Jennifer Groft

I’ve had a bit of writers block the last few days, so it set me up to ask myself what exactly I am trying to do here and what I am not trying to do.

While I was procrastinating, I popped over to Pinterest to find some ideas for my Bullet Journal. Because if I can make my To Do list perfectly formatted and beautiful then my life will flow more smoothly and I will be able to think and write better. I think that’s how it works anyway. This led me to search for tips on hand lettering. From there, Pinterest must have read my mind because one of the things it suggested to me was a blog post about moms avoiding burnout. So what the heck? I clicked on through to see what it said.

It was a lovely blog with a well thought out post on how to keep your sanity when you have little children. The author has three children 5 years old and under. Then I knew, that is NOT what my blog is. This blog is not a list of how tos or life hacks. You may find some occasional advice here, but that is not the focus. Look up at the top there at the blog title, “Circling Jericho.” I am walking in circles, so the only how tos around here are going to be “Turn right, turn right, turn right again, now again…”

What this blog is about is living this life, stumbling through it. Sometimes being completely challenged to the point of failure and sometimes being bored to tears. There are so many slick, glossy images of life out there, that sometimes I feel alone, so I think you probably do to. I think that maybe if I share some of my confusion, you and I won’t feel so alone, and maybe we can laugh at it a little as well.

When I post things like Things I Said I’d Never Do or Why Am I Not Better at This Yet I am not putting those things out there to get sympathy or guilt people into helping me. I’m just pointing out some of the mess and cobwebs of my own life and how I am trying really hard to just keep swimming anyway. Feel completely free to enjoy my foibles and imperfections. I know that they are sometimes a little squirm-worthy. Sharing them helps me be more comfortable in my own skin and I hope knowing that someone else is such a hot mess will help you be more comfortable in your own.

I recently came home from picking up my kids from school and told my husband about how school pick up had gone. I forgot it was Yearbook Day, and that I was supposed to park and go sign the yearbooks out for my little kids. Well. I had two babies and a 4 year old sleeping in the car when I got there. I was so grateful for some quiet it totally slipped my mind and I got into the pick up line. Max saw me coming and met me before I reached the pick up spot and said, with a look of horror, “Mom! We can’t get our yearbooks unless you sign for them!” Luckily the car was a complete mess. I reached down and picked up a receipt that was only a little sticky, grabbed a pen from the floor, and wrote a note to the school to release the yearbooks to Max. Signed, Me. Off he ran to get the yearbooks. But I was still stuck in the pick up line, and everyone knows you don’t block the pick up line!

I pulled forward and the little girls got in, then we circled around and got in the pick up line again, to come by and pick up Max. By the time I reached the front the second time, Max was still nowhere to be seen and a teacher told me that the line was really long for the yearbooks. Crap. As I pulled out to go around again, I saw Max running up just a hair too late to catch me. So I went round again. This time the line was much reduced and we were finally on our way after our third time through. But by the time I left I am sure all the teachers manning the pick up that day were thoroughly mystified.

So you know, I forget stuff. I regularly make things harder for myself in weird ways. My husband thought my yearbook pick up was hilarious. He gave me a big hug and said, “That is what I love about you!” It took me a while to understand what he was saying by that, but I think I understand now. It is the way I handle the little situations of everyday life. It is circling around to try again, even when I’m pretty sure I’ve just made a fool out of myself.

When I was younger I remember going to dinner with our family at a home in Sun City, Arizona. Sun City is a retirement community. It is a whole city where there were whole neighborhoods that had painted green rocks instead of grass in their yard. From far away, it kind of looked like grass, and they usually had a few plants along the borders or some kind of decorative edging. But there was a starkness, a hardness to these streets of endless glued down green rocks.

My own life, and what I share of it on this blog is not a slick, well manicured lawn. Nor will it tell you how to achieve one (figuratively or literally.) You will see my weeds and brown spots in this virtual yard. I have to say, I feel a little self-conscious about it. But I would rather live this life as fully as I can and I believe part of that means inviting people in and letting them see our imperfections.

So come on in, move a pile of laundry out of the way, and let’s laugh and cry and figure this all out together.