Jadeite, Routine, and Shaking Things Up
I remember years ago I took Martha Stewart’s Living
magazine. I don’t know why really. She set the bar so very high for home keeping and
gardening. I do love jadeite. Her love of the cheap glassware
moved it out of the flea markets and thrift stores into the glass cases in
antique shops---at very steep prices. (Ree Drummond loves it too.)
But I digress about the dishes.
One of the things that I always looked carefully at in the magazine and secretly wished I could do was the calendar near the front of Living. It held a daily rundown of things to do each month to keep the house and the garden immaculately. To follow this calendar was to live the dream life, to have it all together, manageable and idealic. I knew it was sure fire way to being accomplished.
I never did one single thing on that calendar.
Those were days when having a routine was just not part of the life plan. It would not have been even if I wanted it to be.
The kids were young and life was happening at a breakneck pace. The calendar was filled with ball schedules and piano lessons. The in-betweens were packed with varied unplanned activities that happened in life with my kids underfoot.
Martha couldn’t have someone write a calendar for life as a mom with children. Nothing can or needs to be planned out so well.
I was reflecting a couple of days ago on life in the here and now and how life has changed since those days. This is what I realized:
I miss the lack of routine of life with young kids.
Fifteen years ago I would never dreamed I would think such an absurd thing! But it is true.
Now life is not so unpredictable. The schedule is less cluttered. I can pretty much choose what to do with my day. But often I don’t do much of anything. I piddle through and don’t get much accomplished unless there is something urgent on the horizon.
I check the calendar early in the day to see if I have something. My house is not in Martha order and I have no excuse. I have awakened to a routine in the middle of my life that is----let’s just put it this way---boring!
I have no one to blame but myself when I think of the routine that I live most days. It is comfortable and it is not. It has been good for me and it hasn’t. It has made me contemplate and is transforming me.
In the routine that has been mine for some time now, I have gotten the time to think and live closer to the One who loves me. I have explored my love for writing. And I have wrestled with the past and the future.
And that is why I am considering discontinuing writing this blog. It has consumed me more than I want to admit. Maybe even becoming a kind of idol in my life by demanding my attention, calling me to comparison, and needing to be affirmed.
My blog that I had only occasionally dropped words into until last August has given me gifts--- fills time, allowed me to explore how and what I could learn about me and my Savior-----about how to live life in the middle. But it has also kept my tail in a chair, a computer in my lap, and has eaten up a lot of time.
This morning I coming to the conclusion that I need to shake it up.
I am not sure how my search for the less-than-routine life will all shake out?
I am sure it won’t end up looking anything like Martha Stewart’s Living.
Since I have ended so many of my blogs with a Scripture. This is the one that comes to mind today:
Still I count the graces with Ann:
- celebrating 26 years with my man at an historic hotel
- dragging him to an antique fair
- seeing Naomi in her “silly” swimsuit
- finding a free-trade basket from Ghana for to hold the toys
- gathering little clothes for Haitian children
- watching Olivia grow in Annie’s womb, beach ball size :)
- fish tales
- the boy finally headed to work
- nieces and nephews that I adore
- sideline seats at the youth kickball game
- no-bake cookies
The Fire King jadeite dinner plate size is a reminder of
time when Americans ate smaller portions at small tables, in smaller houses, in
a much smaller world. My white plates from Williams Sonoma outlet would make a
nice charger for the little jadeite plate.
One of the things that I always looked carefully at in the magazine and secretly wished I could do was the calendar near the front of Living. It held a daily rundown of things to do each month to keep the house and the garden immaculately. To follow this calendar was to live the dream life, to have it all together, manageable and idealic. I knew it was sure fire way to being accomplished.
I never did one single thing on that calendar.
Those were days when having a routine was just not part of the life plan. It would not have been even if I wanted it to be.
The kids were young and life was happening at a breakneck pace. The calendar was filled with ball schedules and piano lessons. The in-betweens were packed with varied unplanned activities that happened in life with my kids underfoot.
Martha couldn’t have someone write a calendar for life as a mom with children. Nothing can or needs to be planned out so well.
I was reflecting a couple of days ago on life in the here and now and how life has changed since those days. This is what I realized:
I miss the lack of routine of life with young kids.
Fifteen years ago I would never dreamed I would think such an absurd thing! But it is true.
Now life is not so unpredictable. The schedule is less cluttered. I can pretty much choose what to do with my day. But often I don’t do much of anything. I piddle through and don’t get much accomplished unless there is something urgent on the horizon.
I check the calendar early in the day to see if I have something. My house is not in Martha order and I have no excuse. I have awakened to a routine in the middle of my life that is----let’s just put it this way---boring!
I have no one to blame but myself when I think of the routine that I live most days. It is comfortable and it is not. It has been good for me and it hasn’t. It has made me contemplate and is transforming me.
In the routine that has been mine for some time now, I have gotten the time to think and live closer to the One who loves me. I have explored my love for writing. And I have wrestled with the past and the future.
And that is why I am considering discontinuing writing this blog. It has consumed me more than I want to admit. Maybe even becoming a kind of idol in my life by demanding my attention, calling me to comparison, and needing to be affirmed.
My blog that I had only occasionally dropped words into until last August has given me gifts--- fills time, allowed me to explore how and what I could learn about me and my Savior-----about how to live life in the middle. But it has also kept my tail in a chair, a computer in my lap, and has eaten up a lot of time.
This morning I coming to the conclusion that I need to shake it up.
I am not sure how my search for the less-than-routine life will all shake out?
I am sure it won’t end up looking anything like Martha Stewart’s Living.
Since I have ended so many of my blogs with a Scripture. This is the one that comes to mind today:
_____________________I will bless the Lord who has counseled me;Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.I have set the Lord continually before me;Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;My flesh also will dwell securely. (Ps. 16:7-9)
Still I count the graces with Ann:
- celebrating 26 years with my man at an historic hotel
- dragging him to an antique fair
- seeing Naomi in her “silly” swimsuit
- finding a free-trade basket from Ghana for to hold the toys
- gathering little clothes for Haitian children
- watching Olivia grow in Annie’s womb, beach ball size :)
- fish tales
- the boy finally headed to work
- nieces and nephews that I adore
- sideline seats at the youth kickball game
- no-bake cookies
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