Early Morning Coffee Chat: It's Just A Season

Come on in and have morning coffee with me.  I've been up for hours now, and I do mean hours.  John was up early as well.  I didn't sleep at all last night.  He did but couldn't go back to sleep after waking twice between 4 and 6.   I'd love to say we saw a glorious dawn on the horizon but no.  Just clouds and such a gradual change of light that there was nothing to remark upon at all. 

We are in that slight cool down spell of August.  It's been almost pleasant in the full heat of the day and truly pleasant in the morning and evening hours.  Two evenings we took a drive with the car windows down.  One evening was nothing more than a trip to the dump (baby diapers stink too much to keep about for 24 hours) and another we went into town for ice cream after our dump run.   Both evenings, I was so tempted to sit on the back porch and just enjoy the air but I didn't.  No I came back inside and settled into doing last housekeeping tasks and then I went to my chair and didn't move until bedtime. 

 

I find I'm on a physical fitness and endurance course, though it's completely unintentional.  Lifting Caleb's weight several times a day, I have developed some real muscle. I fully expect to see a general improvement in my under arm flab and sagging bosom.  I might not be as firm and fresh as when young, but I'm sure he's doing me more favor than not with his wanting to be lifted 100xs a day for a quick snuggle.   And my cardio is getting a good work out, too.  I've had to give chase at least three times a day as this little blond, blue eyed whirlwind takes off into territories where he is not allowed to go.  Two weeks ago, he'd run into a corner and wait for me to catch up.  This week I caught him before he got to the corners, lol.

As usual when changes take place in my life, I spent a solid two or three weeks railing at God and complaining loudly to John but this week I've found peace.  I wish I were better at just finding my peace right away.  I'm going to keep working at it until I am, but in the meantime, I have finally found my way in this place.  It's not where I want to be but it's where God has placed me, both financially and physically.   I know that God will use this season to bless me and others if I'll just shut up and let Him do the work He wants to do through me.  

I stumbled upon this definition last week on Proverbs 31 on Instagram and it helped change my attitude a good deal.  Patience: Ability to accept or tolerate problems, delays, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.

Well that brought me up short.  For one thing, I am not suffering.  For another this is merely a delay of things I wanted to see happen.  Obviously my timing is not God's.  I know full well that I may as well beat on brick walls with my head as to try and force something to happen.   And surely, surely, after all this time I can learn to tolerate problems that present themselves?

As of this writing, I'm doing my best to find ways to ease my frustrations either with sound(er) reasoning than I'd used these past three weeks or by actually stopping to examine what I might change to improve things overall.  Some of the things I can't do just now are physically impossible, not just financially at the moment.  Those I just have to accept and move on.   Their day will come.   

Some of the things that could be changed to ease my passage I've been incorporating.  Like getting on top of the food waste that has occurred these past few weeks and finding ways to alter my household so that it is less messy and frustrating.  I'm by no means getting 100% marks in any area just now but I am at least aware of things and the few changes made have proven to be positive ones.

Easy prep or prep ahead is necessary for all meals.  I HAVE to have a plan, even if that plan is not formulated until the morning of the day I'm living in right now.  I've stopped meal planning overall, and started looking into cupboards and freezers and fridge and seeing what I have that needs to be used.  Then I plan how to use those things in a meal for now or in preparing something for the freezer that will be helpful later.

I've also learned that Caleb is hungry NOW and it's too late already if I've no plan for his meals.  So if I'm planning meals, I plan and prep his FIRST and then determine what we'll eat.  If I have a hint of what I might make for us, I determine if any or all of it is something Caleb can eat, too.  He's pretty willing at this stage to try most things.  There are just a few that he simply doesn't care for and won't eat.    

I've put away some things that Caleb had been playing with that were just messy and frustrating and a bother to me.  None of his toys, but the piles of John's shoes at the backdoor which Caleb loves to put on and traipse about in, or the plastics bin which he delighted in dumping out.  Legos might be painful memories to me now but they were nothing on the current phase of stepping on a plastic container lid and skating across the kitchen floor unexpectedly.  So for now, those are out of his play area.

I've also learned that homebody I might be, but I do need to get OUT of the house, OUT of my own yard and go somewhere.  A trip to the peach shed last weekend.  A run into town with John one evening this week.  A trip to the dumpster to drop off trash are NECESSARY.   It designates a break in my day and my concentration upon what I feel I should do and allows me to just relax and be in the moment.  Often I find when I get home that what needs to be done isn't quite so tiresome as I perceived prior to that little outing and that it is done in less time than I'd imagined possible when I was viewing it from my tired and weary eyes.

I'm holding big goals loosely.  I do what small things I can but bigger tasks can wait, will wait, won't go anywhere, until I can attend to them.  I know this.  I just have to remind myself of it hourly some days.

And so life is in a new and most likely temporary phase but then all seasons are temporary really, aren't there?  No season is ever meant to be a forever thing.  

I'm struggling with some things about family.  Frankly, I'm missing the grown children.  Haven't heard from Amie in a couple of months.  JD just sent a text this weekend and that's so unusual it stands out as major.  It was simple and to the point, The kids say Hi and then he sent a video of Hailey and Daniel saying "Hi Gramma!"  and that was it.  I want to have a family dinner so I could hear all about the three children's first week of school.  That didn't go so well.  It was a rushed affair and the children were at a table in the kitchen while the adults were in the dining room. Just a few feet apart but hard to talk back and forth.  Samuel didn't come.  It was all too last minute for his plans and then everyone was up and gone just after the meal was over.   But this is their season at present, too.  Too many demands on their time, too much on their financial and mental plates and no time to do the things they deem necessary much less fun things.  I get it.  I've just learned it never really seems to end, lol!

But it occurred to me this evening that I could pray for my children in a different way than I have been.  I've concentrated on non-specific needs with my children and not addressed things unless they asked me to do so specifically.  But surely I could pray for their mental health and their emotional health.  I could pray that they acquire pockets of time to themselves to re-group and get centered. I can pray for true deep rest, not just the sort that comes with sleep but that comes with peace.  There are just myriads of stressors and things that aren't necessarily major but altogether they feel mighty heavy.  And it all bears down and wears us down so that when the really truly hard things hit, then we have no reserves to fight with.  So yes, I can see that I could pray better for my children.

Will it stop me missing them?  No, it won't.  But I find in praying for people I often experience a sense of intimacy with them that I mightn't have had so prayer is worthwhile for that as well.

I need to end now...I started this yesterday morning and it's taken me until Sunday evening to finish it up.  I'll talk to you again, soon.