Rainy Day Shenanigans

Baby was hot and fussy with a fever all day; I was holding her in the wrap and trying to cook with my little boy clinging to my leg for dear life during today's thunderstorms. He wouldn't let go! ("I'm scared of the blunder.") So there I was like a car with a boot, galumphing around the kitchen while shouting cleaning instructions down the hall to the girls; the lightning was cracking and the lights were flickering threateningly, and the rain was coming down with record speed and fury. And thus I burned the vat of creamed spinach for the elderly. It is now smoked spinach. I wonder if they will notice.

Actually, the little koalas were not at fault for the demise of the spinach. I had decided to take a little break while the frozen spinach cooked down, to watch a rainy-day puppet show that Sparrow and Golden had prepared for me, and I was immensely enjoying myself while the spinach died a miserable death in a fiery inferno. 

Here is that show, for better or worse:

Lives will be changed!

 Here is the project for this afternoon. Which I have wanted to get done for four months.

It is a master schedule for the family. I will be making about 7 of these, one for each day. Just kidding. But probably 2 or 3.

This is the schedule half completed--each color represents a different member of the family--yellow is me, and pink and purple are the older girls. (Most crucial to be scheduled gets scheduled first.)

Note that I bought a neat little foam poster board for this. And the schedule ran way off the board onto the table and down the side of it. That is my baby trying to get her sticky little fingers on my bedtime routine.

 

I eventually transferred it to the wall. It is an ugly wall piece but it is beautiful on the inside. Beautiful. All the possibilities of how it's going to transform our life are going through my brain right now.

Yes, that post-it scrap has a bite out of it. My baby likes to eat paper products. My, look at how dirty my floor is. And I am strangely unembarrassed by that.

Check out what I have in my schedule: Child Training! Most EVERY DAY!!! Update: I have been doing this for one day now and I had an AWESOME day. There was time for everything!!! Cleaning, child training, everything!! Nevermind that it is 2 am now. My computer play time doesn't really count.

 

Later we made these. Twix. Seriously. Without all the preservatives and chemicals. TJ's animal cookies with TJ's fleur de sel caramel and melted tj's semisweet choc chips. Put on a dirty old cookie sheet with a bunch of glitter stuck in the corner, (optional added effects contributed by children), and freeze. You will thank me. I apologize that they are about as ugly as sin, or is that my prehistoric cookie sheet? Thankfully it does not affect their taste either way.

The Smiling Family Project

Today's QTiS (Quiet-Time in Shower) revelations:

1) Recording the smiling journey on this blog. Because joy is a thing that must infect the whole family. And I have failed so many times in the past at transmitting infectious joy... hang on, I think I have NEVER done this. My personality is in the natural more skeptical/ cynical. It is time to bring my children something concrete that we can all work on together. And that means letting go of some of that old identity (witty sarcasm) and putting on new things. The fruit of the spirit is love and joy. Oh I have love! I love Jesus, I love my family. But how is that translating to my little children when I mope around, shout, or complain? It must translate in JOY and all of the rest of the fruits of the spirit. (We will to go into all of these in-depth on later posts.) What if I don't wait for the feeling of joy to come? What if I start acting it out at every opportunity? Just yesterday I was asking the Lord for creative ideas, and for more of a joy breakthrough, and today He gives me this. So these are the pages where we will record this experiment. And invite others to join the smiling journey as well.

2) Simplicity. There are soooooo many things pressing in on us all the time. But instead of feeling guilty and overwhelmed about everything, ...I need to pare down. I need to focus on the simple things. No, I can't quit my obligations, but simplicity means no more feeling guilty that I have not yet dug up my ground for the organic garden, after 2 1/2 months of living here (and now it is midsummer and a lil too late for that anyway),or that the beautiful porch is a crazy mix of husband's tools, sticky, dried-up bubble dishes and broken kites, and latent garden supplies, oh and SHOES. No more guilt that though being a native German speaker, I have not managed to transfer this ability to any of my children, despite lofty intentions. No more feeling frantic that I am going to miss the deadlines for summer gymnastics and VBS, and guilty that my children have not yet had any sort of pet, oh yeah, and it is 11:15 and I have not started home school yet for the day; who cares if they don't get to take gymnastics classes THIS summer? At least they will have a smiling mother. Just smile. And breathe. It's OK to stay home. Just smile. And everything else will also fall into line, and also come more more Spirit-breathed, and simpler, einfacher. (See, I'm speaking German again already!) Take this journey in faith with me?