The Normal

Lately everything I have read--from the RUF blog to C.S. Lewis to a Christian girly-book about time management to, well, Paul Miller's A Praying Life--seems to be pointing me in the same direction...prayer is for All The Time. I need to pray, to coin a phrase (haha), "without ceasing."

Not just in huge crisis situations: surgeries, expensive business deals, job hunting, change of school decisions. Not just in situations that I feel I can't handle by myself (or want resolved more quickly than I could do it myself...what arrogance!).

I am to seek God, to talk to God, in the normal, the everyday, the ordinary activities of my life: soccer practice, football practice, allergy shots, grocery shopping, coffee with friends, carpooling, Bible study, homework, housework, meal planning...

Googling my house, Part 2

Since I can't actually google my house...no matter how long I sit here and kill time on the computer...I have had to find a different solution. It's called Cleaning Out and Putting Things Where They Belong.

And I think I have found the best way to do that...hire my organized and organizing friend Sarah to help me! (Well, actually, Sarah was the driving force...I was the helper.)

I could kick myself for not taking a "Before" picture, but really the final result is beautiful on its own without needing any contrast.

Look! Look at this closet! It is gorgeous! Aside from the quality of the photograph, it could be on the cover of Martha Stewart Living! I want to decorate it with flowers. I want to sleep in there on a pallet on the floor. I want my whole house to be this pretty.

I leave these closet doors open all the time now and just feel the order and peace wafting out over me like a benediction when I walk by.

Now, I know about entropy--that slide into disorder--but I wish it were the other way around. I wish that the rest of my house would, by osmosis, become more orderly because of the good example of this closet. But instead, the rest of the house looks even more slatternly by comparison.

 Ick.

Ugh!

So, I really hope Sarah will keep coming back and nudge, cajole...or whip...the rest of the place up to the same level of beauty and order as what is now known as the Pretty Closet.

Sarah?

Please call me back...

Please?

I wish I could Google my house

The Good Doctor has been looking for our copy of The Screwtape Letters...not, of course, the easily found one that's included in a beautiful collection of C.S. Lewis' works that lies picturesquely on his bedside table. He wants the tiny, old, red, frayed, cloth-bound one that he read the first time he read the book.

I can't find it, either.

I also can't find my camera battery charger. In a whole tangle of camera battery chargers, I can't find the one particular charger that I need for one particular camera. Nor can I find the stickers that are supposed to go on the car tag of the new Suburban. Or the third big square pillow form that I got to go on the May Baby's bed. Sadly, this list could go on and on.

I am so spoiled by being able to walk over to the big Mac (Big Mac! Hahaha!) in the corner of my kitchen, whenever anyone has a question about anything, and type it into the blank space and find the answer. "What time do the Rebels play?" "What kind of insect is this?" "What are the words to this song?" "Do they have flamingos in Europe?" So, even when I need to find some physical thing in my house, my first instinct is to "Google it." I want to be able to type the name of a physical object into the search bar and, instead of having Google tell me where I can buy one, I want it to show me where it is in my house. And I'm not particular about how it would tell me: it could give a written description or a photo or an X on a floor plan of my house. I just wish I could Google my house.

Too bad I can't.

(Yeah, I was going to take a picture of the book for this post but, as per the inspiration for writing it, I can't find the book. So then I was going to take a picture of the computer, but my camera battery is dead. And I can't find its charger. If I could show you a photo of my desk, you'd be surprised that I can find the keyboard.)

Books

I copied this photo


from The Pioneer Woman's blog. I don't know where she got it, but she showed it under a post called "Stuff I Like" and since I like it, too, I'm putting it here. Isn't it funny, though, the difference in perception? I've actually been thinking about that lately and started another post that I was thinking of calling, strangely, "Violinists and Fleas"...okay, right, back to my point.

PW likes the look of this room because of the white couch and the shelves. I, on the other hand like...no, I LOVE...the stacks of big books used as a coffee table. And the red print on the pillows. But mainly the books.

With hope in our hearts and wings on our heels...

I ordered the DVD of Chariots of Fire last week; I thought it might be interesting to the September Baby since he is starting to run cross country track with the PCS team. I remember feeling inspired to sign up for track when I first saw it...that didn't stick. But, honestly, I was just looking for an excuse to buy the movie.

I realized in reading the cover, that I was the same age as Win is now when I first saw it. Good grief. It really doesn't seem that long ago...1981. I wonder if it will impress him as it did me. I can still recite parts of the movie along with the actors. And, like it did me, the music has already made an impression on the February Baby, and when he's doing homework asks to have the soundtrack playing on iTunes.

(I can't help but muse a moment on the difference in the ease of watching this movie now...a few clicks of the mouse on Amazon.com...as compared to, gulp, almost 30 years ago. We had to drive or, in my case, be driven to Jackson to see it. And that happened more than once, if my memory serves. Then when it finally came out on video, friends of ours borrowed an extra VCR in order to copy it...hmmm...I think that really might have been illegal. Ooops. Surely the statute of limitations has run out on that crime by now, so I won't feel bad about ratting them out here, on this my unvisited blog.)

I've not had the chance to really sit and watch the whole movie...I've listened, awash in nostalgia and that C.S. Lewis type of joy, while The Three watch it in the car. But I look forward to the time when I can. And in watching the boys play their sports...whether track, soccer, or football...I pray that they will "feel God's pleasure when they run."

This week

It's been a crazy week...having a day off on Monday was wonderful, but then it seemed that five days worth of "stuff" was being crammed into a four-day week! Track, football, homework, a birthday party...you know, all the stuff. And then one by one the Three started getting sick, so we added in doctor and pharmacy visits and make up work. Crazy.

But it all doesn't seem as stress-worthy as it would have before this past Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon we found out that the 21-year-old daughter of friends died Monday night. Now I can remember that it is a privilege to be able to drive the Three all over the place, to read with them, to look over their homework, to pick up their medicine, to make their sandwiches.

And today is September 11. Eight years ago, thousands of people learned of the death of family members and friends. My babies were close under my wing, making the trip back to Hattiesburg from Yazoo. Now they're old enough to go to school and be away from me all day; soon they'll be gone longer, weeks at a time; soon they'll be 21.

And I wonder...am I teaching them what they need to know? Am I pointing them to God? Am I being a "joyous mother of children"?

God help me to be so.

The Season Begins...

The Good Doctor has a meeting on Thursday nights and so doesn't get home until 7:00 or so. Tonight when he got home, the Three had already eaten supper and done their homework. Two were upstairs playing Halo and the September Baby was watching a James Bond movie (Goldeneye with Pierce Brosnan), resting his brain from memorizing the squares of 1 to 30.

Kiper walked into the family room and said, "Hey, Win, there's a football game on. Will you pause the movie?"

"For how long?" Win asked.

"Until January," was the answer.