Sweet, Gentle Goodnight

Imagine this little boy, just three years old, snuggled in his bed under a poof of down comforter, his face nuzzling into his soft stuffed puppy. Now imagine his tired mother, nearly forty-three years old, weary from a day of discipline, snowball fights, a million repeats of "no, don't touch that", silly dancing, and cleaning pee puddles. She kneels beside his bed to tuck him in and, teasing, flops her head down to use his belly for a pillow. He laughs and begins to play with her hair. Soft, gentle touch, stroking her hair, undoubtedly creating a style fit for a beauty salon book, sweetly caressing her aching head, and rubbing away the stresses of the day. When she finally kisses and hugs him goodnight, he doesn't want to let go.

Let me never be too busy, too unaware, too unthinking for the grace of such moments.

Pie and Decluttering

Last Thursday was March 14 or, as I like to call it, 3.14. It's also known as Pi Day and here in the Lipsey household we decided to make it Pie Day. We held our first annual Pi(e)Palooza in celebration of the holiday and of Miles' third birthday on the 15th.

I think I baked more pies last week than I've baked in my whole life put together.

Three chicken pies, two lamb shepherds' pies, 19 personal-size tomato pies, 24 mini quiches, four triple-berry pies, two apple pies, 60 mini chocolate mousse pies, one pan of chicken with dumplings, and one huge papier mache cherry pie~nata. Whew. Grace helped peel/core/slice the apples and paint the crust on the pinata, Vic helped make and roll out crusts, and everyone helped sample the chocolate mousse. The Palooza was a big success!

And the lingering ramifications? A second annual Pi(e)Palooza is eagerly anticipated, our family has eaten pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past three days, and I crashed on the couch all day Friday and took naps all weekend. Now that we're into a new week, I can stop thinking and dreaming about pastry and move on to a new stream of thought.

Spring cleaning. Or to be more accurate, cleaning. We have lived in this house for nearly four years and there are boxes which haven't been opened yet. There are few pictures on the walls, few designated homes for items, and few open flat surfaces.

If you've known me for a while, you know that dirt and disorganization make me feel crazy inside. So there's been a niggling ball of crazy hanging out just under the surface for the past several years. It's not that I haven't made any effort at cleaning, organizing, decorating, etc. It's just that life with two little ones has made sustaining any effort difficult and things return to chaos within days if not hours. And how will this spring's cleaning be different? Maybe it won't, but it's a necessary effort if I'm to live life thoughtfully. And why is that? All of the thoughtful things I long to do and be require mental space, margin on the busy pages of life, free time for creative thinking.

In the past, I've tried to think of ways to attack the whole mess at once. That's how I'd prefer to work -- choose a week and work until everything's done. It's simply not an option right now, so I'm going to try something different. I'm going to work in one area or room of the house until it's clean, organized, and decorated. Not as immediately satisfying, but perhaps slow, steady progress will be the secret to actually finishing the task. I also think the project will require a second round, revisiting each space to reevaluate based on how the other rooms have turned out. Yep, a long process indeed. But I'm hopeful that seeing little bits of progress will be encouraging. With that in mind, here is a list of the spaces I've outlined for our home:

• kitchen
• dining room
• living room
• guest bath
• entry way
• stair closet
• desk area
• guest room
• kids room
• master bedroom
• kids bath
• master bath
• master closet
• laundry closet
• porch
• front yard
• side yard
• patio
• back yard
• garden
• garage

Yikes, long list, I know. But the divisions seem logical, and the total is still only 1500 square feet. Probably Goodwill, Home Depot, local thrift stores, Target, and IKEA should be prepared to see me a fair bit over the next six months. And anyone who comes to visit should be prepared for a bit of a mess in one room or another.

Any suggestions on which space to tackle first? The easy ones or the tougher ones that would have an impact every day?

Aaaaaaah!

If only I actually had time to think, to slow down enough to be aware, to focus enough to be intentional.

It has been a crazy last week, month, year, five years. I am not living thoughtfully in many of the ways I would like, although I think about blogging here several times a week and writing down the craziness often increases my level of thoughtfulness. Perhaps it's time to start attacking that feeling of life and its important moments flying by on two different fronts: trying to reduce insanity AND trying to pause, despite the insanity, to smell the roses.

Even in those two ideas I see so much trying that it exhausts me to consider any plans of attack. How thankful I am that God does not expect me to accomplish anything worthwhile on my own. And yet I have never really grasped how to let go of trying. I like to try. I like to succeed. Hmm, apparently I am going to need his help even to do the work of letting go.

Now that is some serious craziness.