The other day I was talking about how I can’t seem to live up to the standards of the seemingly “perfect” mom bloggers out there. Now I know that we are just getting a tiny glimpse into their lives and that they have their own struggles too but you’ve got to admit that some moms just have it more together than others. I’m one of the “others.” I’m resigned to the fact that I’m never going to be a Catholic “Martha Stewart type” but I’ve got my good points and they’d be able to come out more often if I was a tad more organized.
Case in point, when you enter into our home you immediately see the entry way, the front room (where my desk and “office area” is) and the dining room. The area is surrounded with windows that look out to a beautiful view. However, we never use the dining room and the table has become the catch all for piles of junk and things that need to get sorted and put away. Since the table is such a mess I tend to keep the curtains shut and just add to the piles. The other day I finally cleared everything off the table and opened wide all the curtains. There was so much light and beauty outside that it literally lifted my spirits and I was a more lovable mom to my kids! (Stop laughing.)
Although I’m a mess cat, I do hate all the clutter and feel so much better when things are tidy and organized. But to get me to do it and keep it up, well, that’s another story. My youngest sister has been visiting and she kept the kids occupied so I got a good head start in cleaning and organizing the house. However, she flew back to So Cal on Tuesday (huge sniff) and I’m back on my own. So I decided that each day I’ll pick one small thing that I can work on that day. Something I can realistically accomplish in between the dishes and diapers and dirty laundry.
My first general task is to make sure that when I wake up in the early morn to feed the baby (or pump), I’ll use that time to say my morning prayers and read the gospel for the day. Since I always have my iphone with me and it has my prayer book and missal on it (I love the imissal app!) there is no excuse. That quiet time praying and just talking to God always helps me to get through the day better.
My “just for today” task is to keep an eye on that dining room table and when I see things starting to pile up on it I’ll have the kids take what belongs to them. (“Bella, put away your drawings. Andrew, take Buzz and Lighting back to your room. JP, throw away this half eaten apple…) While they are doing that, I’ll put the junk mail in the recycling bin, put the empty gifts bags back in the wrapping box, put the Costco items away in the garage pantry and open those windows and let the light shine in!
Who knows, maybe in a year from now some other struggling mother will look at me and say, “How does Bobbi do it all and still seem so sane??” Hahahaha! Okay, I couldn’t even say that with a straight face but one step at a time, baby. One step at a time.
Blog Archives
Just For Today
What I Needed to Hear
Two posts came up on my google reader and both were were really worth the read. They echoed what I’ve been thinking about all day yesterday.
The first was a post at Creative Minority Report called The Beauty of Human Weakness by Chelsea Zimmerman from Reflections of a Paralytic. My favorite lines are the following:
“…the awareness of the limits of our human nature is meant to lead us to put all our trust in God who wants us to rely on Him for absolutely everything. When we place our trust in God alone His divine power will shine forth in us, sustaining us in our weakness (St. Josemaria, Friends of God, 194). In other words, God uses our weakness to reveal His glory. This is the example Christ left for us that we have been instructed to follow (1 Peter 2:21).”
The second post to resonate with me was These Hands from Tumbling Towards Grace. My favorite lines:
“
Please don’t fight me. I know you. I love you. I made you to love me. Please let me love you.
What kind of a God do we have, who pleads with us simply to let ourselves be loved? In a world where our value as people is increasingly determined by what we do, make, create, consume; how radical to hear the message that all that matters is to love and be loved? We have a God who makes Himself available to us every moment of every day, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist!
And what do I do? I get stressed out by the baby crying, or the messy house, and try to find salvation in a chocolate bar. Or a bottle of wine. Or reality tv. Or whatever the crutch du-jour is. Twisting and squirming in the hands which hold everything, and hold it together.
And right there, is Jesus, patiently waiting for me to call on him, quietly reminding me like the most tender of parents, “please don’t fight these hands that are holding you.”
It was just what I needed to hear. God reinforcing what he was speaking to my heart. He’s amazing that way. Blessed be God. š
{pretty, happy, funny, real} – vol 4
~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
{pretty}
This is the view from our deck (with the rooftops cropped out.) One of the things I love about Carmel is that you have the beauty of the mountains/hills, the pine forests and the ocean all in one place. When I first came here to visit Brian I was awestruck!
{happy}
I was trying to get a photo of Bella but Andrew ran into the picture at the last minute. It’s funny that they are 5 1/2 years apart but still love to play with each other. I’m enjoying it while it lasts!
{funny}
Sometimes the house can get pretty loud with Andrew and John-Paul running around chasing each other. Add Bella to the mix and it can be a bit much. On this noisy day poor Matthew just wanted to take a nap. I’d caption this “Oh, how much longer must I suffer?”
{real}
I went into the kitchen and found that the cookie thief had struck again. So I went in search of him and found him hiding in the front room. He couldn’t deny the crime since he still had the evidence in his hands!
Those Perfect Catholic Moms Are Killing Me
It’s just past midnight right now and I should be asleep but I’ve been cleaning all day (thanks to my sis watching the kids for me) and I wanted a few minutes to unwind and catch up on some Catholic mom blogs.
I recently added a number of new blogs into my google reader and I’m sifting through them to see which ones I’ll read regularly and which ones are good but not where I am in life.
The first ones to go are the blogs that depress me. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that have countless posts by talented moms showing their beautiful gardens, their homemade baked goods and home cooked meals, their hand sewn clothes, and their Catholic craft of the day. I can take these in small doses but not all the time. Like I said, it depresses me.
And it’s not their fault. It’s mine. I just can’t seem to follow their lead. I’ve tried to garden. Truly, I have. In fact, just a few months ago I decided to start again but to keep it simple. No veggies or elaborate flower beds. Instead I have two simple window boxes of flowers and three herbs – basil, Italian parsley and cilantro. I was doing really well but as usual I forgot to water and not just once or twice but for days. Yesterday I went outside to check on my herbs and lo and behold, I’m the only person on my block to have a garden of dried herbs. (Dried… dead… is there really much difference?) Yeah, so gardens and I don’t do so well.
Then we come to the sewing. I swear my sister EL took all the sewing genes in my family because I have zero interest and even less skill. Okay, maybe I could sew on a button if I was forced, but just barely. To prove my point, when I was younger I’d hem my pants with duct tape and I’ve “sewn” things together with a stapler. Yeah, not one of my prouder moments. I get a lot more happiness when I don’t sew and instead find a cute outfit on sale at Target or Macy’s.
As for baking, home cooked meals and crafts, on occasion I’ll put together something good or at least fairly decent but I don’t do it all the time. My bigger concerns on a daily basis is that the dishes are cleared before Brian gets home, that everyone has clean undies, that the boys haven’t demolished the house and that I’ve cleaned the pee, poop or spit up from where it happened to land that day. I can barely accomplish that let alone create a replica of the Vatican made entirely out of cupcakes. Sigh. Well, if it means I have our local pizza place on speed dial, so be it.
So instead of being envious of those other moms I’m simply going to avoid temptation and not read their blogs regularly. Instead I’ll enjoy kindred posts like Calah’s In the Dumps or Nikki’s To Call or Not to Call and I’ll realize that I’m not alone in my struggle. There are other moms who are trying to get through these adventurous years just as I am.
Oh, I admit that I will try to improve a little each day. But for today, I’ll love my family and serve God in the way I know best – with my dried herbs, duct tape and delivery pizza.
UPDATE: It’s been a month since I wrote this post and it has been on my mind a lot because God has been using those thoughts to teach me some mom lessons. I talk more about it in my post here.
UPDATE #2: Fast forward two months ahead. I decided that heck, if you can’t beat them, join them. I’m attempting to get myself organized so my life will run a little smoother and I won’t be so frazzled with the daily grind of motherhood. You can follow the journey here.
PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest,Ā GoodReads, Letterboxd, or Spotify, š
7 Quick Takes – 6/24/11
Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary. (Congrats to Jen on the birth of her daughter!! Read about it here.)
– 1 –
My youngest sister J.D. is visiting us for almost two weeks. We hired her to help me with the kids while I got my spring cleaning and some other projects done. It has been so nice having her around! Not just because the kids adore her and she’s so good with them but i love spending time with her. I miss my sisters!
– 2 –
Speaking of missing sisters, My sis EL mentioned in her Quick Takes that she plans to travel from VA to CA to visit the family. Unfortunately that weekend we have another obligation at Andrew’s school so we can’t make the 400 mile trip to So Calif while they are here. I’m so bummed! Although in the back of my mind I’m trying to figure out if I could still make it happen…if I could get out of the obligation, have Bella and Andrew play hooky, get Brian to take a couple days off work and drive…hmmm, I don’t know. We’ll see what I can figure out.
– 3 –
This week I have been working on cleaning, organizing and purging all the unused items out of our house. During one of my breaks I was browsing Colleen’s Green Grass Blog blog. Her post about a messy house was just what I needed to hear. She also mentioned a book that I was thinking of getting – Smart Martha’s Catholic Guide for Busy Moms by Tami Kiser. I have to make an Amazon order tonight so I think I’ll get a copy and check it out. I’ll let you know what I think.
– 4 –
In our kitchen there are always big bowls of fresh fruit ready to be eaten. Unfortunately we had way too many bananas and they were getting pretty ripe. (I mean like “I’m starting to see gnats” ripe) so I made a batch of chocolate chip banana oatmeal cookies for the kids. (Yes, the kids. And no, that is not chocolate you see on my face.) I still had more bananas to finish so my sister tried a recipe we just saw on Mexican Made Easy for Mexican chocolate banana muffins. The recipe was super easy and instead of using chocolate chips you used crushed Mexican chocolate. They were so good and would taste great with a cup of Mexican chocolate. (if you haven’t had Mex choc, it’s like regular hot chocolate but with a cinnamony flavor.)
– 5 –
It’s probably a little futile talking about hot chocolate when people are sweating in the heat of summer. I forget about that since Carmel has reverted to it’s foggy, cold summer days. My poor sister (who lives in the high dessert) is used to the heat and she’s shivering at our house. We crack up that we are in shorts and she’s in a long sleeve tee and vest jacket. š
– 6 –
On Wednesday it was gorgeous and sunny outside at 10 AM so we decided to hit the beach. An hour later we had our picnic lunch packed and the kids were standing by the door in their shorts and sunglasses. Before leaving I looked out the kitchen window and saw the dreaded fog rolling in over the ocean. Oh no! We ran out the door, jumped in the van and I felt like John Cusack on that mediocre 2012 movie trying to race against impending doom. Well you can’t beat Mother Nature and by the time we set up camp there wasn’t a spot of blue sky, just thick gray. Oh well, we still had fun and truth be told, I’d prefer the fog over blistering heat.
– 7 –
Lastly, Brian and I got a special treat since he won a complimentary lunch at Pebble Beach. The last time we were there John Paul was a baby and we took him with us. This time Matthew is the baby but Jacinta offered to watch all four kids so we could eat alone. (I love that girl!) So we enjoyed our lunch child free – although we were happy when we received texta with pics of the kids having fun with their aunt. We could eat without worry. Here’s a pic I took of us that day. Brian doesn’t like it because he’s squinting but I still think he looks great.
That’s it for today. Have a wonderful weekend!!