Hello from Lake Chelan, Washington! We have been SO blessed to receive this week-long getaway at a gorgeous lake-side condo for FREE because a family member couldn't use it. Danny had a week of vacation that was going to disappear in January, but being low on cash this holiday season we weren't planning to use it... and yet, here we are, showered in God's abundant love yet again.
Because of that low on cash thing, and also because our lives have been certifiably crazy for the last four months, we've elected to spend most of this week indoors with coffee and blankets, working on the hobbies that have fallen by the wayside in the midst of bringing up baby. For me this (of course) means writing... what does that word mean again? Oh, right. It means arranging words in the form of sentences, which then make paragraphs, which then make chapters of the novella I'm supposed to be writing for the final class in my certificate.
And here it is that I find myself coming head-to-head with the things I hate about myself. First of all, I'm realizing that for all the scheduling and to-do list making that I do at home, I am NOT a scheduled person. I like to make a schedule just to see how much I could, potentially, get done in a day- in other words, to map out the possibilities. I usually have no intention of keeping that schedule, and if the muse hits or a friend calls or Katara is being particularly cute, that schedule goes out the window without a second thought. Do I end up disappointed in myself? Usually. But only at the end of the day, looking back, when I realize I have yet again failed to hold myself to the standards I set. During the day, I am perfectly, undeniably content to drift from whim to whim, diving nose-first into projects and planning for the future which will, of course, go nothing like my plans.
It's the possibilities that are exciting, not the realization of them.
Anyway, self-analyzation aside, I do love to have everything all taken care of an all my ducks in a row- blog updated, facebook checked, emails replied to and properly filed into folders, baby fed, changed, bathed, and sleeping, lunch simmering on the stove- these are the moments when I feel high on life and finally, finally ready to sit down to the business of doing what I was supposedly born to do- writing. But then of course what always happens is the baby wakes up, the soup overflows, or a new email comes in- and I am whisked off again in the process of homemaking and mothering. I'm always kind of relieved, because starting to write is such a daunting thing- which makes it very clear that what I was really born to do was be a wife, homemaker, and mother, even though this is somehow hard for me to admit.
Ah well. The point is, life is very good, and I have much to be thankful for. Also much to learn- but I have the feeling that while I'm in the middle of scrambling and dreaming and scheming and planning the way I want my life to be, real life will take over and when I look back on it at the end of eighty years, I won't be disappointed.
