Happy holidays!

HAPPENINGS

It is definitely time for the holidays to fly into 5th gear!  It seems as though we just went driving around to look at holiday lights and now here they are again.  Where has the year gone?

Besides overtime, bills, chores, and a million other things, it has gone like sand in an hourglass.  (Funny, I haven’t seen that soap opera in 20 years and I can still here the narrator!)

Okay, so that quilt for Beanster still isn’t made after 2.5 years, the house still isn’t completely de-cluttered, and there are days…

I didn’t make it to the gym all the time, some of the time, okay, most of the time…

I didn’t get to paint outside and use sidewalk chalk with Beanster like I promised…

We didn’t get the time to sit and play Legos like I had wished…

We have not had a family game night since we played dreidel back in, well, the spring…

And every weekend has been busy busy business with school projects for me, soccer for Beanster, on-call time for daddy…

Where has the year gone?  To be honest, I don’t like the answer.  Not one bit.  And I am determined that this year is going to be different.

2016.  Wow.  It’s so hard to believe that my life has flashed before my eyes and the realization that I really don’t have any of it together bothers me.  I am 40 years old and I know people half my age who I couldn’t hold a candle to.

What does this do to me and how does it make me feel?  Not good.  This is the perfect time of year to take a serious self-inventory and decide what is really important and what needs to go by the wayside.

I’ve been going along, just making it day by day, for so long that the tediousness seems to have become routine.  I don’t like that kind of routine.  Not the busy, time-consuming kind that sucks the life out of each day and many days out of life.

One thing that has changed for me is a curiosity about those who adhere to the sabbath (Shabbat).  The more I study up on it, the more envious I am.  Now, I’ve been in church all my life, but we’ve never really taken that time each week to rest and relax.  There’s always laundry to do, food to cook, house to clean, bills to pay.  Not rest, not visiting, not pondering and planning life.   Not reading a book or some form of writing.  Not creating or designing.  Not dreaming and being blissful.

Just a constant state of “everything still has to be done”.

And I’m so weary of it.  

All the things I was going to do this year have been put off for 12 months.  I’m staring at stuff as I type, regretting the lack of progress.  This has to change.

I wish I could say I ran my home like a well-oiled machine with the precision of a navy ship.  But I don’t.  I really don’t want to compare it to anything, but if I had to, I guess I could compare it to a sloping hillside and a bunch of marbles.  They are always rolling away and I have no time to build a berm to keep them near me.  They all just keep rolling down the hillside.

So, with a small start, I’ve built one.  My sons room is finally 98% organized.  All the things I’ve bought for homeschool are organized into centers (boxes with a label, basically).  Everything has a place.  It’s nice.

The second one will be our room.  I have things stuffed in nooks and crannies and there is a pile of laundry (when is there not).  I have stuff on my dresser I haven’t looked at as it has piled up.  Most of it has a home or a place called file 13.  I’m going to do the clothes hanger thing  in the closet where you turn them around and what is still facing backwards after a year gets donated.

The third task is to go through boxes of “keepsakes” and see what is honestly something I cannot part with.  I will shred papers and donate items and condense all that stuff down to one box.  

The fourth task is to use the heck out of my crockpot!  I plan to leave work on time and hit the gym, then be home to a warm dinner.  I have to start saving time where I can and the crockpot seems like a great place to start!  I’ve made a few things and they’ve been fantastic.  Time to expand the repertoire!

The fifth task is to have that time together.  Somehow, I really want to schedule family time.  I want to play games, watch a movie (at home), and spend time together.

Wow, that sounds nearly impossible.  But I think that one step at a time will be do-able.  They may not stay in that order, but I know that our room will be next.  Once everything has a home or is donated or whatever, I think it will make cleaning, clutter, and most other things fall into place easier.  Hopefully, I won’t feel like I’m constantly putting out fires!

Here’s to hoping that we can keep the sabbath (Shabbat) and find ourselves, each other, and God just a little easier this year.  With the white noise dimming, life should be easier to hear. 

And I think I can be excited about the year to come.  Welcome, holidays.  Welcome, year-end!  Let’s celebrate the realization that life can be manageable.  And with that, perhaps a little bit of fun.

Relax.  Take a deep breath.  

Have a great weekend, everyone.  Peace and love.