Giving Up the Good for the Better

Sometimes it can be really hard to let go of something good.  For the past 2 years, I was a children’s leader (CL) at BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) in the preschool program.  Once a week, I got to show God’s love to a room full of kiddos while playing, praying, singing hymns, and teaching a Bible story.  It was hard work but so worth it and so much fun!

We bought our farm at the end of the BSF year this spring, and I knew that I couldn’t keep up with both.  Being a CL requires going to training another morning every week, planning a lesson, showing up early for set up and staying late for clean up on class days, and extra time with my own BSF lesson.  It leaves you joyful but utterly exhausted by the end of class each week.

Let me tell you.  I miss it so much!  I volunteered to help watch kids on the leader’s initial training day.  I cried almost the entire drive home.  We have met for class twice.  The first week, I was in my adult group (boy was that strange – but nice).  This was the second week, and my group had group serve (where the women from the adult classes go help as volunteers with the kiddos to assist their CLs).  It was sad being back in a class with the kiddos and know that I can’t be there every week.

I know that I cannot handle being a CL this year.  (It goes from a 3-4 hour commitment each week to 14-16 hours).  I want – no I need – to spend quality time with my kids and with my mom.  Responsibilities around here are the higher calling.  Still, it is incredible how giving up the good for the better can still hurt.  We only get so many days with the ones we love.  Right now, I am called to be here for my husband, and my kids, and for my mom.  In the future, I may be able to go back to being a CL but now is not the time.

Routine – Day 15

Well, things feel like they have not been going so well on the routine front.  Let me start listing what I have gotten done and then what I haven’t and then maybe I will feel better about things.

Things I have gotten done most days:

  1. Gotten dinner ready before 6
  2. Eaten something for breakfast
  3. Read my Bible for a few minutes
  4. Prayed
  5. Gotten DH to take his meds on time mornings and afternoons
  6. Gotten the kids in bed before 8:30 – that’s close to 8
  7. Stayed on top of laundry

Things I haven’t gotten done:

  1. Gone to bed by 10:30 – partially due to a bad round of insomnia for several days in a row
  2. Gotten up by 6 – also due to the insomnia – although I did have one day when DD decided to get me up at 5:15!
  3. Stayed on top of dishes
  4. Gotten to the animals worked regularly
  5. Read devotions with the kids in the morning
  6. Cleaned the bathrooms

Ok, so I’m doing better than I thought. 🙂 I know that the 2 main things are getting to bed at a decent time and remembering to eat.  I started drinking a cup of sleepy time tea in the evenings and that has helped with the insomnia.  I have been remembering to eat regularly.  I think that I am doing better.  But it’s always so hard to see the progress in the moment.

I’m going to keep working at it.  102 days to go.

Routine – Day 8

Today, I have actually done fairly well.  I got up a little late (7:15ish) but still spent some time reading the Bible and praying.  I ate breakfast!  The kids went down for quiet time at 2:30! Ahead of schedule!!!!  I got some housework done.  We ate dinner at 5:45.  Now, we had PB&Js with chips and fresh veggies so cooking was much work.  But still, it’s a victory!

The kids were in bed before 8!  Their door would have been closed after prayer and lullabies by 8, but they both got very concerned about tornadoes.  Like majorly concerned! I have no clue what sparked it, but they were both almost in tears about it.  We had to spend 15-20 minutes talking about tornadoes and how it’s not very likely that our house would be hit by one.  I also had to explain that if a tornado came, their toys and beds (DD was very concerned about her bed being swept up in a tornado) were not as important as their lives.  I tried to tell them that the insurance company would give us money to replace their toys and beds and anything else that was destroyed by the hypothetical tornado.  The DS went on to list all of their toys that DH had told him were hard to replace (so the kids would take care of them).  Argh!  Oh, to have a memory like that.  😉  I finally got them both calmed down enough to pray about their fears, and they agreed to go to bed!

I am writing this post at 8:30.  I might actually get to bed before 11.  It’s been a great day!

Routine – Day 7

Well, I haven’t been doing so well getting up on time.  Everyday, except today, I have spent a little time with God before starting my day.  It has been so good to start off in His Word and to cover my day in prayer.  Unfortunately, other than that, I have been utterly stinking at kicking my butt into a routine.  But, I keep reminding myself, baby steps.  At least, I am getting my first priority covered on an almost daily basis.  Oh, and now that I think about it, I am actually getting dinner ready before 6 almost every night.  Yay!  We haven’t been finishing on time mostly because DS and DD have been refusing to pick up their toys before dinner and have only been willing to do it (and very slowly at that) under threat of DH and me eating everything without them.  They haven’t been coming down for dinner until almost 7 even though I tell them to start picking up at 5.  DH and I get to eat a warm dinner at least.

That’s about it.  I’ll keep you posted.  Every day is chance to try things a little differently, and He will always be there to help me.

Oh wait!  I have also been reading the kids their Bible story every day!  I really am doing better than I thought!  🙂

Routine – Day 1

You know how when you make plans, the next day everything seems to go crazy.  That happened yesterday, which was day 1 of my new attempt at routine.

I managed to get up by 6:00.  With an Alexa alarm and a series of alarms every 2 minutes on my phone until I actually got out of bed around 6:08.  🙂  I’m sure DH was thrilled. 😉  I got some coffee, read my Bible for a few minutes, then spent a while praying over my day.  The biggest thing that I prayed about was letting God guide my priorities for the day.

I had volunteered to help watch a class full of kiddos for my BSF class’s leader’s training day, which meant being at a church 30 minutes away (in good traffic) by 9.  DH was kind enough to say he could wrangle our kids through their normal wake up routine so I could get the morning farm chores done in time to get a shower.  Yay!

Forgetting to eat, yet again, I got dressed and headed down to feed all the 4 leggers.  I got down to ponyville (which is what we have named the area where the 3 stalls for the 3 small ponies are) and found Pumpkin and Christopher Robin stuck in an area they are NOT supposed to be able to get into at night.

Now, ponies are notorious for getting into trouble, and Daisy in particular likes to be a bit of a Houdini.

Somehow, they had broken both the clip for a gate that acts as a stall door and the hook it clips on and shoved the gate into the barn aisle so far that it got stuck.  The gate isn’t even supposed to be able to go that direction!  Both the stuck ponies were exhausted.  At this point, I am vacillating between panic and laughing.

Well, I got them all sorted out.  Everyone was tired but fine.

I did eat something then we headed off to BSF.  I had a great morning caring for a class of young preschoolers.  I was tired when we headed home.  We all ate lunch, and I got the kids settled into their normal afternoon activities.  The kids have a couple of hours of quiet time every afternoon when they are restricted to quietly playing in their room.  They were in the middle of that, and I went down to do the afternoon farm work.  So far, other than the pony antics in the morning, things were going fairly well as far as sticking to my routine.

(Cue the dramatic music please.)  Dun. Dun. Dun.  (Thanks.)

DH had a REALLY awesome friend come over, and the 2 of them were spending the entire day putting up a wire fence.  Did I mention a REALLY awesome friend?!?!  I was halfway through feeding when I get a call from the wife of the friend who happens to be friend of mine.  Her son is a good friend of DS’s.  She wanted to know if her son could come over and play and then go home when his dad was done working on the fence.  I said that it was fine once the kids got out of quiet time.  (My carefully structured day was starting to unravel, but people are more important than schedules.  And God’s invitations into our lives are always worth accepting.)

DS’s friend came over around 5, and I figured that the kids would play for an hour or so while the “boys” finished up on the fence.  6:00 – no sign of fencing stopping for the day.  I fed the 3 kids dinner.  7:00 – still no sign.  DS’s friend is a little older than DS and is in school.  It was a school night.  I was getting a little concerned by 7:45.  I texted his mom.  She was shocked that her boys weren’t home yet and came to get her son.  It was about 8:45 before I got my 2 in bed.  I had gotten practically nothing done around the house that afternoon, so I was feeling a lot behind in work and schedule.  My heart was happy though.  I was glad that the kids got some play time and thankful that I had been open to letting God guide my priorities.

DH and friend worked on the fence by truck headlight until after 9.  (Have I mentioned REALLY awesome friend?!?!)  I caught up on a few things that needed to get done and actually ate some dinner.  I didn’t get to bed until almost midnight.

Side note – since I am writing this post at 10:00 at night, today hasn’t gone much better in regards to schedules.  Tomorrow is a new day and God’s mercies are new every day!  I am going to try again.  I’ve got another 115 days to make it work.  🙂

Starting a Routine

So I have decided to give myself until the end of the year to get into a new routine with family and farm work and housework all on my plate.  I have been trying since we moved here in May with little success and I am hoping that having to write about my successes and failures will give me some better accountability.  So, anyone out there reading this, I am reporting to you. 🙂

So this is what I am aiming for:

5:30 to 7:00 – Get up and take care of myself.  This includes spending time God in prayer and in His Word and actually eating breakfast. 🙂  (I know I am not the only mom out there who gets so busy feeding everyone else that I forget to feed myself.)

I am hoping to maybe get a load of laundry washing in there too.

7:00 to 8:00 – Feed my family and the dog.  Read a devotion with the kids.  Clean up from breakfast.

8:00 to 12:00 – Morning activities.  This includes feeding all the critters, church on Sundays, BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) on Wednesdays, farm work, playing with and loving on the animals, etc.

12:00 to 1:00 – Lunch and read the kids their Bible story

1:00 to 3:00 – Either housework or spending quality time with the kids

3:00 to 3:30 – Rest and eat a snack

3:30 to 5:30 – Fix dinner and do the afternoon farm chores

5:30 to 6:30 – Family dinner

6:30 to 8:00 – Get the kids bathed (if they haven’t had one already after playing in the mud) and put into bed

8:00 to 9:00 – Evening clean up and straightening

9:00 to 10:00 – Get ready for bed, read for a bit, and got to bed.

All of this is general and fluid.  I am hoping to use the basic time frames as guidelines to help me.  The major goals are 1.) Get up in time to spend time with God; 2.) Get the kids to bed by or before 8; and 3.) Go to bed at a reasonable time.

So here we go.  I have 118 days left.