A New Year of Life--with Dreams and Goals

 For the past few years I've been reluctant to make "resolutions" or even many goals.  Life threw us such a curveball; I often feel I need to just hold all my plans loosely now, because you never know.  And I still feel that way, but seem to be more open to thinking in a more concrete way about the future. (My husband hit the 2-year-in-remission mark last month!!)

I turned 43 on September 25th. I am so grateful to be in my early 40s, in good health, with two healthy children, with a husband who is healthy and alive, with a roof over my head and food in the refrigerator.  I honestly feel gratitude for these things every single day.

How about the other stuff?

One of my biggest dreams, and by far the most important one to me right now, is to raise two well-adjusted, respectful, hard-working, kind human beings who love God and love others.  There's a lot to that dream, and I have many goals that I'm working on along the way.

But I think it's time to articulate a few others as well--I feel comfortable enough to do that right now.  I feel far out enough from the uncertainty of stage 4 cancer, although the truth is--nothing is certain in our lives.  We have to spend our days as wisely as we can in light of that reality.

I like to think in terms of dreams (the big, almost-nebulous things that we'd like to do) and goals (the small steps we have to take to get to the dream). 

So here are my dreams and goals for the upcoming year of life: 

1) Dream: write a book (I estimate I'm about 3/4 of the way there)

Goal: write 20 minutes each day

I began working on this story a year or two ago, but it sort of turned itself into a book this year. I spent every Saturday morning working on it for a few hours at a time in January, February, and March; I stopped when the pandemic hit (because I was staying home!).  But I did spend a long weekend in a cabin by myself at the end of March and wrote about 30,000 words that weekend.  This past weekend I spent two days writing (but it wasn't as productive, because I was at home!).  My goal was to finish the first draft of the book by December 31, 2020, and I may be able to take another writing weekend soon.  I want to carve out the time each day to work steadily now.  Twenty minutes isn't much, but it's doable and it is better than nothing!

2)  Dream: drop one more dress size (I don't think I need or want to drop more than that)

Goal: walk 30-45 minutes a day, exercise 15-30 minutes a day, and follow the general eating routine that works best for me

Pretty straightforward!

3) Dream: read 44 books by my 44th birthday (this is a fun one, right?  I seem to pretty consistently read about 25 books per year--I do keep track--but this year I want to increase that significantly)

Goal: read for 30-60 minutes every evening 

My new favorite habit is getting completely ready for bed, tucking my children in, and then curling up in my own bed with my stack of books. I also like reading in the morning and afternoons, but those times are more "hit-or-miss" for me because I need to take care of my family during the day!

4)  Dream: learn to play violin (I began playing in fall of 2017, then took a long break when my husband was sick; I'm ready to pick up regular practice again, even if I'm not ready to re-start lessons yet)

Goal: practice 15 minutes a day 

That's all I have time to do, but I can do that!  

5) Dream: post more regularly on my blog

Goal: write three posts per week 

I genuinely enjoy writing here, and I miss it when I don't do it.  

6) Dream: learn to oil paint

Goal: paint for 1-2 hours every week

I recently decided I wanted to learn to oil paint; this could be a huge disaster, since I don't consider myself an artist.  At all.  But: why not? I think I'll try to paint on Sunday afternoons.  It's our most relaxed day, and my husband always naps, so that's the perfect time for me to putter around in some paints, I think!

*         *       * 

These are all personal goals.  They are not relationship-oriented, but that's because I don't quantify what I do in my relationships. In fact, my relationships come before any of the things I listed here.  Always. I don't care if I write a dozen books, play virtuoso-level violin (ha! what a dream!), oil paint like Vermeer, or read 100 books a year--if I do all of that and I neglect my home and my family, or don't show kindness to my neighbors in need or my friends, then I haven't done my real job, because I consider those things my real work in life.

Life is a gift!  I'm grateful to have the margin and vision to try to spend it well.  I know I'll come up short and never achieve every dream or goal, but I'd rather aim for the stars and reach the moon than never look up at all.

Front Porch in Fall: Silver, Cream, and Sage

My front porch used to be one of the banes of my existence, domestically-speaking.  It was a plain, unstained, unpainted wood porch whose stairs were placed in the wrong spot; I couldn't wait to tear it down and rebuilt it. (You can get a glimpse of what it was like in this post.)

But a couple of years ago we hired a painter to stain our newly-built deck. When he was at our house assessing the deck, he looked out the front window. "How about that deck?" He asked.  The decky-ness was one thing that always annoyed me about the porch. I wanted it more porch, less deck. He offered to stain that as well, and I thought--well, why not.

I was stunned!  I couldn't believe that a couple of coats of "weathered grey" made such a difference. I love my porch now!  The configuration still annoys me, but not enough to rebuilt it anytime soon. The silvery stain is perfect to my eyes, so soft and pretty (we chose the same stain for the deck).  After he stained it, I splurged on some grey-and-cream furniture and a good place to read was born.....

I like decorating my porch in different seasons now.  This year I bought two urns to flank the stairs.  I bought the green stool at an estate sale for $15 a few weeks ago. The little jack-o-lantern in the front right foreground is Annie's addition. :) 

I'd hoped to stack some sage and white pumpkins, but flat white pumpkins were nowhere to be found this year.  So I just went with the silvery-sage ones and added some sprigs of common sage and Russian sage as well. 

....these are my white mums in September....note how they had turned purple by October. I didn't see that coming! But I like it. For autumn I cover the blue and green pillows with more neutral covers.  

 

Here's the porch last year, with our sweet Bosco enjoying the sunshine.  What a wonderful dog he was!

I love to sit out here and read a book, sip tea or coffee, and watch the birds. It's good for the soul.....

A Peaceful Practice: Sticking to a Schedule

 We finished our seventh week of school last week, and it has been the best year in...well, years.

One thing that has made a big difference has been our forced pruning.  I'm a devoted gardener; I know that when I ruthlessly prune, the best blooms follow.  My roses thrive when I prune them hard twice a season.  My azaleas bloom prolifically after a good post-bloom spring pruning.  And deadheading, too, revives and encourages better blooms.  My roses and butterfly bush can tell you that!

{Rose season is almost done--I've got the year's last blooms on the bush now.}

This year I had to turn the pruning to our schedule and our lives, and I had to make hard decisions about what to keep and what could go.  It was the best thing I could've done, and what's interesting is that no one is missing the activities we had to cut out.

The other thing that has helped me significantly has been using a "timetable," or schedule, for our schoolwork.  

The first few weeks of school I tried to follow a general routine: morning time together, table work, then reading independent books. We've done this for years. But after a few weeks, I became frustrated because Finn's school day felt like it was stretching to dinnertime every single day.  Sure, he's in 8th grade, but come on! It felt like too much to me, and he also longed for more free time. After taking a long time to do just a few subjects, he'd have literature to read at 4pm or science to do while I made dinner.  The biggest issue is that Finn is a person who dives into something deeply, and he's a neat, perfectionistic, diligent person, so one math lesson that involves drawing several graphs will take an hour and a half (I'm not even kidding), and result in--yes--the best, most gorgeous hand-drawn graphs you've ever seen. 

I love this about Finn!  But I believes he needs to do more than just math, piano, and foreign languages, with the occasional grammar lesson squeezed into the mix.  And--most importantly--I feel he needs to have a wide swath of time most afternoons to be outdoors, or playing with his sister, or studying more languages (yes, it always happens), or making things...whatever he wants.  I want him to have that "masterly inactivity" that is one of the primary benefits of homeschooling. 

{Alice the Cat needs no timetable to achieve peace in her life.}

So I revisited the Charlotte Mason timetables, and decided to assign times to each subject.  Rather than doing one math lesson a day, he just does 45 minutes of math.  Rather than taking two hours to obsess over Spanish, he can do 45 minutes, then revisit it later in the day if he still wants to do more (he often does!). Finn was shocked: when we instituted this and stuck with it, his school day went from being roughly 9 am until close to dinnertime, to being 8:30ish to 1:00!  And we get everything done.  And he has all afternoon most days to do whatever else he wants. 

We've used the timetable approach for about 3-4 weeks now, and we're thrilled with the result.  Yes, he'll go through his math curriculum more slowly.  No, we don't care (I checked in with the resident engineer to also make sure he was okay with that, and he said he prefers it!). There are days when I'll allow him to have a bit of extra time to finish up a subject.  I also tried to "over-budget" time for some things, like languages, because he does prefer to linger over them.  Even so, we're done with school by 1:00 most days, and if he's not done then, he only has a small amount left to do in the afternoon.  Since Annie is easily done before lunchtime, my afternoons are freer now, too.  

With just a little bit of discipline and thoughtfulness, I feel so much more peace now! 

Now I'm thinking of timetables (isn't that a better word than "schedule?" I think so...) as I ponder other aspects of life that may be improved by a little more time-structure.  Stay tuned.....

{Russian sage, a perennial favorite, which goes strong all summer and lingers into autumn.}

Fancy Hair

 I can't tell you what a treat it is to have a daughter who loves so many of the things that I love.  

Annie and I share a love of pretty things,* of flowers, of gorgeous old-fashioned dresses, of beautiful rooms, of babies, of flowers. Our similarities are intense; sometimes I imagine my mother laughing from heaven, because she used to tell me "one day you will have a daughter like you, and you'll understand what I mean!"  

Because in addition to these lovely traits, Annie is also like me in her drive, her stubborn nature (I remind myself that being obstinate can be a very good thing if you're obstinate over the right things), her impatience with inefficiency, her argumentativeness, her inability to ever be wrong.  My poor mother!  She was very laid-back, a "type Z" personality.  I am pretty type A.  So is Annie. 

I just love her to pieces!  Even with her (our) flaws, I can see so much potential in her personality, and I know from experience that she will likely mellow out one day. I sure have!

One thing we also love is pretty hair.  We created this intricate-looking hairstyle not long ago.  It's not at all hard, but it took a while to do all the pinning. 

Here are a few more fun styles....

A "figure 8" bun--

A French braid on one side that we pinned to go all the way around....

...and that's as much of Annie as you will see, since I have a hard and fast rule about my children's photos on the public World Wide Web.  I think showing the back of her hair doesn't violate my firm rules. 

So many things are happening here!  The leaves are turning and falling.  We celebrated our 21st anniversary, and my in-laws' 50th (we were married on the same day, October 9th!), with a lovely dinner at a local French restaurant (the first time we've eaten at a restaurant since February).  Our always-dry basement had some seepage below the baseboard, so our contractor came on Tuesday and removed drywall so we can identify and fix the problem--and I have a furniture delivery scheduled for that space in only a few short weeks (yikes!).  My father-in-law was diagnosed with prostate cancer this week, and we are hopeful that his treatment plan will be effective. We just finished our 6th week of the school year, and it has been a wonderful year so far.  I have tweaked and shuffled a little along the way, and as a result, we have the nicest schedule.....

So there's time and space for doing things like Fancy Hair!

Restlessness, the Hard Master

"Restlessness, from being a good servant, might become a hard master; indeed, he does sometimes become so, and people do things that are too hard for them in the way of rowing or climbing, running or jumping.  Worse still, the Daemon of Restlessness possesses them, and they cannot settle to any kind of work or play because they always want to be doing something else.  This is a very unfortunate state to get into, because it is only by going on doing one thing steadily that we learn to do it well, whether it be cricket or algebra...." 

Charlotte Mason, Ourselves 

I am currently enjoying a Living Education Lesson season with Nancy Kelly, and in it, we are reading part of Ourselves.  If you aren't familiar with this volume of her six-volume series, it's a wonderful book on character development. Mason originally wrote it for teenagers, but its instructive truths are perfectly enlightening for adults--and include good reminders that we all need. I know I am not the only person who has read it as an adult and wished that I'd read it 30 years earlier!  

This passage stood out to me recently because I was thinking of how utterly distracted we can all be.  Between cell phones, YouTube, constant sources of news, push notifications, social media apps....how in the world, I often wonder, does anyone without limitations on technology settle down to do anything at all? It seems so omnipresent.  

Mason was writing this long before smartphones hijacked our minds.  Restlessness isn't a new problem; it's just that we now have new ways of indulging in it.  You can never achieve mastery of foreign language, math, or music without a steady daily effort; I think we can all agree to that.  But how about in our domestic lives?

I can see how restlessness has resulted in half-finished chores and projects in my own life in the past!  As I've aged, I've gotten much better at "settling down" and sticking with a task or project, and seeing it through to the end.  There's probably a personality type that struggles with this more than others (probably the creative type!).  If you're like me, you get excited over possibilities.  And then you can get extremely bogged down in implementation,  By disciplining myself to implement--slowly, surely--I accomplish much more than I ever did when I was trying to do ten creative things all at once. 

Restlessness can even disturb our most mundane tasks.  Sometimes it takes actual discipline to finish cleaning the kitchen (all the way), to fold and put away all the laundry, to get the bathroom totally cleaned. Of course, sometimes we have to just do the best we can and leave the rest--like when you have small children! Or if you are ill, or have a spouse or close loved one with an illness. 

Self-discipline is one of the best skills I think we can learn ourselves and teach our children. It's one reason I value chores, music lessons, and Annie's ballet class for my children. They teach us to do things in a systematic, orderly, continuous way, and they train us to do them even when we don't want to do them!  I actually believe that self-discipline soothes the savage beast of restlessness.  But no amount of chores, piano practices, or plies will teach my children to focus if I am not willing to focus myself!  So I also try hard to practice disciplines in my own life: daily exercise, my own chores and housework, and completion of tasks and projects I begin.  This may be one of those things that is "caught" more than taught, but it's important, particularly in our age of countless distractions.  (And addictions: did you know social media was designed to be addictive?) 

"...it is only by going on doing one thing steadily that we learn to do it well..."

Thanks to Charlotte Mason, once again, for the truth and inspiration!