This Week

It's a mess.  In every single direction just a mess.  Most of it was preventable, I suppose; the results of busyness or distraction or negligence or focusing attention in "elsewhere" places.  It is what it is.  

But I will not complain about it.  Not this mess.  Not this week.

I will not attempt to wax eloquent about a need for remedial organizational systems and cleaning schedules.

Not now.  Not this week.

I sleep here every night beside my husband whom I love, comfortable and safe, sandwiched between his-and-hers tumbling stacks of books read, books in process, and books yet to be started.

A little pretty baby chose a spot in the middle of the floor, plopped down, and blissfully got lost in the discovery of coloring and creativity.

A brilliant beauty and a little big man took the time to stop, ignore the mess, and play a simple game.

Everybody was warm and clothed and clean everyday.

Paychecks were earned, payday arrived, and a little of it was even spent on frivolities from the thrift store.

Spring has sprung with signs of it reaching our kitchen table as plants await their placement.  And alongside the green are the discarded plates from meals where each belly was filled to full with leftovers to spare.

I have no complaints.  Not this week.

My house and my world: it's a mess.  In every single direction just a mess.  And I don't know exactly what of all of it was preventable or the results of too much busyness or distraction or negligence or focusing attention in "elsewhere" places.  At nearly the end of this long week, it is what it is, and it's hard to know what to say.

I'll say this: I will not take these things for granted.  Oh God, help me not take these things for granted.

And I will pray for the ones closest to the break and shatter.  For comfort and for healing like a balm.  For peace to go beyond what anyone can understand.  For help and hope to ooze from within to the lives of the ones without.

A week so unlike most.  I will thank God for that.

The Shape Of Grace

There's an old Out Of The Grey song called "The Shape of Grace".  That phrase keeps bobbing at the surface of my thoughts.  The shape of grace...the shape of grace...

I can feel it in my feeler and sense it in my intellect that I'm in a learning place;
here to learn
and feel
and experience
and know
and move in
and be still in
and give
God's grace.

I need it.  I want it.  And it's there.

In the cup of cooling water

In the clouds of soothing shade

In the arms of love encircling [her]

[She] saw the shape of grace...

Today it was sitting on a porch swing and holding Anthony's hand between breakfast and handing ourselves over to the magnitude of busyness that our day holds.  It was remembering in that moment to stop, hear and believe the words we were reading of faith and mustard seeds and no worry.  It was exercising the unequivocal privilege of talking to the God of the universe, and knowing that he hears us and knows better in all things than we do, that he'll whisper it to us if we'll listen.  And it was turning dry goods into playdough of varying shades when the house beckons loudly.

Sometimes the shape of grace requires stillness and contemplation.
And sometimes it's a blob and requires a skillet and cream of tartar.

(I snagged the playdough recipe here.)

When I'd Rather Pitch A Fit

I've made some serious progress in the world of materialistic winnowing around Costa Cottage over the last several months; well, years.  Rooms can be cleaned quickly even at their worst.  There is a place for most everything.  But when it comes to "everything in its place" I'm resolved to the truth that it don't come easy, baby.  There is, after all, another independent adult with a differing mode of operation when it comes to "stuff", and three children that seem to need to make messes or hang on to scraps of paper or inconsequential toys because of budding sentimentality.  It really is a day-to-day work in progress to keep us sifted, shifted, and stewarded well.

Because of the realization of this perpetual nature to winnowing and the bigger awareness of other things being of higher importance (things that aren't "things" like our relationships with each other), I haven't bent over backwards to tackle any major winnowing projects in some time.  There are a couple of areas that need the most attention: paperwork and laundry.  We're handling these, but there isn't real order in place to keep us from being behind the eight ball with these two areas.  I'll get to working on a system for these soon.

But the last room standing in my house needing serious attention is my garage.  Now, I know, we've been here before.  But remember there was a move two+ years ago, the addition of a kid, several more years of life, and the nearly inevitable accumulation that accompanies all of the above.  For reasons that confound me, it appears we are to never have a garage with a working garage door.  At the last house the door stopped working within a week of moving in.  Here it took a little longer; a month.  So in both places, the garage stopped being a place for cars to dwell, but rather became complete dumping grounds for a sundry discarded items: furniture no longer used, boxes that never got emptied after the move, off-season clothes, old toys no one plays with, stuff someone gives us that we should've said "no, thank you" to.  My guts churn at the bedlam in that room.  I'm not even kidding.

This week is spring clean up week in our small town.  It's brilliant, really.  The city sets out dumpsters on Main Street and city-limit dwellers can bring everything (excluding household trash) to the dumpsters for free the entire week.  It seems like the perfect time to do the garage.  And boy, I have been gung ho.  Until two hours ago.  After wrestling and wrenching myself and the garage door to get it open, surveying the situation, tears, and a flood of complete frustration, I realized cleaning out the garage...once again...isn't going to happen.  Not this week.

The last several weeks have been amazingly busy.  Fulfilling, but fall-into-bed busy.  They've also included out-of-state and out-of-country trips for Ma Luffin Mayun.  He will come home tomorrow from his latest trip.  I've had an increased work load in and out of the house, related and unrelated to him being gone.  Here's what I realized today staring at that cesspool that is our garage: I could get it done this week.  I could.  I'm not afraid of hard work.  There are a lot of times I can work circles around folks.  But to do that this week, it would come with a cost:

-It would be at the expense of my husband, whose trips haven't been vacations, but full of hard work coupled with the challenge of being away from home and family and the familiar. 

-It would be at the expense of my kids who have already been down to one parent (who absolutely doesn't act the same when she's flying solo) so much the last several weeks, and who could use the comfort and beauty and chaos that is the five of us together in a "normal" week.

-It would come at the expense of myself, which is worn out from the hectic schedule and could use some rest and recovery and self-imposed grace this week.

When I count up the cost and make the decision to say no to winnowing the garage this week, I sound so level-headed and well-prioritized.  But I'm incredibly grouchy about it.  I can tend towards self-reliance and I don't like to not be able to do something, especially if I think it is several clicks past overdue.  I've cooled down, but I wanted to flat-out pitch a fit; stomp my feet, cuss, go on a tirade about how this family let the garage turn into a dump and that it is not just my job to keep things in order around here, and demand that everybody stop everything until it's clean or until I say otherwise even if it takes days.

Man, that still all sounds really appealing, actually...

But I am wise enough at least to know that to not do it this week is right.  I do know that I will not be sorry for saying no to the good thing of cleaning out the garage and choosing the better thing of deepening relationships with my four treasures and giving grace to myself.  As I resign to it and practice that "no", it will get easier as the week progresses to lose myself in the "yes".

And one day, my garage will be clean.  Hopefully sooner than I can imagine...