Life is busy. BUH-IZZY. Now, more than ever, I long to be in the life & times of Laura Ingalls. With her honey cakes and hearth stove. And her washboard for laundering clothes. Kenny would be my Almanzo. I could even handle Nellie Oleson's sassy face all up in my kitchen not have to be so darn busy. We homeschool and I run my business out of my home. Thus, home is us A LOT. And, we're still slammed. The boys only play one sport each. We do attend church and Kenny is a high school football coach, but still. My goodness it takes an act of congress just to sit on the back porch and watch the boys play. I have to be intentional about sitting still. Seriously. Oh, Laura. I long for your half pint braids.
Social media does play a part. It's tricky. It's alluring & sneaky. Snatching 20 minutes of us here and 10 minutes there. Scroll through feeds become our thumb and brain cells best friends more and more. It's not that I don't love my social media. Cause I do. I think it can be such a good thing. I even wrote about it here awhile back. It's just that time is all kinds of warp-tastic and my feet are duh-raggin to keep up. And, I am no where near rockstar efficient with planning and events and scheduling. I feel like 90% of my time is already consumed with necessity leaving only 10% left for extra. And that extra usually comes in the form of laundry folding. Ahem.
So slowing down is an on-going process that's been huge for me. Like a big deal. About 5 years ago, I took a look at my life. I peered inside it like reaching into a cookie jar. I wanted to pull out the stale and over-baked morsels of me. My jar was meant for holding only fresh cookies. Ones with gooey centers and golden edges. Cookies that were yanked out were things like processed foods, money wasters, time stealers, and dream stiflers. I worked on making fresh more for my family. I began putting good into my body for purpose and pleasure. I quit telling myself I wasn't capable or the gift wasn't there with my hopes for me. I began the process of believing. Praying like it depended on God and working like it depended on me. {Thank you, Mark Batterson} I started giving myself gifts that cost nothing. Like running and fresh air. Writing and being with friends. I began re-evaluating my fashion by finding the golden in the re-used and the goodwill it provides not only for our family's wallet, but also for the inner beauty all of us bring to the fashion scene. Name brands can't do that.
I began celebrating the real. Not the hurry and the hustle. One way that I made this applicable in our home is by eradicating paper napkins, cutlery & cups. For us, this took effort and change. It may not be a choice for everyone, and that's okay. This was just one way I was able to put into practice slowing down and saturating myself, along with my family, in the intentional.
I made cloth napkins. We use real cups and plates. And I wash them. It has made a difference in my boys. They see dinner time as something a little more special. I try to have fresh cut flowers when I can find them on sale or available for plucking from the side of the road. I even light candles when we eat on many occasions. It is my hope that our family can find not just big moments worth celebrating, but the daily ones just the same. As I clean up from dinner, oftentimes, I will pray over my family's plates. I received this idea from an older lady many years ago. It brings such peace to my work when I put this into practice. It makes the vocation of wife and mother that much more significant to me. This is one of the cookies worth staying in my jar.
Just recently I hosted my women's book club in my home. The boys helped me prepare for the gathering that evening. I want to remember their giddiness when we pulled out all of my fancy glasses for the get together. They took such interest in the idea that I was going to let the guest choose their glass for the evening. They talked about the glass they would choose if they were guests at the party. And once they returned from spending book club evening away with Dad, they immediately wanted to know who chose what glass. Which was the most popular choice? What drink did they chose for their glass?
Real. It doesn't have to cost money or be planned. It just needs to be celebrated. Not once at Christmas and then again at Easter, but everyday. It's making the little adjustments that make your time more happy and your dreams more at-the-ready for the life that settles into your family best. However that may look, practice it. For $10, you can run rampant in The Dollar Tree and outfit your family with real dishes and napkins if that's important to you. I work with the dishes we received from our wedding along with a set of 10 extra plates from the above establishment. I think lots of times the idea of real is too difficult or considered too much of a fuss for daily life. Once in the routine, it becomes a nice way to enjoy the day ending together in our home. Being the only girl living at my address, I can tell you that candlelight and the clanking of forks atop plates not made out of styrofoam make me smile. And, yes, even when I don't want to wash those dreaded plates, time praying over my men as I wash makes my heart stronger.
Cheap Thrills Thursday: Find your real. Reach into your cookie jar and throw out the cookies too stale for keeping. The ones that are taking up too much room in a jar meant for gooey centers and golden edges. Celebrate the authentic in your everyday however that may look to you. This message is offically Laura Ingalls approved.
Working to slow it down and soak it up,
.mac :)
