Dear EL,
Some happy thoughts fluttered through my mind when I took "a run in the park" and you were my guide. That was yesterday. Today, a grey cat guided me. Love, Opa
Friday, January 28, 2011
"A Run in the Park"
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Finding Gumption
It has been two months since I last wrote here. That is unbelievable to me; but, then again, not really.
I wrote something a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and here it is a month after Christmas. I sort of just skipped two months! Well, of blogging, yes. Of life, not a chance!
I absolutely love the whole "holiday season." I love Advent and all the Christmas traditions our family has come to love and enjoy. The links are to posts from last year, where I wrote about those things. It felt silly to write about them again this year. And yet, in that beautiful, cyclical, ordinary way that life has of just marching on, it came around again. We pulled out the Advent Banner again. The kids shopped for each other again. We once again made deliberate strides to skip the whole materialistic, "obligatory gift" overspend and to buy one large family gift of something we need but can't really afford if we blow hundreds of dollars on possibly-wanted-but-of-dubious-value stuff. (This year: electronic collars for the dogs. When you've tragically lost a beloved pet to the highway that borders your side yard, you get a little paranoid when your dogs are running around the backyard park not on a leash. But when you have an English white lab, you absolutely must make allowances for running around the yard without a leash! Hence, this year's family gift. Those buggers are expensive!!)
At any rate, I've noticed that--as with all things--anything that is habitual and good, but that you get away from for a while, will be hard to get going again. Consider flossing. Working out. That morning prayer time with your spouse. Those evening gatherings with your kids. All of these kinds of things take conviction... and commitment... and gumption to get back to them when life--or the Enemy of Your Soul, who hates all habitual, good things that you deliberately put in place in your life--finds you having abandoned them. Blogging is one such sort of thing for me right now. As each new un-blogged day passes, I find myself less likely to open the browser and go for it. Too much else to do. Too much I'm thinking about. Not enough time to write.
What will I say? What will possibly seem important enough to have been "worth the wait"? Whatever I post after two months will likely seem inane and silly. Why do I do this thing anyway?
I "do this thing anyway" because it is an exercise in capturing life... some big, important things I'm deeply pondering. Some little, ordinary things that I want to remember. You know... scrapbooking, for the rest of us.
I think of so many things I should have posted but didn't. Cousins came to visit from Atlanta, and we all played in thirteen inches of snow! (This never happens where I live!) New calves were born at the farm where we get our milk. My eldest daughter got her driver's license. Big life events that I didn't capture here, but could have.
There were also countless little things... little things that caught my attention or warmed my heart. Many of these were likely forgotten, because I didn't grab the moment and immortalize it through words. So, here's just one, remembered because it was only yesterday. Yesterday I walked into my bathroom, mid-morning, to find my youngest daughter in my bathtub... reading her history book! She was surrounded by flickering candles, immersed in warm water. Nate Saint, of whom she's reading right now, was coming alive in her mind... and she was enjoying the warmth of a mid-morning bath. (This is one of the lesser known lovely perks of homeschooling: the mid-morning bath, complete with history book.)
If I could have gotten away with a photo to capture the memory in my mind, I would have. For obvious reasons, however, I did not do so, and so it must live on here in words. And thus I am reminded of the value of the silly little blog post, important to possibly no one but me.
I wrote something a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and here it is a month after Christmas. I sort of just skipped two months! Well, of blogging, yes. Of life, not a chance!
I absolutely love the whole "holiday season." I love Advent and all the Christmas traditions our family has come to love and enjoy. The links are to posts from last year, where I wrote about those things. It felt silly to write about them again this year. And yet, in that beautiful, cyclical, ordinary way that life has of just marching on, it came around again. We pulled out the Advent Banner again. The kids shopped for each other again. We once again made deliberate strides to skip the whole materialistic, "obligatory gift" overspend and to buy one large family gift of something we need but can't really afford if we blow hundreds of dollars on possibly-wanted-but-of-dubious-value stuff. (This year: electronic collars for the dogs. When you've tragically lost a beloved pet to the highway that borders your side yard, you get a little paranoid when your dogs are running around the backyard park not on a leash. But when you have an English white lab, you absolutely must make allowances for running around the yard without a leash! Hence, this year's family gift. Those buggers are expensive!!)
At any rate, I've noticed that--as with all things--anything that is habitual and good, but that you get away from for a while, will be hard to get going again. Consider flossing. Working out. That morning prayer time with your spouse. Those evening gatherings with your kids. All of these kinds of things take conviction... and commitment... and gumption to get back to them when life--or the Enemy of Your Soul, who hates all habitual, good things that you deliberately put in place in your life--finds you having abandoned them. Blogging is one such sort of thing for me right now. As each new un-blogged day passes, I find myself less likely to open the browser and go for it. Too much else to do. Too much I'm thinking about. Not enough time to write.
What will I say? What will possibly seem important enough to have been "worth the wait"? Whatever I post after two months will likely seem inane and silly. Why do I do this thing anyway?
I "do this thing anyway" because it is an exercise in capturing life... some big, important things I'm deeply pondering. Some little, ordinary things that I want to remember. You know... scrapbooking, for the rest of us.
I think of so many things I should have posted but didn't. Cousins came to visit from Atlanta, and we all played in thirteen inches of snow! (This never happens where I live!) New calves were born at the farm where we get our milk. My eldest daughter got her driver's license. Big life events that I didn't capture here, but could have.
There were also countless little things... little things that caught my attention or warmed my heart. Many of these were likely forgotten, because I didn't grab the moment and immortalize it through words. So, here's just one, remembered because it was only yesterday. Yesterday I walked into my bathroom, mid-morning, to find my youngest daughter in my bathtub... reading her history book! She was surrounded by flickering candles, immersed in warm water. Nate Saint, of whom she's reading right now, was coming alive in her mind... and she was enjoying the warmth of a mid-morning bath. (This is one of the lesser known lovely perks of homeschooling: the mid-morning bath, complete with history book.)
If I could have gotten away with a photo to capture the memory in my mind, I would have. For obvious reasons, however, I did not do so, and so it must live on here in words. And thus I am reminded of the value of the silly little blog post, important to possibly no one but me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)