Plan B
2:03 PM
I'm a Plan A kind of girl. I prefer things going the way I wanted them to. The funny thing is that my life has pretty much played out according to Plan B.
Everything I would have told you I'd be doing 15 years ago, well, I'm pretty much doing the opposite of that. And I have found Plan B to be awesome. In my life, God puts Plan A in my heart and I head happily off that direction only to find Plan A path closed off at some point and Plan B wide open and beckoning. So I end up taking Plan B path and I have found all sorts of unplanned joys and discoveries on Plan B.
Take this week alone, as an exhibit. God is teaching me flexibility (aka Plan B-ness) in my daily life, particularly in the area of homeschooling. I am learning to live with a loose structure. Sort of like baggy overalls. They stay on, but they're not fitted. And truthfully, life, like overalls, does NOT need to be all that fitted. It just needs to stay on!
This week, in spite of all my lists and plans, I did not mop my kitchen floors. I barely cleaned my kitchen. I did not dust once. There are obvious, catchable Singer hair balls drifting around my hardwood floors. There are unchecked boxes in my daily to do lists (GASP!). Why all these things?
Dorien and August got croup this week, and among other things, it changes the originally planned week structure. I lost sleep. I ended up having to run Dorien to the doctor Friday afternoon for a steroid shot and have spent a fair amount of my week holding him because he had a fever, a bark and didn't feel good.
Plan B.
I went to the gym one day this week. For me, that's crazy talk.
I broke up numerous, NUMEROUS squabbles between Brooklyn and August who have decided to fight over every little thing, from who hands me a utensil to who sits in which chair to who breathes first!
I treated myself and made some really good from-scratch brownies that hands-down beat any box brownie out there. And for all you people who put your kids to bed at 7:30, you'll croak at this - I made these brownies after 9pm, and my kids and Kyle hung out in the kitchen while I did so and Kyle read aloud 4 chapters from Charlotte's Web. And then we all ate those brownies. And it was blissful. Kyle does a hilarious "Templeton" voice. Sort of a gay gangster.
I have somehow found time to work on knitting a blanket I've been knitting for ages. I have read lots and lots of books to my kids. I've also squeezed in time to update my mom's genealogy notebooks onto Ancestry.com. And let me tell you, that has been some kind of interesting. I'm not kidding. It's fascinating.
I am also, as we speak, sitting on my bed on what was otherwise going to be a productive Saturday, enjoying what has got to be the best day ever. It's been raining for a day and a half. The good, slow kind of rain that beads up on everything like jewels and cools the air exactly as a good rain should and makes things smell wet and promising. I also made myself some hot chocolate today just because rainy cool days are perfect for hot chocolate. I have relaxed and not left the house and cuddled with my sick babies and watched the Lorax with them and praised God with every fibre of my being for this Plan B kind of day.
It's good stuff, Plan B.
Oh, and just so you will know that we do make progress in school, here are some videos of a science experiment we conducted. If you need to borrow a compass anytime in the near future, just let me know.
note: I said in the video that the sun sets in the east (I meant that it rose on that side of our house). Oops.
--I would like to insert here that between Part A and Part B, I broke up a huge fight between Brooklyn and August over who would pick up the pink bowl, bonked them over the head in frustration, hugged them and apologized, kissed them, they apologized to each other and me and we started over. And August took a moment to wipe away his tears before filming recommenced. I'm not proud of such moments, but they happen. --
--I would like to insert here that between Part A and Part B, I broke up a huge fight between Brooklyn and August over who would pick up the pink bowl, bonked them over the head in frustration, hugged them and apologized, kissed them, they apologized to each other and me and we started over. And August took a moment to wipe away his tears before filming recommenced. I'm not proud of such moments, but they happen. --
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