Taking a Deep Breath

If I don't post very much for the next few months, it is because I have started grad school.

{Gasp}

After being out of school for 20 years or so, it is HARD to get back into the habit of studying, researching, and turning in assignments. I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, but this week, I feel I have a handle on it.

I didn't last week.

Because not only did I have grad school starting last week, but my son was in a play, and I had to make 7 crock pots of taco soup for a teacher luncheon at my son's school. Yes, last week did not demonstrate good planning and judgment on my part.

But I reached out to friends and family, and made it through.  I had a nice cry, buckled down and finished my assignments due this week, and let my husband handle play duty for a few nights.

So often, we forget to take a deep breath. We forget to appreciate the little things. We forget to treat ourselves right, and eat well, and get the right amount of sleep, because we're the moms, and that's what moms are supposed to do. But we end up so much worse off than if we took a deep breath and made our health a priority.

I decided that sanity was important than punctuality, and let my son sleep in on Friday. He got to school about an hour late, but was SO much better off for it. After a LONG month of practices that, honestly, were too late for him (getting to bed an hour after his bedtime, wound up), and an opening night performance Thursday, I knew he would feel better, and I would feel better, if he slept in a little. I ran it by his teacher to make sure he didn't miss anything important, and, thankfully, she understood.

And while I kept eating the things I am supposed to eat, and didn't eat one bit of chocolate (very proud of myself for that), I didn't worry so much about getting in my daily exercise. There simply weren't enough hours in the day. I worked out one day this last weekend, and knew that was good enough.

And on Monday, I went with some of my dear friends to a museum and we let our kids have a great time playing. That built up my happiness reserve again and gave me what I needed to get through this week. We don't get to do that nearly often enough.

It is the little things. It is the note and gift of tea from a friend. It is a hug. It is a pat on the back. It is a call from my sweet mom, making sure everything was looking a little rosier now that the first week of grad school was past me. It is watching our kids launch paper airplanes, and build contraptions with pulleys and buckets and ramps and dominos, and try to catch butterflies and explore an incredible treehouse/playground.

It is remembering, each morning, before I get up, to take some deep breaths and think positive thoughts, to not just jump right into the day, but thank God for that day first and for all the joys and challenges it will bring.

If I can remember to breathe, I think I will get through this first semester of grad school okay.

Inspiration Comes from Cleaning

Before anyone who knows me well has a heart attack, thinking that aliens must have taken over my body if I found inspiration in doing something I dislike (cleaning), let me put your mind at ease.

My much-neater husband took the opportunity of a day off last Friday to do some "spring" cleaning, and I felt a little guilty, so I cleaned out a few drawers.

What I found amazed me.

It is a slightly wrinkled print that was in an envelope. I don't remember receiving it as a gift, or purchasing it, or even putting it in that drawer sometime in the last 11 years that we have lived here.

The message of the print sounds like me, so much that I've put it here, over my computer, to uplift me as I begin grad school next week.

Here it is, a picture, then the words:

"she lives

she dances.
she sings.
she takes, she gives.
she serves.
she loves and creates.
she dissents, she enlivens.
she sees.
she grows.
she sweats.
she changes.
she learns.
she laughs.
she sheds
her skin.
she bleeds on the
pages of her days.
she walks through walls.
she lives
with intention.
--- mary anne radmacher

I cannot tell you how much I love this. If someone in my life knows where this came from, great! If not, the mystery will continue, and I am not bothered by that. No matter when I got/purchased this, it is seems like a message from above. It is pushing me forward, toward a new career, toward a new, more healthy me, toward what God has planned for me.

It will serve as a reminder, on those days when I am struggling with making myself work out, or finish an assignment for school, or just get up out of bed when I'd rather stay warm under the covers, that I am living with intention. I am shedding my skin. And I am doing so with joy.