Fifteen Minutes

It is our daily assignment to write "reflectively" for fifteen minutes each day this week.  I am probably more suited to write "defensively" at this point in the day, but that's what I get for putting it off, all-together forgetting and then remembering I am still responsible for this at 10 p.m. after a monstrously long day.

I have a big long list of the things that I need to do beside me. And I am feeling the effects of today's big long list: take the kids to three schools, gym, shower, dress, pack Etsy boxes, make a lunch, gather goods to re-stock the flea market, shop at the thrift store for more dishes, check in the flea market booth, work at Heartwood Gallery where I re-do the front table display , make arrangments for two new artists to come in and two artists to leave, set up a new advertisement, re-arrange my own display, re-up three listings on Etsy, answer some questions, make a sale, chat with customers, visit with a co-worker who is grieving the loss of a friend and a family member. Then it's out the door and back to the flea market in Bikes, Blues and BBQ traffic (50,000 motorcycles, people!) and take another call. Stop back at the flea market and add new merch with the tags I made while working at Heartwood. Escape for 20 minutes in another thrift store where I get a texts from the kids. Unload the car, greet the wonderful husband who made a vat of applesauce for me today and then make the plan for the evening: take the two older kids and run: first to the bank, then through the McDonald's drive-through where I order an unsweet tea and instead get that syrup they call Sweet Tea, which is truly undrinkable. It's only our second time at McDonald's in over a year and the Big Mac is tasty but ultimately makes me feel awful. Then to see our Favorite chiropractor who treats the three of us with acumen even when one kid is telling us we have to be there right NOW.  At the field, we see nobody familiar and I ask the cop who is directing traffic which teams are playing and they are NOT our team. So we try again at the OTHER field and find our spot where we watch the 8th grade team that includes my daughters "boyfriend" who scores a touch-down. A boy from the other team is injured and taken away on a back-board in an ambulance. I meet the boyfriend's mom and sister when I hear them cheering behind me.  We stay for the second game where Mattie is playing in the band and it starts to rain. And then we come home.

It's not really "reflective writing" to just write down what you did all day. But maybe it is. Not all my days are like this, but sometimes, they really are. I watched a Thomas Jefferson biography last week and he kept a journal and most of the time he wrote down what was growing in the garden and what they ate that day.  You have to pay attention to life somehow or another.

One thing I have learned from keeping this blog (more faithfully in the past, obviously) is that when you come back later and read it, things have changed. Often for the good. Something good comes from paying attention to how you are spending your life. Sometimes you are all up in the middle of it and you don't even really know how you are spending your time, but writing it down makes it a lot more obvious. And then you are better able to make decisions about what you need to change.

Today, I confess "I have sinned. In my words and in my deeds,
in what I have done and what I have left undone."

But I have also done some of God's very will.  And that continues to amaze me....that God would let himself be known by people whose days and lives are so cluttered, they don't even have time to pee or fuel their bodies with healthy food.  And yet, in-spite of us, He does shine through. In me. And in you.