There Is Sunshine In My Soul

Fall is coming. When I stepped outside this morning, the air felt fresh and new on my skin. The sun lit up the leaves in that slanted, pretty way that it seems to save for spring and autumn. The rows of clouds with their blinding white back-lit edges practically danced in the sky. Fall is coming.

On our way to church, Patrick and I drank in the morning. We talked about Virginia, because for some reason, whenever we see days like this, Virginia comes to mind. We miss those mountains terribly. When we moved, we both left a small piece of ourselves waiting there; someday, we’ll return.

As the months keep marching toward cooler weather, my little boy keeps growing. I’m beginning to learn who he is, now. He is watchful and observant, like his sister was, but he’s much quicker to break into a smile. I think of all the crying that poor boy has done in these three months—it lifts my spirit a bit to know that that’s not who he is. If I had to describe him in a word, it would be happy.

Oh, his smile. It’s an amazing smile, one of pure joy, not of jokes or simple amusement. It’s “Mommy, Daddy, I see you looking at me and that makes me happy. Cambrie, I hear you laughing and talking and singing to me and that makes me happy.”

This is the part of being a mom that fills up my soul just like the fall-morning sun, air, and leaves do. It’s lying in bed with my tiny baby, trying to get to sleep after a nighttime feeding, feeling his warm body in the crook of my arm and seeing his still, quiet eyes watching mine. All I can think, all I want, is for this little one to feel arms around him, to see my face and feel safety and love.

It’s sitting on the porch, my son in my lap and my daughter next to me, singing songs to the rustle of the leaves and the creak of the porch swing. All I can think, all I want, is for her to feel the joy of music, to know that her mommy loves to hear her voice and thinks her jokes and tricks and discoveries are amazing.

What a wonderful thing, in the middle of something as tiring and demanding and consuming and hard as motherhood, to remember that this is why. It's not about me. It's all for these two little people who need love and security and nourishment to grow up and take on the world to change it for the better. Now is my time to give, not take. I don't always remember that, but when I do, all the other stresses and pressures settle into a quiet sense of perspective.

Mid September, with its promise of cooler weather, new school semesters, and upcoming holidays, has always felt like a beginning to me rather than the beginning of the end. I'm so glad to have this fresh beginning again, this time with two little ones to watch learn and grow instead of one.

Fall is coming. Babies are growing. Mommy is learning. Life is good.

Straightening Up

Patrick and I currently live what I am generously calling a scattered lifestyle. It's a little bit of disorganization here, a little bit of clutter there, and a whole lot of great ideas that, while inspiring in the idea stage, get lost somewhere in the initiation and follow-through stages. I guess our redeeming quality is that we are constantly making little efforts at self-improvement, with...uh...varying degrees of success.

Today I get to share a few of our successes.

We'll start with Patrick. As he continues his recently revved-up search for what we are labelling a "legit" job, he's been struggling to come up with a system to track his efforts: people to contact, people and jobs to follow up with, and concrete outcomes he's seen. The last thing we want is for a good opportunity to fall through the cracks, and that, of course, requires (drumroll please...) organization!

Here's what the hubby came up with:



These are three of those four-to-a-pack little cork boards.



They're flimsy, so they're attached with screws to a scrap board found in the garage.

 I've got to give Patrick credit for this whole thing--all I did was ask that the horrible scrap-wood backing be invisible. The screws added a nice, rugged, manly look that I'm fine with, too. Mostly because I can't see the wood backing.

Here's his mini-project in action:



Who ever uses those encyclopedias, anyways? Okay, okay, so we were short on wall space...




One of the sections. Don't mind the pink push-pin. We're cheap, and he'll use what we already have. :-)

 This has been working great, so far, and it's a lot easier for him to stay motivated when he's got a list of opportunities in front of him. Even dead-end applications (our euphamism for rejections) are good, because they mean he's moving through the numbers. And, as we are often reminded, this sort of job hunting is basically a numbers game.


My own little success earns bonus points with me, because it's an idea that originated on Pinterest (you can see my board, here). For my fellow pinners, you understand that the joy of using an idea from Pinterest is not a pure one that comes from pleasant and creative idea-sharing with a worldwide community of friends. Oh, no. The joy comes from being able to validate hours of time wasted on that site to my husband. ("See!! See!! I used another Pinterest idea! Now you can't say anything when you see me on there!!")

So here is the fancy version:

original image source

Isn't that beautiful? Isn't it sleek, and functional, and eveything else just plain nice? Unfortunately, I know that if I'm going to get something done, I can't wait for cute, pretty, or nice if I have hope of getting it out of the "that's a nice idea" stage into reality.

Here's my 30 second sharpie version:

Laugh if you like, but this has been the most pleasant and motivating way for me to get the house clean. I've got everything in there in small, bite-size chunks, so that by the time I've gotten through them all, our place is spotless. If I only have a few minutes, that's fine. I pop through one or two slips of paper, and I know I've gotten something concrete and productive done.

An added bonus? Cambrie LOVES these cups. She loves to pick the paper out and have us read it, and then she rushes to help us do what it says. Yesterday we pulled "Vacuum the bathroom rugs." She couldn't wait to help me pull the rugs into the hallway, get out the vacuum cleaner and vacuum, pull the rugs back, then pick a new paper. Perhaps it helps that I snuck tasks like this into the cups:

She's got somewhere around a three in twenty-five chance of pulling out something fun, and that's enough to keep her better motivated that anything else we've tried. Let's put a little point up there on mommy's side of the board, shall we?

So my plan is this: if Patrick and I keep making little adjustments like this over the next twenty-five years of our lives, then by the time our kids are out of the house, we'll be perfect specimens of happy, productive, organized human beings. Right? Right? Well, that's what I tell myself. After all, I've never yet thought perfect was too high a goal to shoot for, as long as I've got the right time frame.    ;-)