Friday, June 1, 2012

All's Quiet (For the Moment)

God's been whispering to me lately, and that's tough.  My life is so busy and loud that when God decides to whisper instead of speak loudly, it's hard for me to remember to listen sometimes.  I know He does this purposely, so that I will be still.  But it's still hard.  James and I, in our bible study, are in our first gospel this year - Mark.  In light of how I'm feeling I powerfully felt these verses inside the Parable of the Sower:

     Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.  Mark 4:18-19

I don't want to be that seed.  I want to be the fruitful seed.  But it is good to know where your weaknesses are, and this is one of mine - a tendency to get to immersed in this life.  Especially with all the crazy summer plans we are making.  Our June budget is high, very high, due to car maintenance/replacement stuff that has to happen before our August roadtrip, which means work, work, and more work for both James and I.  James will be working five nights a week at his second job and I've got crazy numbers to hit in sales for my store.  But I don't want to find myself sitting at the computer for hours a day while the kids have nothing to do, so I've decided to become a more scheduled mom.  It's a necessity this year.  Hero has swim team practice every week day morning for the next two months.  That's tough, but I think it's excellent for her (Allegra, Ian, and Colin will do two weeks' worth of swim lessons in July).  The rest of the kids need stuff to do and I need to get off my bum more too, so I'm instituting Monday through Thursday activity morning.  Twice a week we will pack up our uber healthy bento lunches and head off to Nana's and Papa's house for a full two hours of swimming (and I'm going to be right in there, being active too) and lunch, and the other two days a week we will spend an hour and a half including lunch at our subdivision playground (again, no sitting and reading for me, I'm going to be in there chasing Elinor around).  Although it sounds a bit petty, I will definitely need to pray to follow through with my plan.  I'm great at planning, but not so great at keeping it going through the long haul.  My plan is to to invest some money in bento boxes and new clothes in a smaller size for me, so I HAVE to keep up with it.  Also, and I've thought long and hard about putting this out there, because once I do, I'm making myself accountable to the public, but here goes - I'm going to quit soda.  Indeed it's even stronger than that:  God's been telling me all year that I've got to let it go, but I've been trying to ignore Him.  Maybe I'm the only crazy one out there that God would actually have to get so specific to about Diet Coke, but there you have it.  I'm a serious addict, and the amount I'm drinking is escalating.  It's got to to stop.  It's going to stop.  I have four more cans in the house.  And then that's it.  No more.  I'm not 100% sure if I need to go full-on cold turkey.  If we're at a restaurant can I order it, or is it okay for a party?  Or is it like alcohol - if you have a problem should you abstain completely?  I know some of you out there are recovered Diet Coke-aholics, so let me know what worked for you, pretty please.  Monday's going to be quit day.  Yikes!



     


2 comments:

Serena said...

I also get way to tangled up in the "weeds" of this life! How are you doing in your goals? I am failing miserably in some of my summer plans - like getting up and going for a walk each morning. (Hasn't happened once!) I'll be praying that you are keeping up with yours.

Also - what kind of store do you have? You mentioned that sales need to be high. Just curious...

The Merry Band of Fife said...

Mixed success, Serena. We've gone swimming a few times, but then we got sick at the end of last week, grr (and it was so cold last week). I did quit Diet Coke, but I will admit that I did have one on Friday night as I had to stay up late to prep for our Saturday garage sale. But that's the only one I've had. I sell maternity clothes in an online store - I've been doing it for what seems like forever. It's nice to be my own boss (actually, I take that back, the true bosses are the kiddos LOL).