Things I think about, but don't get to.

In my head, I am the best mom and wife and friend EVER. Seriously. I have great ideas. It's just that these ideas require so much time and effort, and I have blogs to read and more ideas to come up with. I know I am not alone in this. At least that's what I tell myself.

While the ideas float around in my head, I am, in reality, struggling to keep up with the laundry and of course, playing ponies. And chastising the dog who needs to be touching me 14 hours a day. And driving kids to school. And worrying about where we'll move next and looking online at rental properties in some of the places we MIGHT go. You know... big things. Important things.

But I really want to be doing is :

MEAL PLANNING. I cannot even tell you how many times I have tried this. I do the lists. I buy the groceries. I have even actually followed through for like, a whole week. But then I hit the snags. I just don't feel like eating whatever I've planned to make. I just don't feel like making what ever I've planned to make. Cory gets scheduled for a night flight and what's the point of cooking? Syd and Brenna have eaten non-stop since 3 p.m. and by dinner time, are not going to touch a thing on their plates. Don't leave me a comment about how all of those things could be changed. I know. I'm just saying. Life happens.

FAITH DEVELOPMENT. For goodness sakes, I just facilitated (remember, that's different than teaching) a class at church called "Raising Faith-Filled Kids." I start all kinds of things like "monthly Bible verses" for the kids. That lasted about a month and a half and I am not giving up on that, but yeah... it kind of slips off the priority list and it shouldn't. We read to the girls every night and sometimes do Bible stories, but few and far between. That needs to change.

ORGANIZATION. This will always be my downfall, I fear. Not so long ago, I got rid of 1/3 of our belongings, or close to it, intending to simplify our lives. I'm here to tell you, the 1/3 may have crept back in. I'm buried under papers over here. Which of these school projects am I supposed to save and which can I immediately toss? Don't even get me started about how, when I go to pull out toys the girls have outgrown or don't play with, those are the very toys that immediately become the only things they play with for the next week. Ugh. I need an information center... like where I have a neatly organized notebook holding all pertinent information about... dance class, school, church activities, etc. Instead, I have a calendar that's a mess and I *usually* think to look at it before I leave the house, just to make sure I wasn't supposed to bring cut-up pineapple to MDO that day, or something. I will admit here -- on the internet, even -- for reasons unknown to me I totally forgot to take Syd to dance class this week, even though she goes EVERY Monday. I'm such a dork sometimes.

MEMORIES. We make 'em. We take pictures. And then we leave them on the computer for the foreseeable future. This blog will probably be the only record of my children's childhood, so I hope blogger never accidentally implodes. Yes, I've printed off like one year of the blog in a book but haven't gotten around to doing that for the rest of it yet. And on the subject of making more memories, I have about 7 trips half-planned in my mind that I really want us to go on. A cruise, a ski-trip, a jaunt over to Germany...etc. Trip planning is so overwhelming. Especially when you technically don't know where you will be residing in the next year.

.... So I have barely touched on half of the IDEAS I have floating around up there that I never seem to have the time to move to fruition. There are more, people! But I'm just going to stop talking about them because, just like you, I'm doing the best I can, most of the time. People are getting fed, even 6 p.m. is the first I've thought about what I'm making. Walking the dog and talking about the how God waters the flowers when it rains is, in fact, faith development. Plus, multi-tasking! Bonus! I can usually find what I'm looking for fairly quickly, and haven't lost a kid in the house yet (for long.) And memories... they don't always have to be photographed and catalogued. Sometimes it's nice to do something fun without taking the camera along. For us, a loose outline of a plan while on vacation, seems to work out fine. And, we'll get to those other trips eventually.

That Proverbs 31 woman is a serious overachiever. But even if I'm ordering clothes from Gap.com instead of sitting at the Spindle, I AM striving to do my husband good, not harm most days. My character is something I hope I'm ALWAYS working on. And for today, my character development lesson will be to remember that master homemaker I am not, but that's okay.
As long as what I AM doing is pleasing to Him.

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." Proverbs 31: 30