When I first began blogging, I made it a habit to try and post every day. Given that my subject matter was raising children, and I had three children under the age of four in my midst, I was rarely wanting for post ideas.
Then my subjects grew up and became aware of what I do, and suddenly finding things to write about became more of a challenge.
Add to that the fact that blogging changed, and the day to day storytelling that was my niche became a bit archaic, and my job as a blogger became even more difficult.
When I began this blog, I gave myself the freedom to post less often. If I’m going to write, I want to have something to say that’s worth your time to click over.
It turns out that posting less comes with it’s own unique set of challenges. In hoping to only post when I have something to say, I find myself feeling completely unoriginal in all that I write. Oftentimes, I sit down, stare at the blank screen, and my brain starts screaming THERE’S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN!
Then I shut the computer and eat a cookie.
Feeling unoriginal is bad for my blog and my waistline, unfortunately.
The thing about blogging is that originality doesn’t have to look completely different. Because we’re all unique, and we all have unique stories and backgrounds and world views, we can be original to the people within our circle of influence.
What I have to say may not be completely ground breaking when you look at the grand scale, but inside my circle of influence? It may be just what people need to hear.
I don’t want to live in paralysis, constantly in fear of being unoriginal. I simply want to enjoy the gift that I’ve been given – this love of words that leaves me feeling relaxed and whole.
And you should do the same.
Don’t get stuck in fear that you have nothing to contribute to the world around you. Instead, simply embrace your own creativity for what it is – a gift to be shared and given away.
Your words matter. Your paintings matter. Your photographs matter. Your art matters. What you do is unique to you, and it is, therefore, completely and totally original.
I am not a curse word kind of girl. I know that there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, some would actually laud that as a good thing, and it is. I’ve told my kids that curse words are really just lazy words. We can always find a better word to describe how we’re feeling without dropping a four letter word.
Unless we can’t.
A few nights ago, Annika woke up at 12:30. I had been asleep for about an hour and a half when she woke, and my sleep was good. It was that heavy, REM-style sleep that makes you feel kind of magical.
I was tired down to my bones, so when she woke up in a full out scream, I leapt from bed, heart racing, and the first word out of my mouth was a lazy, four-letter word. So unlike me, but in the moment I could think of nothing else to say. And after my heart stopped racing, I fed her and got her back to bed only to hear Lee chuckling beside me.
“That was funny,” he laughed in the darkness.
I was too tired to elbow him in the chin.
Knee-jerk reactions tend to bring out the worst in all of us, don’t they? When we’re surprised or frightened or quickly angered, we find ourselves reacting in a way that may be atypical to our normal operating behavior. When I put Annika to bed that night, I planned for her to sleep all night. I didn’t plan on her scooting into the corner of her bed, bumping her head, and waking herself up in a wail.
What do we do when life doesn’t go quite as planned? How do we react? My vocabulary indiscretion is a lighthearted example, but all of us can point to moments in our daily lives that leave us weary, exasperated…perhaps a little loose-tongued?
It’s exhausting being mom. It’s exhausting hearing how exhausting it is being mom, as I right? But the good news is there is Hope. There’s hope for all of us, and that Hope is alive even at one in the morning when the baby won’t stop crying.
That Hope is alive when the children threaten to tear one another’s eyes out. (Well, Hope and the belief that someday they will grow up and maybe be friends again…or at least be tolerable to one another.)
That Hope is alive when the dinner burns, the car breaks down, and the schedules require one person to accomplish the tasks of six.
Even more – Hope is alive when life doesn’t go as you planned. And this…this is the true beauty of Hope.
It’s been two and a half months since we said our final goodbyes to my father-in-law. As the days stretch into weeks, we’ve begun to really gnaw on the permanence of death, and there have been moments when we wished with everything we had that the outcome of his cancer battle had been different.
But then I think of Herb standing at the foot of his Savior, and I remember that if he were asked to return, he wouldn’t want to, and really I wouldn’t ever ask him. Because in that trust I find so much Hope.
There are so many moments in life that make us feel hopeless. The swell of our days rushes over like a tide, and we’re left out of breath, frustrated, and utterly, completely spent.
But Hope.
If you’re bogged down by the mire of your days, feeling hopeless to dig out from under the rush of routine, of anger, of disappointment, of grief, of simply feeling overwhelmed, then I encourage you to pick up the book Hope for the Weary Mom.
There is so much grace and truth sprinkled throughout this book. It’s like a breath of fresh air in a smoky room. Each page is filled with nuggets of wisdom and peace that you can tuck into your heart, saving them for the moments when life gets to be a little too much.
(And maybe these truths will spill out of your mouths my mouth in times of frustration instead of those pesky four letter words.)
I crawled out of bed early this morning. Not by choice, of course. My covers were warm, and after spending three nights on a rickety pull out couch in a hotel, I wanted to stay nestled on my cottony mattress forever.
Forever and ever.
But the seven year old had nightmares, and just as I drifted back to sleep the baby woke up demanding food, and it became apparent that more sleep was a luxury I would not be afforded.
So I made my way to the coffee pot, and now I sit here in front of my computer. It’s so quiet, and it’s still dark outside. It feels like the entire world is still. As much as I wanted a couple more hours of sleep, I must confess – this is my happy place.
This is the place where the Lord meets me – where He whispers peace in my always swirling heart.
This is the place when words wash over me, and sometimes they even flow out of me.
This is the place where I chase my goals – where I chip away at a dream just a little bit more.
There are a lot of stories out there of people who find success almost by accident. They were blogging for fun, or to get through a difficult time, and they were noticed and suddenly there was a book deal that they never asked for!
It seems like my Facebook feed has been filled with such stories lately, and they’re good stories. I like to read them. And yet…
There’s a part of me that wonders if maybe I’ve just wanted this too much. Maybe if I just quit wanting it so bad, then the publishing contracts would roll in. Because aren’t accidental success stories so fun to read?
“I didn’t want this. I wasn’t looking for it or pursuing it!” People say these things and I smile because I’m excited for them. But also, my heart cringes a little because I do want this. It’s why I’m working so hard.
This is why the quiet spaces are so important, because it’s here in the quiet when I’m reminded that the toil is a gift, and the wanting is okay.
“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.” Ecclesiastes 3:11-13
There is good to be found in the discipline of rising early to toil away at your goals and dreams. In the quiet dark, while the house is still, your hands move and your heart sings because this is your time. This is the gift.
Friends, the message is simply this: The time spent working and laboring, creeping your way toward a goal, is a good thing. You do not labor in vain, and the difficulty is a gift.
It’s okay to dream, and it’s okay to chase those dreams. Your story isn’t diminished by years of toil. Though it sounds romantic and poetic to somehow accidentally stumble into success, the truth is there is so much beauty in the toil.
Are you working toward a goal? Do you feel like you’re laboring in vain? I assure you, you’re not. It’s okay to want to see the fruition of your hard work. It’s okay to chase after your dream, whatever that may look like for you. It’s okay to want it.
We are on Spring Break this week, taking a much needed time away from the daily grind of an over-scheduled life. We will be on a bit of an adventure as the six of us share one hotel room.
This could either be miraculous or a total disaster.
Either way, I will be taking a few days to enjoy my family, to read books (the kind with paper), and to make a few memories. I’ll pop in online now and then to share photos and the joys of family travel.
Blessings to you all as you head into this next week. Spring is upon us! Rejoice!
Reviewing movies is always a funny business to me, because opinions are so very subjective. What I find enjoyable, the next person finds laughable. I’ve found that most “critically acclaimed” films are not all that interesting to me, while the rest of society seems to find them wildly entertaining.
So maybe the problem is me?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that ever since I saw the trailer for the new Cinderella movie I have wanted to see it, and I’ve hoped that it would be as beautiful and magical as it seemed it could be. When I was offered the chance to take Tia to see an advance screening of the film, I jumped at the chance so that I could formulate my own opinion of the film before being told by others what to think and feel.
And I just really wanted to see the movie.
Friends, Cinderella did not disappoint. It is sweet, funny, engaging, sad, beautiful, and it has a happy ending. Directed by Kenneth Branagh (one of my all time favorites), the movie touches on the unbreakable human spirit in the face of cruelty and heartache.
Disney knocked it out of the park with this one. They stayed true to the original story of Cinderella that we all fell in love with as kids, while adding a few new poignant moments to round out the film as a whole. (If you have sensitive little ones, be prepared for tears because the scenes where Ella loses her parents are tough.)
The step sisters offer much needed comic relief to a sad plot, and the animals steal their own scenes, though they’re given a much smaller role in this film than they were in the cartoon.
And the costumes. Oh, my – the costumes. They are characters in and of themselves.
What I loved most, though, was Cinderella’s unbreakable spirit. With her mother’s voice as her constant guide, Cinderella endured her heartache by living out two charges, both given to her by her mom just before she died.
Have Courage.
And Be Kind.
With these as her motivators, Cinderella endures the torment of her stepmother. And when the time comes for her to attend the ball, and her resolve to be courageous wanes, in steps her Fairy Godmother, played deliciously by Helena Bonham Carter. With a flick of the wrist, and a single command of Bippity Boppity Boo, Cinderella is suddenly ready to meet her prince.
And, well, you know how the story ends.
This film is exactly as it should be. It’s sweet and engaging, and sprinkled with just a touch of magic. You will love it, your girls will love it, and I’m betting that your boys will also reluctantly love it. I’m going to take all my children to see it again when it officially releases on March 13.
So next weekend, if you’re looking for a little magic to kick things off, head to the movie theater and get lost, once again, in this magical, beautiful fairy tale.
Because, really. In a time when the world seems to be spiraling out of control, who couldn’t use a little magic and happily ever after, right?
Right.
Disclaimer: I was invited to a special prescreening for media. I was given two free tickets to the event. I was not compensated for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.
A few months ago, Tia and I discussed what she’d like for her birthday. She’s growing increasingly more difficult to give gifts because she is entering that awkward stage between little kid and teenager and, truth be told, she’s never been much of a toy kid anyway.
I hate spending money on gifts that they don’t really love, so I tossed out the option of redoing her room as a birthday present and she immediately said “Yes!”
Then I died a little inside because me and decorating are not the most compatible of companions.
The “T” above her bed isn’t crooked. It’s just the way I took the photo. Because I’m awesome like that.
A few days before her birthday, I realized that if we were going to remake her room I had better get on the ball. So I bought a couple of cans of paint, called in reinforcements (thanks, Jenni!), and the transformation began.
The wall color is Benjamin Moore “Jack Frost” and it is my very favorite of all the colors. I’d paint the whole house this color if Lee would let me.
I let Tia sit down and surf Pinterest, then we created her own board so that I could get a feel for what she would like. I hoped to create a space that inspired her since this is the child who is much more prone to realism than imagination. I wanted her room to be a place that she could escape and enjoy. And I wanted her to be able to grow into the space rather than grow out of it again in a couple of years.
The magnetic boards were another IKEA find and she loves that she can decorate the wall herself by moving pictures and cards and magnets around.
I could not be more pleased with how her room came together. She has a small space, so I really tried to utilize it well. I put a small dresser in her closet, and I got rid of all the clothes she doesn’t wear, which left her with fewer clothes and more space.
I’m totally fine with that.
Makes you want to curl up with a good book, right?
I made this little canopy tent all by myself (ALL BY MYSELF!! ME! I DID IT!), and it cost me less than $25. Here’s the tutorial if you want to make one. It’s embarrassing how easy it is. I probably shouldn’t be as proud of myself as I am, but I can’t help it. I’m not a DIY girl.
Tia loves her room, from the IKEA bookshelves, to the reading corner, to her antique vanity that her grandparents gave her for her birthday. The room is calming and sweet, and I do think that it will leave her inspired to dream a little more. It has now officially become my favorite place in the house. Sometimes when she’s at school I go in there to read.
Don’t tell her I said that.
When the whole room was finally finished and put back together, she walked in and her eyes grew wide. “Wow,” she cried. “I love it! It’s so pretty I just want to keep it clean all the time.”
If that happens, then this just might become the miracle room. I’ll keep you posted…
