Slowing Down

ready for Church!

I am grateful to my Heavenly Father these last two weeks for inspiring me to slow down. It's too easy for me to get caught up in the trivialities of running a household and forget about the most important part of my job: nurturing my children. There are hundreds of "good" things that I could be doing with my time, but I sometimes lose sight of what's the "best".

James gave me a sore throat that he picked up at school. Last week, I'd been despairing (quite literally) over my suddenly super-whiny children. Nothing I did seemed the make the difference for them. I felt that the extra time I set aside to care for them had been wasted, because it didn't seem to make a difference in their level of happiness. I couldn't even leave the room without Kenny screaming hysterically. I realize now that they probably picked up a mild version of the illness, not enough to get runny noses, but enough to have sore throats and be super grumpy.

Still, I'm glad that I was better prepared for it. I felt prompted to finish my blog about food storage. Simplicity was part of my original goal, so I figured that stopping at 35 posts seemed pretty reasonable. I've realized over time that my little hobbies do make a difference, but it doesn't mean that I'll always have the time to be perfect at all of them. I don't need my own cooking show, but I can provide nutritious, tasty meals for my family. I'm not worried about becoming a world-famous blogger; I just want to record what's happening in my life and what I'm thinking about. I'll certainly never finish my 15-generation pedigree chart, but finding one person at a time makes all the difference to that one person. The rest will have to wait for the Millennium, or at least until I retire. I don't use my keyboard as much as I should, but my boys love it when I sing to them and play songs. (It's one of the ways that I can get Kenny to laugh!)

I love this little face!

I've made many goals this year that I haven't gotten around to and probably won't. Some of my goals took a different direction that I thought they would. I felt a little guilty about the ones I didn't even touch, so I ripped that page out of my notebook and pretended that I never made them in the first place.


I guess my point is that when it comes to good, better, and best, and you only have enough time and energy for the best things, that's okay! The past 2 weeks have been a little like that. Though I haven't expended a lot of "creative" energy, my house isn't falling apart and my boys are happy and well. I've relaxed a little during this (mild) illness and taken advantage of my extra time when I would've been working out. (Because who works out while sick?) I painted my toenails and watched a chick flick while drinking mint tea with honey after the boys went to bed. Does life get better than that? Not much. :)