In Thinking About Success

How do you measure the success of a day, a year, or even your life? Yesterday, I was quite productive. Being off of work, I managed to clean almost the entire house, take the recycling to the recycling center, go to the grocery store, take Willow Grace out to lunch and tend to her all day, make dinner, and finish a bit of laundry. I even started the day with devotional time. I did not, however, get the mid-month bills paid or work out. Was it a successful day? Partially successful? What even makes up the criteria for which this could be judged? I tend to be consistently optimistic and yet rigidly hard on myself. So while I feel buoyed by the fact that I accomplished so much, I also berate myself for not finishing all the tasks I set out to complete. My quest, as in all things, is to discover the correct response to this query and then to attempt to adapt that into my life. We're supposed to work diligently and to be responsible for what is put before us while making our lives be about God and others and not just ourselves. In examining myself, I must ask the question: Is this how I live my life? And that simply cannot be answered once and allowed to rest. It's an every day, every moment, kind of question.

Expectations

This snowy Monday morning finds Chris, Willow Grace, and me lounging in the living room. A blazing fire is merrily crackling away in the hearth, and Willow Grace has spent the last hour giggling incessantly for a dozen silly reasons causing us to join in with her without really knowing why. Perhaps it's just that we're all so happy to be here in our cozy home instead of still being couped up in that little hospital room.

We're slowly, very slowly, settling back into our life here, and I am trying to allow myself to rest without feeling guilty about it. Our 18 days in the hospital left me feeling quite exhausted. I know that I said to myself and others that I knew it would be a process, that I would have to readjust to life outside the hospital, and that it would take a some time for Willow Grace to finish her recovery and build back up her strength. I said it, and I believed it. Really, I did. And yet, it's an entirely different thing to live it. And so now I am continuing to employ patience, mostly with myself. I tend to be pretty hard on myself and hold myself to high expectations, sometimes unrealistically so. I don't have all the things we accumulated at the hospital organized and put away, and I haven't put away all of the autumn decorations that were still out waiting for the Thanksgiving we never got to have. There's so much to be done. I suppose it's time to cut myself a little bit of slack. It will all get accomplished, just not on the time table I had set up in my head.

Our first night home, Saturday night, I think that we were all just so grateful to be here that we practically melted into the furniture when we arrived. Willow Grace immediately started playing with her toys, but when she sat down on the floor she needed help getting back up. Later, when she tried to climb the steps to go to her room, she could only make it up one step! The last two nights, I tried to put her to sleep in her own bed, but at some point I ended up running, half-asleep to her side when she shrilly screamed out, "Mommy!" And inevitably, she has ended up in our bed. (Interestingly enough, she only calls me Mommy when she's sick, scared, or has some other problem she can't solve herself. Otherwise, it's Mama or Ariel.)Yesterday and today, she has gained back a tad more strength, and her appetite seems to be increasing as well. I so wish that I could take her out in this glorious snow. She loves it so much and wants so badly to build a snowman. So far, however, she has been content to look out the window at the snow. What's important is that she is on the mend, and we will get to enjoy our Christmas break with family and here in our little home. And I'm just going to pray for more snow this winter season for us to enjoy!

Aspiration: To Be Super Woman

I’m a list person. Among those carefully constructed lists are ones for grocery, household chores, daily to-do, weekly to-do, and honey-do. I also have a special calendar by the bed where I write down what I wear each day. I know a lot of people think that’s very strange, but I don’t care; it’s come in very handy. One day, I will end my day with everything on my little daily to-do list checked off. I love the feeling I get when looking over a list full of tasks/chores, and every one has a neat little line through it. I just wish that would happen more often.

I have such a problem with sloth – not in myself but others. I hear about people who fritter away their days doing a whole lot of nothing, and it bothers me so much. I know that my feelings are rooted in a deep-seeded fear that others will see me as being a lazy person, and that stems from the desire to have significant purpose and meaning in my life as a whole. Since I married Chris three years ago, he’s been helping me to relax more. It’s not that I never relaxed before; I just often felt really guilty about it, especially when there was unfinished work. I worked so hard in high school and college so that I could have a good future. Well, that future is here. I’ve had (and still have) a successful career, and now I have a beautiful family. In addition, with the shift in my job and my new family, my purpose and meaning in life is shifting. More than ever, however, there is always work to be done, always enough to keep me busy. Working full time certainly limits my time for home duties. However, even if I’ve done all the cleaning and laundry and have attended to all my little family’s needs, there are a dozen little projects to be completed. I also have a queue of books lined up just waiting to be read, writing projects that I need my attention, and many other little tasks.

I’ve been trying to get used to my new schedule over the last week and a half since I’m back to work full time and have longer (and earlier) hours. I rise at 4:40 every morning in order to get my workout in, and I have to be in the car at 6:25 sharp in order to get Willow Grace to Mom and then take myself on to work. In the evening, by the time I make dinner, get everyone fed (sometimes including myself), clean up the kitchen, and go through Willow Grace’s bedtime ritual (bath, books, bottle, bed), I barely have enough energy left for much else. I try to tackle a few household chores like laundry and basic cleaning, but sometimes it’s all I can do to check off the tasks that I must do to in order to keep my morning free of that frantic rush I hate so much. I always repack her diaper bag, lay out my workout and work clothes, and clear the living room of toys so I have room to workout in the morning. Oh, and after I climb into bed each night, I’m trying really hard to read at least a chapter from a novel. Since I don’t always have the time and/or energy to attend to the other chores on my list, that guilty feeling creeps back in. I really want to be Super Woman, and I really believe that, in my own way, I can. I just need a little time to adjust to this schedule. I’m up to the challenge!

By the Numbers

1: wedding rehearsal and dinner on Friday – I was so proud of Chris and his toast. It was the perfect combination of funny and heartfelt. Way to go, Honey!

1: wedding on Saturday – Chris’s brother, Johnathan, married his childhood friend, Kara. They’ve known each other since they were babies! Such a sweet friendship! I loved how delightfully in love they seemed to be.

7 or 8: the number of fraudulent charges attempted on our bank account this weekend. Apparently, someone somehow obtained Chris’s card number and tried to use it a bunch of times, but the bank is taking care of it. Whew!

$1000: the approximate total of those charges. That would have made bill paying hard!

15: the number of chores I completed yesterday, some of them multiple times like folding and putting away loads of laundry and washing several sinks of dishes (on my day off). This does not include taking care of the baby (which should never be considered a chore but does take a lot of time).

26+: the number of chores still waiting to be accomplished. I’m sure that I can come up with several more or even break down some of the ones on my list. I will try to take care of a few tonight, but that proves hard after being at work all day.

3: the number of articles I worked on today for the ministry newsletter. I hope we can get this knocked out this week, Mom!

10-15: the number of words Willow Grace can say including: Mama, Dada, dog, Bella, Willow, Nana, Papa, baba (bottle), no, etc…. And new this morning – Ralph! (That’s the name of the elephant we bought her at the zoo!)

10,000: the number of steps I aim to take each day