The Backside of Company

Company has come and gone. A few days of hectic high energy plopped into my mostly placid life.

My niece and two nephews are 17, 15, and 12. They like to play games, and play we did -- some of the classics like Sorry and Yahtzee (and Battleship with my niece), and hours of a card game called Golf. It’s funny how much we love board games and cards, but I’m sure they play as often as Kat and I do, which is never, when we’re not all visiting each other.

I was proud of myself for achieving peace in chaos. There was a time when my siblings’ visits would jangle my nerves to the point that I couldn’t fully enjoy them. I’m not used to the energy that children bring, and I would spend some visits counting down the minutes to departure time.

Several years ago, I decided that I had to change my attitude and become more tolerant of disruption and noise and messiness, or I would miss out on the fun of being with my nieces and nephews (I have ten total). They were growing up, and I was growing old.

So I did.

Through prayer and journaling, and a lot through psyching myself up before a visit and choosing to let go and enjoy the craziness, I’ve found the visits to be more and more fun. Some of it may have to do with their age; most of them are teenagers now or close to it, but I can tell that some of the inner work is paying off.

So the visit was great, but now Kat and I are struggling a bit to get back into routines. I’ve had meetings that were postponed until after the visit and smushed all together at the end of the week. The house is messy, my grocery situation is out of whack, and I’m flying without meal plans. I have another long meeting tomorrow morning, and an event I’ve organized Sunday afternoon that, along with church in the morning, will take the day.

It’s push-through time, and Monday I’ll take stock and organize myself. Until then, I’ll just have to float along with the disorder and not let it get to me.

DIY Project - From Despair to Good Times

How is it that once a project is begun, the world comes crashing in?  Kat and I know to allot more time than we think is needed for any house project. We started the minor renovation of my sewing / guest room with a hard deadline of March 10, the date of the arrival of my sister and nieces for Spring Break. We had two mostly empty weekends to work with, and figured the project would take only one of those weekends with the cracks filled in during the week.

I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story.

On Saturday the ninth, we were frantically finishing up the room while trying to clean, shop for groceries, prep for meals, and all the other things that go with getting ready for guests. We made it, barely.

The unexpected problems that cropped up were, first, my getting a nasty cold and passing it on to Kat. We worked through it, but fatigue was definitely a factor. Then Kat was assigned a trainee at work, which meant much longer hours, and this on top of battling a cold virus. Then I had some issues pop up with volunteer work that needed attention. I fell into that middle-of-project funk when I despair that we’re improving anything and wonder why we made so much seemingly unnecessary work for ourselves.

But in the end we finished just in time for guests to enjoy (very satisfying!!) Today guests have gone home, and I need to clean before I take “after” pictures. I’ll be back soon to show off the project. I am VERY pleased with how it turned out.

Despair is gone, and now time to enjoy, and try hard to ward off the itch to tackle some other project anytime soon.

Personal Mission Statement

The New Year is a grand time for me because I love to make resolutions. Keeping them is of course another matter, though I usually do ok except for anything exercise related.

A few weeks ago I was browsing through Amazon's Lending Library and happened across Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People . It's been around for quite a while now (originally published in 1989), but I'd never read it, so I snagged it. It turned out to be great timing with the New Year, and I decided to take the author's advice and write a personal mission statement out of which I could make resolutions and goals for the year.

After much journaling and meditation, here's a first pass at my mission statement:

"They are happy, whose strength is in you,
in whose hearts are the roads to Zion.
As they go through the Bitter Valley
they make it a place of springs . . ."
Psalm 84

I will

Trust in God's Providence to provide all that I need to accomplish my mission on earth
Nurture all creatures in my care or within my circle of influence
Create generously and with good energy, resisting the urge to doubt myself and my creative abilities
Treat writing -- books, blogs, and articles -- as my new business, working at it with as much time and energy as I gave Real Estate
Be a good steward of all that has been given -- talents and time, possessions, money, house, and pets
Strengthen relationships
Practice hospitality, making our home a welcoming and relaxing place for Kat and me and for others
Understand the "other side" of an issue and avoid demonizing others
Defend the absent*
Live more simply
Carefully consider requests to commit my time, accepting or declining as best fits my values and goals
Follow through on commitments made to myself and others
Create habits for prayer and fitness to strengthen the spirit and body
Persevere in following principles and creating and keeping good habits

These are not goals exactly, but a way of being to live into. I have developed goals from this, and already I feel stronger in accomplishing them because I have this statement as a touchstone, something to remind me why I've developed goals in the first place and to strengthen my resolve. So thanks Stephen Covey! This exercise makes a good beginning to the new year.

* I lifted this phrase straight from Covey's book. It's simple yet quite challenging.