1. Lemonade and Shoelaces – Jay was out of town all week last week, so it was just me spinning all the plates. Cue chaos at a higher level than usual. On Wednesday, when I woke Lily up for school, she sat bolt upright and said, “I have to bring lemonade to school today!” Sure enough, I remembered that I had told the teacher we would bring lemonade for the September birthday celebration in class. But now it was 5:45am on the day we were supposed to have it. This meant a frantic run to the store with my fingers crossed that the kids would still get ready for school.
A few moments after I returned, Gus (age 6) came to me crying. It would seem that Gwendolyn has a new hobby of collecting the shoelaces from random shoes in the house. She likes to tie them to things and use them to drag stuff around the house. Thankfully Tessa had a shoelace from a pair she wasn’t wearing that day. Crisis averted.
2. A little bit about creativity – “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.” Steve Jobs, Wired, February 1995
If all of us walk along a rocky beach and pick up the stones that appeal to us. We will each be looking for something different and each of us will end up with a collection that is different in character. If we are each instructed to make something with our collection of rocks, without being able to look at what others are doing, our collections will be even more different.
So it is as we walk through the world. God gave us each gifts of seeing certain things. When we put those things together, we make something that is completely unique. Like Steve Jobs says, sometimes we feel a little guilty taking credit for our creations, because it feels like something we just found, or like taking credit for the shape of our nose.
There are times when I hold myself back from writing or saying something because it seems so frighteningly obvious to me. The only response to stating it out loud would be, “Duh.” But time and time again, when I gather the nerve to speak my obvious thought, someone is thankful to hear it. And I am thankful to hear their ideas as well. What they thought was obvious is something that completely escaped my attention.
3. I like to give myself lots of little encouragements. For example, I have a shirt that says, “Actually, I can.” I wear it on days that my first thought in the morning is something along the lines of, “I can’t even… “ Then anytime I look in the mirror, I am reminded that yes, I can even, and I have been all day so far.
Another one is my phone lock screen. Currently it reads, “He reached from on high, he took me, he drew me out of many waters. Psalm 18:16.” It reminds me that David knew what it felt like to be absolutely drowning in his life. So even when I feel like I am drowning, which is pretty often, I am reminded of David’s faith that God had provided for him and would continue to do so.
Here is the full size if you would like it.
4. Hurricane Rosa pushed some rain through Arizona this week. I know a lot of people were inconvenienced, but we were pretty lucky here. For a while it looked like the pool would overflow, but it never did. My drive to and from school took a little longer, but only by a few minutes. There was rain, and coolness, and that part was lovely. We even had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and it didn’t make us all sweaty. I’m sure that the rest of the country collectively rolls its eyes at Phoenix freaking out over a couple of inches of rain, but with our sun-baked soil, there is just nowhere for the water to go. Two inches here is a big deal. If you want to help with the recovery efforts, we will be needing chocolate and coffee. Email me and I will send you my address.
5. I have all this free time now that Gwendolyn is in school, I just don’t know what to do with myself. Ha ha! Just kidding. This is one of those times when I learn (re-learn?) just how poor my sense of time is. I’ll have the house to myself for a couple of hours. I think, surely I can get A, B, C, D, and E done. What happens is more like I get started on A and then X, Y, and Z pop up and demand to be dealt with and I am left at the end of the day wondering, how is it that I still got nothing done? I’m not whining here, really. I am just in awe at times at just how long simple tasks actually take. Who knew that making two appointments could take an hour and a half? I’m sure I did, but I am usually in denial of the fact.
6. Uniform management. I’m trying something new to keep clean uniforms accessible. I have a basket for clothes that need to be folded. (Yes, it often blossoms into many baskets.) Next to the main to-fold basket is a uniform basket. I don’t fold them anymore. I just yank them out of the main load as it comes from the dryer and they go in the uniform basket. Then all the elementary children know exactly where their uniforms are and I can look in the basket too and see if it is running low. This helps because two of the girls wear the same size clothes and their uniforms can disappear deep into either one’s dresser. So far things are running a little smoother in the uniform department than in years past. I had visions of having them throw all their uniforms into a particular hamper. But since the little stinkers won’t thrown any clothes into any hamper, I have abandoned that idea. It is easy enough to find the uniforms just wandering around the house. I’ll trip over them.
7. I’ll leave you here with a quote and a question. “Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another. A man cannot be doing all the time.” – Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave.
How do you plan your week? Workouts, meals, who takes which kid where and when, assignments and tasks… How do you handle them? I’ve tried to simplify, but I think I overdid it and now I’m scrambling half the time and that is no better than obsessing over every detail.
Please. Spill your planning plans!
As always, you can find more quick takes over at This Ain’t The Lyceum.
Hey, Hurricane Rosa gave us the 8th rainiest day in recorded weather history! So – it is kind of a big deal! 🙂 My kids had so much fun playing in the rain all day and my mom’s workplace shut down for part of the day so she visited us and made it even more awesome.
Your take 1 made me laugh out loud. That is so like something my youngest would do… (taking the shoelaces, I mean, once she is coordinated enough to unlace them). And your take 2 on creativity was a really encouraging perspective on both creating and sharing the results of that creativity with others.