The best-laid plans of mice and men....

I sat down early this morning
and wrote out some plans for our
rapidly approaching school year. I was
quite pleased with myself until, after planning out
our regular weeks days, I realized that I had
not taken into consideration any housework or Baby J.
Neither one of those things made it into the schedule.
The housework I am all for dropping from our lives,
but not so much that precious baby
(who is seven months old today, by the way---
HAPPY SEVEN MONTHS, Baby J!!!).

Here's the thing---the day is full.
I didn't write in activities outside our home like
piano lessons and soccer practice and all that.
And the day is already full.
Very full.
It kind of makes me tired to think about it.
But the reality is, that's my life right now.
I can easily be overwhelmed if I try to take on
everything at once.
I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to freak out if the house is never
all clean at once (it's been a while since that
happened anyway). In fact, it might be the other
way around. If the house was all clean at one time,
that might cause me to freak out.
I am going to make sure the most important things
get done and I am going to try to remember
what those most important things are
when I get lost in the shuffle of the busy-ness.

I read a quote recently that I really like.
I find myself writing it across the tops of
the pages that I am doing all this planning on.
"Discipline is remembering
what it is that you really want."
I think I need that tattooed to my palm
so that it is there to be a constant reminder to me.
It's so easy to forget what it is that I really want
and get sidetracked into doing other things
for less important reasons.
I'm so easily distracted, so easily thrown off track.
I think of those verses in Psalms that say
"look not to the right, neither to the left"
sometimes when I know I am being pulled away
from what I should be doing
(I might be using that out of context, but that's
when I think of those words--and I hear them in my head
in my deep, thundering, King James Version voice).

So I'm praying for wisdom and trying to
get my act together. I am kind of in this state where
I am facing the future with a smile on my face.
I think I have learned through some of the trials
in our recent history that I need to just enjoy
the day before me and do the best I can with
what I have been given.
It is making this day good and peaceful
and G0d-honoring that will, in the end,
result in a life that has been good and peaceful
and God-honoring.

And if you're keeping score at home,
no decision on the Math curriculum yet.