A Good Day

Friends, I am really excited today.

I have a new hat to wear.

In addition to mother, wife, woman, sister, daughter, friend and an enormous selection of service-personnel descriptions, I am a FREE-LANCE WRITER!

It is true.

If you are paid to do something, that means you are legit, right?

Can I just tell you about writing?

Or more specifically, me writing?

I had no idea I LIKED to write until my last job. I worked for an incredible pastor who encouraged me in my writing and gave me every opportunity possible to word-smith and compose.

When I left that job for motherhood, writing was what I missed the very most, hence this tiny bit of cyberspace that I have claimed as my own.

Since leaving that position, some of my past co-workers have continued to ask me about my writing and what I might do with it some day.

Truthfully, while flattering, that is SO intimidating. I mean, I'm just a mom. Just a lady who likes to tell stories and likes to imagine that a handful of people are interested in the ridiculous aspects of my life.

I know some wonderful writers. I know that I am not in their league.

I still love to put thoughts to paper.

But now, things are happening. Small to start. I'm not working on a novel or the next great compilations of essays, but I am being invited to work as a professional writer and actually have multiple projects on the docket.

I still have no clue what writing will look like as part of my life in the future, I just know that it will be there... and I know that I like what it is now.

Seriously, free-lance anything sounds nifty, but a free-lance writer sounds AWESOME!

...

In addition to securing a new job title, I also made my first batch of successful chocolate chip cookies.

Go me!

The Well

I've been a bit of a crank lately. It seems like I'm extremely prone to irritability and anger, two qualities that don't at all match the way I think of myself or the self that I want to be.

Here is my theory.

Actually, here is the lead-up to my theory.

I enjoy thinking of my life in seasons. My additional word to describe life lately has been "capacity."

When I see someone who is better then me - well, not better than me - but someone who seems to be able to keep more balls in the air or fit more hats on her head, I remind myself that each of us have a different capacity.

I also try and give myself grace when I can't seem to hold as many things together. I recognize that my capacity can grow and shrink depending on the amount of sleep I get, exercise, emotional factors...

I'm in a season where my capacity is very small. I don't get much sleep. I've just moved and am adjusting to an entirely new way of living. I am parenting two small children who require near-constant hands-on attention.

Today I was particularly moody.

That brings us back to my new theory.

In my pondering over why I am having such a hard time keeping an even keel, I thought of a new word picture.

A well.

I can see myself as a well. Deposits being poured in, and water being drawn out. I see all the people and projects of my life standing around the well. My sweet friends are pouring huge buckets of delicious clean water into my well. Jack walks up to the edge and gleefully dumps his little cup into the well, all the while using a giant sized bucket to draw water right back out and fling it on the ground in a colossal tantrum.

Commitments I've made pull water up and out.

Andy pours water in. I draw water from my own well to pour back to him.

In and out.

The water line moves up and down.

Sometimes I'm full to overflowing, sometimes it looks like I'm going to be completely dry.

I think my emotional struggle lies in the fact that I moved from a season where my well seemed so full to a dry spell.

My capacity is small, simply from the nature of my life stage. I am trying to conserve my water, save it for Andy and Jack and Joey, and some days it feels like water is being drawn out of me with huge buckets, against my will. I'm fighting to have enough for everyone, but there just isn't.

I get angry when I feel like my water has gone to something that is less important to me that one of my boys. It irritates me when I have to give them less so that the other realities of life (laundry, grocery lists, complicated relationships) can get a few drops.

This picture shed some light on my mood, but it also brought me to the solution.

I've been trying to keep my well full on my own. I try and conserve where I think I can. I monitor everything that goes in and comes out. I stress when I see the levels getting low and I get giddy when I've just received generous amounts of water poured back in.

But Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him," and, "... if you knew the gift of God ... you would have asked him and he would have give you the living water."

I've been trying to live fully on lifeless water. The only solution for my dry well, is to fill it from a source that never runs dry.

Oh Lord, forgive me for trying to keep my well full on my own. I've been stingy with my water where I could have been generous. Please fill me with your living water and teach me to give it freely.

Five-year Plan

I want these.

Jack's latest antics:

• At this very moment he is rolling and chasing a foam soccer ball all over the dining room floor and sort of singing to himself.  I love watching him play!

• Yesterday while I was feeding him lunch (little pieces of leftover dinner, because he's so grown up and can feed himself) he picked up a piece of chicken and held out his hand to me.  It took me a second to connect the movement to the intent, but he was offering me his food!  Awww!  Thanks baby!  So now I am in that "pretend eating" phase.  That's right, I'll be the mom making exaggerated chewing faces and swallowing noises for the next few months. 
  

• When I'm bustling about the house, especially when I'm making dinner, I still have a little shadow.  It is so, so endearing!  It makes it a little hard to move though, because if I stand still for too long Jack climbs right up my legs and stands that way, gripping my pants.  His balance is precarious enough that if I move too quickly, down he goes.  So I stand motionless or do a VERY slow motion shuffle across the kitchen floor.  But mostly I just laugh and then carry him back into the living room so that I have about three minutes to stir, taste, plate, before he is back, clinging to my leg.  
  

Perhaps it is an indicator that Jack will be more proficient in the kitchen than his father.  

For the sake of my future daughter-in-law, I sure hope so.

Although, GUYS, Andy made me dinner last week! It is true!  And, I think with a some slightly modified grocery purchases, he is willing to make dinner once a week.  I cannot even tell you what a giant leap this is for all of Aicheledom!  

I used to joke that I had a five-year plan to get Andy in the kitchen.  (His joke has always been that he married me for the food - It's only a joke people!)

The first phase of my plan was to send Andy on little grocery runs, all by himself.  For nothing too crazy, but things not found in the Hamburger Helper isle.  Maybe some garlic.  Maybe some olive oil.  Maybe some pimento peppers.  

An example of items on the list I give him looks like this:  Fresh basil - it is in the produce section, in the refrigerator case, on the top left hand side, in a little plastic box type thing, it should be 2.99.  Avocado - not rock hard, not too squishy, it should just give a little when you squeeze it.  

One time he OFFERED to get my whole list (double digit items people!).  I re-wrote the list in order of how he would find it in the store, isle by isle.

You may think I'm over the top, but the point is for him to feel like HE CAN DO IT!  Make it easy.  Make it not a chore.  

This was the first step.

Truthfully, I didn't know what would come after that.  But I thought, hey, five years is a good amount of time, I'll come up with something.

The next step ended up being Eggs Benedict.  Almost every Sunday morning we sleep in, get up and make coffee and toddle around for an hour or so, and then I make Eggs Benedict.  It is not a good thing to eat if you are watching your calories, or worried about cholesterol, but if you want to make your taste buds happy, give it a try.   

Anyhow, Andy KNOWS how happy it makes me to cook with people, especially him, so one morning he volunteered to help.  SERIOUSLY!?  YES YOU CAN HELP!  Be still my beating heart!

His big thing is he says he's not creative, he needs rules, instructions.  Well, the part of our brunch that has instructions is the sauce.  It is just a packet of sauce mix to which you add milk and butter and stir.  

So now, Andy squishes in the kitchen with me to man the sauce.  I love it.  I am grinning ear to ear just thinking about it.  

So I guess sauce mix was stage two.  

Thanks to Trader Joe's, we now are in stage three (I have no idea how many stages it will take to be cooking buddies, but I am now VERY optimistic that it will happen in my lifetime).  TJ's has very yummy frozen food.  In particular, I am thankful for the Orange Chicken and the microwave rice.  Andy has made this twice now, very successfully (I did sneak into the kitchen and add some broccoli, but veggies are a few steps away I think, so I'm okay with that).

I wish you could know the multitude of emotions that swell in my heart as he brings me a plate of food that I didn't have to lift a finger to prepare.  Gratitude, adoration, pride, victory, burning desire (after all, it has to be worth his while, no?).

Ah. Happy sigh.

The fine and tender nuances of married life.  

Andy, thanks for being willing to try something that you think you'll (and probably do) hate, just to make me happy. I appreciate you, and your efforts, very, VERY much.

Muah!

For those of you not in the know, 

that is a kiss noise.  

Like a highfalutin pair of ladies 

holding each other on the shoulders, 

with pinkies up 

and leaving an air kiss on each cheek. 

 "Muah, muah.  How aaaree you daaahhling?"

In our case it simply means,

"If you were here right now I would kiss you!"

Feel free to borrow it for all of your lovey-dovey needs.