A Bundle of Myrrh

 

 

Living Seasonally:

We’re through Fall and Thanksgiving and we leave behind so much of the fun we had for that season and head into this season of Advent and Christmas. I think of all the things I’d love to do for Christmas “this year”, the baking, the gifting, the activities and just thinking about it makes me tired.

With all these little sugar babies I just don’t have the time or the energy to do it all and honestly, I think that’s the way it should be. I’m learning to be thankful for the times of the day that I just have to sit down with Ephraim to feed him, it can frustrate me to have to leave what I’m in the middle of, but it is a constant “STOP” in my day to force me to think on what is most important for that moment and for all the moments of life, for this season of my life.

As we enter Advent I think on that a lot, the forced “STOP”, the hush that these penitential seasons bring to our busy days as we wait and prepare for Christmas, as we wait for our Christ, as we wait for that eternal and glorious rest to come. The blessed day when we can put down all our busy days, our work, our burdens.

Giving Thanks:

For Advent, for light in darkness, for newborn baby sounds, for health after sickness, for many hands making light work.

Establishing Rhythm:

I’ll be the first to admit, there’s an awful lot of hooliganism around our house these days! Rhythm is hard to come by as we adjust again to the addition of another member in our family.

We’ve just decided to let the babies take over for a while. They’ll probably do a better job anyway.

Cultivating Simplicity:

I don’t think I’ve been able to make more than 5 meals in one week since I’ve been managing this house on “my own”. We’ve feasted on many hot dogs and dry bread sandwiches lately. I’m trying to be better at planning slow cooker meals and preparing quick breakfast options, but it turns out that it requires a lot of time to save time!

I did make some “breakfast bars” hoping everyone would at least enjoy these while I got my coffee made and actually sipped some and before bombarding me with the million “I’m Hungry”s and “I’m Thirsty”s, but that was a flop. I think I ate all these.

In attempting to simplify, I tackled the chaos of my pantry. I’m trying a shoe organizer for all those little miscellaneous items. It freed up a lot of space on the shelves. I think I like!

I also like my little helper, the brains behind this operation.

Thinking Deeply:

“Someday I would tell Shelly that life change comes when we receive life with thanks and ask for nothing to change.” Ann Voskamp

Nurturing Hearts:

We celebrating the Commemoration of Noah on the 29th.

The girls helped me make a rainbow cake. Rainbows to remember that God keeps His promises, to never destroy this world by flood again, to take care of us, to forgive us all our sins, to make us His child and to take us to heaven to be with Him when we die. I love how simple it all is, so simple when you teach these things to children.

Ephraim holding things.

Turning Pages:

Don’t you love when a box of new books arrives in the mail? A Picture Book of Saints I’m hoping to use to give the babies something to look at and a simple, short biography of some of the saints we remember.

I’m also giving this book a try. I’ve wanted to read it for a very long time, but has reservations. I finally decided to sit down with it, mostly because I love the way the author writes. Who else could make washing the dishes sound so glorious:

“April sun pools into a dishwater sink, liquid daylight on hands. The water is hot. I wash dishes. On my arms, just below the hiked sleeves, suds leave delicate water marks. Suds glisten. And over the soaking pots, the soap bubbles stack. This fragile tension arched in spheres of slick elastic sheets.”

I’ll have more to say about this book another time…I hope.

And this one for the babies. I hope to collect a lot of these from the Brambly Hedge series, just lovely little stories for little ears.

Capturing Time:

“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.” Evelyn Underhill

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2012 at 4:19 pm and is filed under At The Parsonage, Daybook, Figuring It Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.