but occasionally her coach puts her in on offense.  The team was down 0-1 for the longest time and frustration was building when she scored the first goal for her team.  A couple of minutes later another girl scored again and they were off and running, winning the game 7-1.  She scored the 1st and 7th goals and we were so happy for her.  It was also the first time she did what’s called a flip-throw.  A flip-throw is a front handspring throw in.  She’s been practicing them for a while but hadn’t yet done one in a game.  It was a really fun night.  It turned out we had soccer games on four days this week.  My eight year old daughter also played a couple of games and in her case she was put in on defense instead of her usual offensive position against the best team in the division.  She was scrappy and refused to let the other team past her.  While she was in, they were unable to take a single shot on goal on her side of the field.  I was proud of her.  My oldest son scored the first goal for his team in his lacrosse game on Saturday.  It was his first goal of the season and turned out to be a great game.

I understand that sports and scoring goals are of little significance in the big scheme of things, but in the here and now they can be so important.  They build confidence, motivate us to work harder, teach us that the hard work we’ve already done was worth it, and keep life fun.  We all need some personal victories in our lives and I felt so incredibly grateful that several of my children had such victories this week.

At our Elementary school they do what’s called Student Led Conferences, which is like a parent/teacher conference except that the students lead their parents to their desks, get out their data folder and show their parents all their grades in every subject, discussing their performance.  They show parents samples of their work, read their class mission statement, read their personal mission statement, and ask their parents to help them set an academic goal and a personal goal, writing down three things they will do to reach the goal and a date by which they will accomplish it.  They then ask their parents if they have any questions, thank them for coming, and then the parents get to talk for a few minutes with the teachers.  I got to do this with four of the children on Thursday afternoon and it was precious.

On Thursday night I took my two oldest daughters, ages 12 and 8, to a local theater to see Little Women.  It was a wonderful night.  The cast did such a great job and as I sat there it was like I was transported back in time to my childhood bedroom, reading the book again for the first time (and crying like I did the first time, too).  My daughters loved every minute.  I loved listening to my twelve year old laugh as she absorbed the humor in different conversations and relationships, and loved watching my eight year old piece together the storyline as this was her first introduction to Little Women.  It was a very special evening and I feel so thankful that we squeezed it into the schedule in spite of a crazy week and a particularly wild day.  I also bought tickets for our whole family for a performance in December, and it feels good to have something like that scheduled.  I want to get us all to more plays and musicals.

I had a couple of boxes of peaches in the fridge that needed attention, and I’m happy to say that they’re all taken care of.  It makes me sad when the peach season draws to a close, but grateful that we savored them.  Now I have a box of local pears awaiting my attention.  Mmmm…

It rained all week long and snowed a bit, too.  The week felt loud and chaotic but we had our moments of calm, which I’m learning to notice and savor.  We started new books and got a lot of cleaning up done around the house.  The rain allowed me to focus my attention indoors more than usual and things are looking better around here!  I’m steadily getting closer to being completely caught up on laundry.  I pulled a Halloween picture book off the shelf for the first time this year and was reminded again how magical these seasonal books are for children who aren’t yet old enough to remember them from last year.  I spent an evening curled up on the couch, reading a book next to my husband.   Last night before bedtime we all piled on Mom and Dad’s bed to start a new read-aloud book.  I loved having them all there, snuggled together and giggling about the story.  I’m grateful it’s supposed to warm up, but rainy days have their good side too.

Yesterday our second daughter turned 9 years old.  She had a great birthday and I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with her.  She is a gem.  As we gathered around the table for candles and cake, I said to the children, “Do you realize how lucky we all are that we live in a family that gets to have ten birthday parties every year?!?”  It hit me how special this is, that we have so many things and people to celebrate because we have a large family.  Wow!  One of those great little perks I’d never thought about.

I feel so thankful for the simple, subtle ways in which my days were rich and full.  So many hugs and kisses to enjoy, so many moments when I connected with one child or another.  I did a better job of listening to my oldest son, and we had some fun times together.  I finished a couple of things this week, although I didn’t touch any of the projects on my goal list for October.  Still, I feel like I’m consistently improving in my efforts to be a better mother.  Granted, the improvements are tiny in comparison with my responsibilities, but progress is progress.  I’m learning to more earnestly sacrifice personal interests for the sake of my children and their development.  I’m doing a better job of “losing myself” in this God-given work of raising his children, and it feels good.

I was kind of on again, off again in my healthy eating this week and am ready to jump back in with gusto this week.  I noticed a direct link between how I felt and how I ate.

I have made studying the scriptures and praying my #1 priority each morning.  I’m striving to do it with precision.  The slow but cumulative effect of doing this has begun to come back around and wrap me in a most wonderful feeling.  I am learning.  I am understanding things I’ve completely missed before.  I’m growing.  I’m staying more calm with my children.  It’s awesome.

Now the house is quiet and I look around at the Sunday messes here and there.  There’s nothing glamorous going on in this house, just regular old living.  Things are out of place everywhere and I’m pretty sure there’s a homework assignment that didn’t get done yesterday which we’ll have to deal with early in the morning.   I am grateful for life, grateful for health, grateful for the opportunity simply to be here, experiencing what I’m experiencing, having so many opportunities to learn, grow, apologize and love.

It’s going to be a great week.

Jennifer P.S.  I’m nowhere near running out of recipes to share, but I’m going to mix other things in a little more this week.  Watch for an amazing new zucchini bread recipe that I’m guessing is unlike any you’ve tried before.  My daughter calls it the best bread I’ve ever made (and I’ve made a lot of bread!).  We’ll start tomorrow with photos from the little baby blessing we had here a couple of weeks ago…

Can you believe it’s October?  No?  Me either.

I visited our gardens tonight to pick some veggies for our salad and as I poked around for things that looked yummy I realized that our gardens are the perfect illustration of my life right now.  On the one hand, the season is winding down.  Pumpkin vines are dying back, sunflowers hanging low (begging me to get my act together and harvest their seeds) and a general crunch is heard beneath my feet as fallen leaves gather slowly on the ground.  A few days ago I was driving down the street when a breeze suddenly sent a dozen or so yellow leaves swirling into the air and then to the ground.  My first glimpse of falling leaves this year.  On the other hand, summer is still in full force.  My dahlias are bursting with blooms.  The largest dahlia of the year just bloomed a day or two ago.  My daughter’s bell pepper plant is suddenly loaded with peppers and my son’s cucumbers recently decided to go gangbusters and produce the first cucumbers of the year.  Two days ago I noticed a new blossom on one of the pumpkin vines and was surprised; this afternoon there is a small pumpkin growing in its place. My squash plants have no clue that it’s October and there are dozens of tomatoes yet to come.

Yes, the garden stands on this funny threshold between summer and fall and I confess my heart is the same.  Part of me wants to hang on with all my might to what’s left of summer and another part of me is ready to run ahead and embrace fall with the holiday season hot on its heels.  I love so many things about both seasons that I begin to feel indecisive.  Which is better:  a fresh peach or a fresh pear?  When they’re both picked from local trees I admit I’ll choose whatever I just ate a bite of.  Do I want to tear the garden out and start planting my bulbs, or do I want to enjoy it longer and risk a frost?  I love the harvest, love the colors, taste, texture of it all.  You wait all summer, watching and anticipating and then it’s here.  Fresh everything!  There’s so much of it you can hardly use it all and you have more ideas for what you’d like to make than time to try them.  And then, suddenly, it’s over and the trees are barren and I’m praying there’s crisp lettuce at the grocery store.

We’re eating dinner outside as much as possible.  Tonight we enjoyed my favorite:

creamy zucchini soup with an incredible green salad.  Most of the salad ingredients came from my garden, as did the zucchini.  We fed almost 20 people for around $5.00.   It’s the time of year when I can hardly bear to call the kids inside because the perfect temperatures lure me out with them.  I’ve got a lot of peaches in my fridge needing attention tomorrow.  My kitchen table has had fresh flowers from my yard on it for weeks and I realize that one small goal I had for myself has definitely been reached.  Fresh flowers in my kitchen from my own yard.  {Happy sigh.}

We had a busy week.  A week of soccer games, lacrosse, lessons.  I had a project to knock out that is, gratefully, off and out of my hands for a few weeks.  I thought I’d get a ton of things done this week but as it turned out it wasn’t very productive.  I can’t remember a week when there was so much crying from the children or bickering among them.  A few days ago while a friend was at the door my three year old hung her dolls upside down by their toes on my front porch bench.  I watched her and couldn’t help thinking it might be what the kids needed to shake them out of their general grouchy moods.  It’s like we’re all tired, sluggish, hazy.

This weekend we got to sit and listen to living prophets remind and instruct us and I loved every minute of it.  I feel centered, motivated, optimistic.  I’m also wondering what on earth I’ll put in the lunch bags for my children in the morning, hoping they all have clean clothes to wear to school and praying there’s not unfinished homework in any backpacks.  We really need to hit it hard tomorrow morning.  I’m still a bit awed by how completely our awesome schedule was thrown by last week’s wedding, but we’ll get back on track.  Of course we will.  Right?:)

As for the specific habits, I think I just admitted that the childrens schedules and work habits didn’t go so well this week.  Every time I asked one of them to do something I got this blank look from them, like they really weren’t processing my words.  A soft reply?  Well, a few times I did really, really well and a few times I went head to head with my oldest.  Never something I’m proud of.  I admit that this week I decided to start studying what it really means to be long suffering.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to need this quality in great measure in coming months and years.  And to my parents:  While I’d like to think that I was a pretty good teenager, living with them is quickly destroying any hope that I was as nice as I should have been.  I’m so sorry for the times when I was mouthy and rude.  Wow, it’s no fun when a teenager is on a verbal roll.

Housekeeping.  I did ok.  Not as well as I wanted.  Finishing?  I’m close on some things, but didn’t finish what I intended to.

Ok, I guess I have no real progress to report.  But guess what else?  I feel ok about things.  I am really trying to make good decisions and sacrifice the right things for my family.  I like the direction I’m heading and feel good about life.  It’s going to work out.

And so I’m off to get some sleep before the new week hits us like a freight train.  I’m leaving the list of my urgent tasks sitting next to my cell phone so that hopefully the week won’t run away without me.

Life is good.  Really good.
Happy summer/fall!

Jennifer

It is a beautiful evening.   A few golden rays of sunlight splash horizontally across a sliver of the cherry tree as I sit in the yard to type this.  The sound of crickets chirping combine with an occasional call of birds and the happy laughter of my children on the other end of the yard.  Across the street a dog is barking while a gentle breeze plays across my face.  The children have constructed, dismantled, and built a new fort several times this weekend.  Right now they lay together on blankets beneath the structure they built most recently.  I can hear enough to make out their voices but not their words, which are punctuated often with laughter.  I watch this little group and feel so lucky to call them mine.  I hope that someday they will look back at their childhood together and recognize the great gift of friendship they enjoyed because we have so many of them and because we had them close together.  I wish I could bottle this happiness to use as medicine on the days when they can’t stand one another, with an extra bottle to save for the days when it hurts to have them grown years from now.

It has been a great weekend.  Evidence of groups come and gone is everywhere.  It’s in the folding chairs on the lawn, the pile of trash bags in the garbage can, the collection of towels to be washed, the toys strewn across the house, the tired eyes of little ones.  But mostly, I suppose, the evidence is in my heart.  There’s this happy feeling that treasures the messes as a final reminder of all the smiles, conversations, hugs and memories that have been exchanged here in the past three days.  I feel so honored that so much of it took place here .  Just a little while ago we said good-bye to the last of our guests and my children “ran” my parents down the street to the stop sign.  A few last waves and then they were gone.  It was busy, noisy, but oh-so-much-fun!  All of us were together, something that becomes more precious with time and distance.  My brother was married yesterday.  Another brother blessed his baby in our home yesterday.  The men and older children cheered themselves hoarse at the BYU football game Friday night, the women enjoyed an evening together and the younger children spent magical hours in the backyard and basement.  My heart is full.  Can it get better than this?

I got a lot done, but the things I didn’t get to in preparation for the weekend remains much longer than what I crossed off.  Still, it all worked out.  What was dirty is still dirty and what was clean is now cluttered.  And that’s ok.  It’s as it should be.   When all is said and done it’s people that matter.  Tonight I feel blessed to have so many people that matter to me and my greatest hope is that in some small way this weekend was an “I love you” to them.  To those of my family who read this blog I say, “Thank you so much for coming. I love you.”  I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

And now for the habits.  I threw my ultra healthy diet to the wind for a few days but am excited to get back in the groove tomorrow.   I am grateful for my progress in this area.

I worked so hard on the house this week and while it’s nowhere near my standard I am encouraged.  If I work hard again this week I think I can recover what was lost over the weekend and continue to improve.  I also got the basement clean so we’ve got a large, tidy space to play ping pong, air hockey, or the basketball double shot.  The children loved it and on Saturday night we had some teenagers down there, too.  Just what I pictured.

I finished several projects in anticipation of this weekend and am close on others.  I intend to finish them by mid-October.  For the record, here is the list:  two headboards to paint, an end table to paint, and another dresser to sand down and paint.    I have a few chairs to tackle as well.  I also have some sewing to do and a couple of curtains to hang.

After a few days’ break from our school routine I’ve got to hit it hard again tomorrow so the homework and music lessons move forward as they should.

I’m behind on my weeding in the yard, but anxious to get out here and knock it out.

A soft reply.  There were a few times I butted heads with a couple of children, but many times when I held my tongue and tried to respond with patience and kindness.  I hope someday to be the mother my children deserve.

Service.  I did find a few small opportunities to serve and I also followed a couple of promptings I had.  Nothing spectacular, but it feels good to do what is right.

I am so blessed.  My husband is so good to me.  I love him with all my heart.  I am so blessed to have this great group of children and feel privileged that we get to learn how to be a family together.   Nothing else beats this.  It is what live is all about.

The sun is now down and the darkness gathers around us.  The temperature has dropped a few degrees and I’m now batting away the mosquitoes.  The crickets sing more loudly as we head indoors.

We’re tired.  We need sleep.  It’s going to be a great week.

Jennifer