Category: Personal Agenda

Woe! It’s Wednesday: And Have I Got Woe…

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Our family is undergoing an extreme season right now. It’s too soon and not my story to share, but suffice it to say we’re all reeling and scrambling to find our footing in our new ‘normal.’

I didn’t post yesterday for Book Talk Tuesday because I haven’t finished anything in the last week and I didn’t have time to sit down and blog.

But even though we’re in crisis mode, real life doesn’t stop.

I have a freelance job to work on. I have my own stuff ready to be edited and proofed. The dust bunnies are snickering at me.

Last week, I left the house for what turned out to be a few days and I locked the cat out of the bathroom with his litter box.

Twice.

The first time, someone else found him in front of the bathroom with his little legs crossed and opened the door for him.

The second time …  He had a backup plan and used the kitchen rugs instead. Considerate of him, no?

By the way, this is the cat with the broken leg and a limp who climbs trees and runs faster than Mavis Beacon types.

I’ve never understood that John Lennon quote: Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

Until now.

Now, I get it. And I don’t like it.

Not even a little bit.

I made my plan.

We should stick to it.

Or … I could take a lesson from the cat: Have a backup plan if things don’t go the way I expect.

When we left him in the house without access to his box, he made do.

Not in the way I would have preferred, but you know what? He did good. I didn’t have a mess to clean up in the living room. The rugs are easily washed and replaced.

Turns out the crippled cat is pretty good at making do.

Perhaps we can all learn a lesson:

When life throws a curve ball, just keep swinging at the fastball?

    Or …

Keep a kitchen rug handy?

I don’t know. I just know we don’t have a choice sometimes.

So we keep swimming.

Woe! It’s Wednesday: New Year, New Goals

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I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, but I do often find a verse or a word and try to live out the spirit of it.

So far this year though, I’m only hearing crickets.

The last two years my word was fearless. I don’t know that I’m more or less fearful than I was in 2012 but having that word at the edge of my consciousness did help a few times when I was faced with uncomfortable situations. And I get the sense that I’m about as fearless now as I’ll ever be.

So, it’s time to focus on something else I want to be better at.

Whatever it ends up being, I know one thing already:

I need to be intentional about it.

It’s the vague goals that I fail to meet.

So, time to take a day or two, pray, read and think.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? What are they?

Woe! It’s Wednesday: The List of Thirty

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It’s kind of like a Bucket List. A list of thirty people who have influenced you and whom you would like to meet.

Debbie Macomber, in her non-fiction books Knit Together and God’s Guest List, writes about her List of Thirty, a list of thirty people she would like to meet.  She includes anecdotes about how God brought those people (most of them famous, some of them extremely famous) across her path.

I’ve had my own list for several years now.

And I get to check off two of them within a month of each other.

In November, I went to a writer’s conference and was privileged to learn from Donald Maass, of the Maass Literary Agency and author of Writing the Breakout Novel. I only spoke to him for a minute, but it was enough to earn him a check mark on my list.

Tonight, I’ll be at a reading by Anne Lamott and will hopefully add another check to that list. I’ve said before that Anne taught me two things:

  • Everything I know about being transparent and honest I learned from Anne,

and

  • Not all Christians think like me or are conservative like me but that doesn’t mean they love God and Jesus less or that God and Jesus love them less.

I’ll probably be a basket case if I get to speak to her and won’t be able to articulate what her writing has meant to me and my journey of faith.

But I also know:

  • It won’t be the first time she’s been confronted with a weeping fan

and

  • I’ll be okay and Jesus will still love me and Annie both.

Check back next week and I’ll let you know how it went!

Woe! It’s Wednesday: Lessons from Laundry

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Life is like laundry.

  • It happens when you’re not looking.
  • It festers if you don’t deal with it.
  • Just like whites and darks, some things do better if they’re kept separate. Like showering and eating ice-cream.
  • It goes better when you handle it intentionally.
  • Items left in the dark washer begin to smell until they’re brought to the light and aired.

Time to go sort through some stuff!

Woe! It’s Wednesday: A Hope Fulfilled

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Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12, NIV)

 

I used to quote the above verse to my husband regularly. He’s been full of plans for our home but slow to accomplish most of them. There’s lots of reasons why, but it’s been something God has used to teach me some lessons such as patience and contentment.

I yearn for order and cleanliness.

I married clutter. I live in the dusty country.

I struggle to tiptoe the line between contentment and apathy.

If I’m quiet, things aren’t done.

If I’m proactive, I nag.

None of those is beneficial to me, my home, or my family.

We don’t have the money to afford me the luxury of hiring someone to do every job. Stud Muffin is more than able to do any home maintenance or improvement project you can imagine. He’s an awesome carpenter, drywaller, tape and texturer, plumber, and electrician.

So, for twenty-plus years now, we’ve been in an odd dance of planning a home project, almost starting it (purchasing supplies even), but it often doesn’t quite get started.

This week, I’m about to see one of those long-deferred hopes finally fulfilled. 

My office.

The lights are installed but not wired. The molding at the top of the bookcases isn’t in yet.

But I’m moving in and I’m thrilled!

Virginia Woolf said, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

I’m halfway there!

The Scripture above is really true. I’d given up hope of having a nice and orderly place to write in. But now, even in the moving-in process, I find myself energized to work and write and produce.

Care to share any of your deferred hopes with me?