Living At Wit's End

   As I drove my daughter to school, thoughts entered my mind...oh, to be seventeen again.  Not the seventeen I was, mind you, seventeen with all the knowledge I have right now.  If I were “that seventeen,” I would rule the school and make the changes to correct all the previous life mistakes I’ve made!   I’ve heard it said it’s never too late to be who you want to become, and I can start each day anew.  Why am I so thick-headed and entrenched in my habits that beginning each day anew is just that, day one on the path over and over again?  I feel as if my days are ebbing away faster and faster with each minute that passes.  You would think that this might light a fire under me.  Yet, I feel like my feet are stuck in molasses, making my steps slow, sticky, and incredibly difficult, my brain in a fog.  Why isn’t my desire stronger than my bad habits?   It’s the tenth day of lent already!  I’ve fallen again!  My lenten goals ...

Lent has come and gone.   Easter Sunday has come and gone.   The picture in my head still remains even though my end result looks nothing like the picture.   I set out on my Lenten journey with specific images of the end result in mind.   How my Lenten journey would look, how my forty bags in forty days would look.   I’m here to say my picture is a whole lot prettier than the real thing.   I did fulfill my Lenten goal of forty bags in forty days, I did not fulfill the image I had in mind. Here is how it panned out Sold:   One large baby gate Bags thrown out:   13 (this included things recycled or just thrown out because it was broken, unusable etc.) Bags donated to the VVA:   26 Bags donated to JMJ Life Center:   2 A lot of what I got rid of was clothing, I managed to clean out some of my bedroom and go through some of the children’s clothes and toys.   However most of the bags consisted of stuff...

I came to the conclusion that if I want to stay on track with school, make all the scheduled appointments/activities on my calendar, and continue to run the house I cannot take on any large, time consuming, projects.   So, I have decided that in order to meet my Lenten sacrifice I’m going to have to only do a little bit every day, sometimes just a drawer or a cabinet or even smaller.   Not my original plan, but I keep telling myself steady plodding brings prosperity and slow and steady wins the race. I have a very dear friend that I’ve known for about 18 years now.   She is very quick witted and makes me laugh all the time.   I’ve never known her to be in a bad mood, I always feel lighter after talking to her.   I saw her over the weekend and was telling her about my dilemma, how I want very much to tackle these big projects but in reality I need to do lots of mini ones like a drawer daily etc.   She replied “of course it’s like the whole meal verses...

So I'm not feeling really great about this lent so far.   My plans have not gone the way I intended.   Last Friday I spent most of the day visiting with my parents when I went to pick up the little ones from spending the night.   Then I took the Middle Child to an afternoon/evening birthday party, it was 40 minutes from home so I hung out until it was over.   By the time we got home it was after 9:00, I thought it would be nice to spend a little time with the Director before I went to bed.   So, washed out day three. Day four, over slept.   Took care of important stuff but shows no evidence of being done, such as lowering car insurance bill, talking over important stuff with the Director etc.   I did manage to make a plan for de-cluttering though.   I broke down the house into all the rooms or areas I wanted de-cluttered.   From there I broke the rooms or areas into specific things that needed de-cluttering.   When I was done I ha...

So I had grand plans for yesterday, even though it was Valentine’s Day. The plan: get up early do school take the kids to see their grandmother at the rehab/nursing home for Valentine’s Day shop for Valentines picnic create de-cluttering plan pick one area of the house start de-cluttering and do a surface clean of that area take the three youngest kids to my parents to spend the night pack picnic make the Director a valentine card take older two to church for their Peer Ministry Valentine party go to movie in the park with the Director Reality - I woke up not feeling good at all.  After being up about 20 minutes I told the kids today was a holiday.  (As we homeschool year round and usually have more than the required days each year I didn't feel bad or worried about taking the day off.)  I went back to bed for a couple of hours.  When I got up for the second time, I ended up sitting with the kids searching for valentine card i...

Yesterday I didn’t get a huge jump on the house because it took me most of the day to figure out that I was absolutely sure that my Lenten sacrifice journey would in fact be de-cluttering, organizing and cleaning our house.   So, after I finally decided the following took place: 1)         I got rid of seven bags of stuff and a port-a-crib.   I’m not entirely sure that I will count this in my 40 bags, as the bags were already packed up and ready to go.   They have been in my living room for quite a while so on one hand they are now officially gone from the house, hopefully blessing someone else.   However, on the other hand I didn’t actually gather the stuff during lent.   We’ll see where I stand at the end of lent as to whether or not I count them.     I scheduled a pick up at our house on-line, put the bags on the front porch, clearly marked, and waited for the VVA to pick them up.   Good thing to...

My kids have been running around today singing “Lent, lent, it’s time to repent, because it’s lent, lent our wills they get bent, by what we’ve done and failed to do, but ask for mercy and He’ll give it to you.  I'm reminded that I still haven't solidified my Lenten sacrifice for this year. How will I repent and ask for mercy? How will I grow in love and faith this year? As I said yesterday I’ve really been struggling with how to make the most of this lent. Yesterday I prayed and read and prayed some more. I woke up this morning with a pretty good idea of what I planned to do for my Lenten sacrifice. I had read several things yesterday (unrelated to each other) that seemed to drive the same point home and then I read the following post from the Holy Hero's web site  this morning. “ A priest friend sent us an email about Lenten penitential practices. He said it so well; I thought I should give it to you all to read. "The Lenten penitential practices o...

Today is Shrove Tuesday , how did lent sneak up on me so fast?!   I haven’t written many posts over the past few months because I feel like my life is an absolute mess; this has dampened my inspiration and creativity. Today I’ve been thinking, what is the best way for me to pray, fast and give alms this lent?   I figured if I post it here I will be held accountable and this will help me make a positive choice and stick with it for the next 40 days of Lent. Where to start?!   I mean, I have so many things in my life that I need to be working on!   I could do any one of the following things: ·          40 days of discipline and building better relationships with my kids and in the family.   (As the Director says Little Man and the Informer are like gasoline and a match, add to the mix the Middle Child and you’ll have a raging inferno!) ·          40 days to a healthier bod...