I have no clever title for what happened yesterday. It was… well, it just needs to be recorded for posterity, and that’s all we’ll say about that.
On 8/11/15 (Dad’s birthday!) I set my alarm for 6:20 AM the next day. I needed to get up and moving -scriptures, prayer, breakfast, kids ready for school. I wanted to pick up the house Alice had destroyed (along with my get-up and go) before my cousin Clarissa came over with my cousin Annelie so we could throw a tiny celebration in honor of Clarissa turning 18. Then I would be off to work…
6:20 AM would give me enough time.
Except my alarm did NOT go off. God smiled kindly upon me and had my friend, Beki, call me at 7:15 to ask if her daughter could walk with mine to an after school activity.
I POPPED out of bed.
After school activity!
I’d forgotten!
I wrote a note to Lacy’s teacher, pulled the children out of bed and had them from bed to bus in FIFTEEN MINUTES. Ask me how I did that! I dare you!
Answer: no clue.
Wait, maybe it had something to do with the Fruity Pebbles I shoved in my mouth? Energy rush much?
By the time Annelie and Clarissa came over, there was hot chocolate and I was prepping cinnamon toast. I had skipped my scriptures and prayer and healthy breakfast -I knew it would affect me later in the day, but I took a deep breath and did my best to take the next step forward.
I put on Studio C.
And I gotta say: if you’re going to have a morning routine disrupt, it should include Studio C. I started my crazy, disruptive day belly laughing so hard I cried.
We cleaned up our hot cocoa and toast, laughed with Clarissa and talked about Disneyland and then I packed up Alice and made it to work late looking and feeling like:
But I MADE IT.
While there, Alice sat next to me on a tall, red stool watching youtube videos and demanding a bean burrito from Ruth -our sweet weekly Mexican Food making woman.
“Hey!” Alice threw out her hand and horrified her mother, “Hey!” She beckoned for a burrito which her Grandpa paid for and I hid my face in shame. Pretty soon, Dad took Alice to run some errands with him and Grandma, and I went home to an empty house.
Well, void of people but NOT of Bronco.
I decided to hit “reset” on the day and do my dailies (scriptures, prayer…) right then. Danny and I are trying to connect spiritually with each other and thought it would be a great idea to send a piece of our scripture reading to each other each day, if we read.
Danny has sent me some insightful stuff, and I think I might reserve a post just for those… but the one I found yesterday was SO NICE. It is a perfect companion scripture for the studying I’ve been doing on temporal salvation, health, The Word of Wisdom…
Those verses gave me a sort of PUMP, and I hit my knees with gratitude -thanking God for the chance to hit the “reset” button and ALSO sneaking me an extra hour of sleep that morning, for the rain that had been falling, for the earth that felt so much like my playground, for the chance to spend time with Him at a crucial day where I’d been unsteady and unbalanced.
Unbalanced meaning I’d been so OFF, and I knew WHY and was struggling to return to sanity. I’d gone to yoga with Taura on Monday and fallen over and over and over. I mean, I USUALLY fall over when I do yoga but on Monday it was RIDICULOUS. Thank goodness the earth is a healing element, right? Right?
I just soaked up the goodness earth has to offer while I was down there.
Right.
So with the word “balance” on my mind, I got up from my knees and channeled my favorite youtube yoga.
Bronco hated the whole idea:
Just before my routine ended, my Alice came into the house and immediately began shaking things up. If I thought Bronco was against my doing yoga, he had nothing on Alice.
“I meeda dwink. Get it, okay? Be all done, yoga! All done! Get up, Mama!”
I only had to pause and resume three times in the last 15 minutes. So all in all, it was only mostly disruptive.
After yoga, Alice took a snack in her high chair and watched Daniel Tiger (and Baby Margret! who is the newest celebrity in our house) while I stitched up a pillow that’s been pooping fluff all over my floor. I listened to some voxer messages and felt almost human talking with other women. Blessed afternoon.
I wrapped up my sewing and socializing in time to prepare for cub scouts. I made granola for a snack which ended up being pointless because Danny came home and made popcorn and it turns out boys like popcorn and NOT toasted oatmeal mixed with almonds.
Whatever.
We researched fish in our area and after taking the boys home vacuumed up all manner of popcorn and dirt. THAT’S what little boys are made of! Lacy came home from her after-school activity and we watched Studio C as a family and also? EXHALED as a family.
I saw a storm rolling in, so I got our wildest dog out of his kennel to take him for a quick walk/jog. During the big storms, we have to bring him inside and I wanted him calm. Well, Lacy wanted to go too!
And if Mom is going and Lacy is going, then Alice will go!
And well, if you guys are going then I’ll come along and Dad makes 4.
So Trent decides he might as well make it a Party of 5.
I ran the dog ragged and he ran me ragged, and we all gathered back together near our garden and pulled together to pull weeds. LOTS of weeds which our crazy dog insisted on chasing and thrashing as we threw them out.
Thunder rolled in the distance and then the not-so-distant and before we knew it, it was CRASH BOOMING right over our heads. We piled inside, gathered around the kitchen counter and colored together.
It’s amazing how much kids will open up when you color with them… We had a pretty interesting talk with our school agers about bullies.
As the rain began really pelting down, Danny got worried about the third dog and so? We brought him in and put him in the inside kennel.
This picture is for you… in case you’ve got a hankering for writing prose or poetry and need some inspiration. Rain falling on a window!
As soon as the rain stopped, Danny took a call and there was a knock on the door. Our cousin, Seth, came over to play games for an hour, during which time a family friend stopped by with some God-sent information on food storage.
I was sauteing squash, onions and garlic, visiting with my Mom on the phone and somehow managing to keep Alice on the counter next to me which is where she will always be if I’m in the kitchen. Because she wanna hewp.
While I grated cheese, Danny started “checking in” with me. Every day, we try to check in on how each other is going:
Physically
Emotionally
Spiritually
Socially
And then we list one victory for ourselves and one victory for our spouse. This script was given to us, we weren’t in touch with our needs enough to figure it out ourselves… but it works well for us. It gives us a chance to really touch base in pretty much every area. Only, Danny couldn’t really finish because he had to keep leaving to batten down the hatch, stop rain leaks, play video games, keep the kids from choking each other.
He covered physically, emotionally, spiritually…
After Seth’s Mom picked him up, we ate together. After the kids let us know how making them eat squash was torture and we made them eat it anyway, they all ended up bathed and PJ’d. I rolled the girls’ hair up in socks while we watched Bible videos (family scripture time!) and hoped it would make the next morning easier… just in case my alarm decided NOT to go off again:
We prayed together and sent the kids to bed with kisses and they only got out once.
Alice came out to let us know she needed her “braids” out because she couldn’t sleep. The socks came out and the baby went back to bed.
Danny and I sat together in a living room that would have been quiet had it not been for the pacing dog. We sipped hot chocolate and Danny said.
“So, SOCIALLY…”
And we laughed so hard. WHAT A DAY. Life isn’t usually like this?!
Can we get back to the school routine? Will THIS be the end of our hero?!
I crawled under the covers last night and reviewed a quote I’ve loved a lot lately:
In the midst of the whirl storm that sometimes comes into our lives -whether that storm is literal and leaking water through your windows or figurative and stealing your serenity away -there is a safe place within ourselves, untouched by drama of any kind.
It is light, truth, and divinity.
And today I found it. Sometimes that place seems to shift like the staircases at Hogwarts, but when I find it, I bask in residence.
And perhaps someday, I’ll set up permanent residency as did Viktor Frankl -no amount of outside influence could steal away the liberty he found within himself as he spent time in the death camp of Auschwitz.
It is impossible without God.
God is my sanity, and I am his treasure… come what may.
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