I really do miss not blogging lately. I love to write. But I had to step back and start to organize our busy and sometimes hectic life. Phillip and I both knew the only way to get really organized was to clean. And when I say clean that means getting rid of 11 years of accumulated stuff in our cellar and closets. I didn't really even know how liberating this could be! It has become a family project and everyone is really getting into it. After two weeks of doing this day after day, I had the pleasure of relaxing in our living room with out feeling anything...not too much anyway...looming over me. I grabbed a book and read for two hours and I felt so blessed to experience unabashed relaxing!
The cleaning will continue in the upcoming weeks. The organizing for the school year and lesson planning will continue. It has to now that it is starting to become a habit for our whole family. It takes a lot more than two weeks to clean out a house where basically everything that has come in our front door the past 11 years and has never left!
It feels so good to "Ora et Labora" (to pray and work). I have been able to go through our school books and organize what each child will learn this year without doing unnecessary spending. I have been able to teach the girls to recycle and listen to the boys reminisce about when they used to! It feels good to categorize, organize, plan, make lists, waste not and want not.
I know cleaning out a house and getting organized is not a new concept. I should know better. I grew up with a mother and father who knew the art of organizing. Which leads me to my next topic: My parents are here! What better timing than that! Next on my list is to ask for and get some help from them.
I just read Ginny Seuffert's column in the most resent August 2009 Seton Home Study News Letter "Making Ends Meet". In fact, I highly recommend any of her articles in this newsletter. If a mother of twelve can accomplish this than certainly a mother of five can!
Since habit formation is at the top of this mothers list for her children, the first habit in order for our family is putting things back where they belong! So this week will be a week for finding places for the "things" we have to belong.
Interruptions:
Well, the habit idea is great except that the boys will again be in NYC beginning tomorrow for a week and I will meet them there midweek. Molly's birthday is this week and I am not going to miss that!
Lesson for the week:
For this mother to learn to deal with interruptions and pick up where we left off. This has been very difficult for me due to the number of interruptions or should I say "change of plans" that happen almost daily around here! Nobody else in this family seems to mind except for me! This is not so much a problem in the summer but it seems to be a reoccuring problem during the school year due to the fact that our boys as the Burnham Bros. really do have a job...a demanding job which requires many hours of rehearsing, writing, brainstorming, planning, appointments, and schedule. For instance. I needed an school assignment from Alex, yes, he is still finishing up 11th grade! How do you get an assignment from a son that has a song playing on the radio that day and many hours of music rehearsal for a gig that requires 19 songs?
Answer: You wait for a better day. You weave it in later when there is a day when nothing is happening:) That day won't come in any family and certainly not ours. You wait for a better moment when your son is rested and ready to tackle his assignment.
Can you say train ride? That's right. He doesn't know it yet but he has a couple of assignments for his Monday train ride!
I've been reading lately about families that have had to school in their van due to outside commitments for the mother (like taking their loved one to the doctor daily for treatments). I am amazed at how resilient some of these mothers are! In fact, I love to read about what other mothers are doing because they are such an inspiration to me. I know I just didn't come up on my own the idea of cleaning, getting organized, or trying to learn to deal with interruptions. These ideas come from other mothers and fathers that God has put in my path to teach me, to mold me, to help me at 45 change my habits and my way of thinking. If you are reading this and you are one of those organized people please pray for me and for my family! Pray that we continue to embrace this path, this path which I ultimately see as filled with grace because once you clean without, you will start to clean out within. I know this because I already see myself figuring out a time for spiritual reading and prayer throughout the day. Yes, weaving it within the fabric of our lives so that living and praying are really interchangeable. Learning that life really is a prayer.
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