Cherishing the Doing

Cherish the doing a little more, 

and the getting it done a little less! 

~ Anna Quindlen

I love this quote.

Too often, I'm trying so hard to get a bunch of stuff crossed off the to-do list, thinking that once those check-marks are there, I'll be able to do the fun stuff.

Really, though, the list just keeps growing... and that can be a suffocating feeling.

I joke about that with my kiddos, because the laundry is never really done -- unless we take a day to run around naked! Come to think of it, that does sound fun!

So there's one way to make the doing a little more fun... rather than waiting until the "done" to celebrate.

Okay, so nudity might be slightly inappropriate -- but ya gotta admit, there's nothin' like a dancin' two-year-old's flubby blubber! On the other hand, I don't really want anyone to see my flubby  blubber.

But I can still dance!

That might be one way to cherish the doing a little more -- making the doing a little more fun. Turn up the music!

Let myself eat a little chocolate during the doing, not just as a reward afterwards! (Maybe I'll burn the calories off before they have a chance to settle...)

Take time to teach the little ones how to do the doing... they want to know, really they do! And that counts as quality time, during the doing!

What else can I do to cherish the doing a little more???

Trick or Treat

I have to share about my adorable four-year-old...

To start tonight's Halloween festivities, we headed over to the church for Trunk-or-Treat. He enjoyed gathering goodies but we got pretty cold and headed home before it was over.

At home, we had people knocking on our door, and this is when things got really fun for Reed!

This precious boy got so excited as the ghouls and goblins called out "Trick-or-Treat" that he opened the door and let them have candy out of his own loot bag!

I showed him our stash of stuff to give away, but each time he heard a knock, he opted to give from his own until it dwindled away to nothing.

The joy on his face was the kind that only comes from selfless giving. His glow lit up the Halloween night! 

It may have only been matched by my glow as a proud mom watching this innate sense of happiness derived from making others happy!

You Won't Find Ada on Facebook

I want to give a public shout out to one of my son's friends, Ada.

She's a cute girl, eighth-grade, pretty smile. But you won't find that smile on facebook -- anymore, anyways.

I noticed her final post as I was scanning my son's wall. "I'm deleting my facebook account. Call me."

Seems like a monumental decision in a young teen's life...

So when she came by after school today, I decided to bring it up, in that cool and casual way I try to have while talking with my son's friends...

"Ada, I have to ask, how did you decide to leave the world of facebook?"

Luckily, as she was sucking on her otter pop, she felt comfortable enough to answer: "A few reasons... first, there's just too much drama on facebook. People can't tell when you're being sarcastic or whatever.

"Also, my dad was telling me about how facebook is changing its privacy policy at the end of this month, and I just don't wanna have all my photos and whatever available to the public.

"I used to sort of need facebook for my friends to be able to get hold of me, but now they all have phones and we can just text.

"So, this decision for less drama and more privacy, is basically about following my inner hippie." (She does, in fact, wear dreadlocks).

Wow!

I have to say: Yay for you, Ada! Yay for your "inner hippie" and the peace it is leading you towards! Makes me wanna go back to the post and click that ubiquitous "Like" button!

I'm not at the point where I feel the necessity to delete my facebook account. But her example has gotten me a step closer to being willing to take that seemingly drastic action.

Weird, isn't it, that, before the entity of facebook is even ten years old, leaving facebook would seem so crazy?!? It's really infiltrated our lifestyles. Weird, indeed. Luckily, Ada's not worried about being weird.

Yay for Ada!

Wise Words of Other Mothers

I'm hurrying and writing this blog post before I head off to my book club!

I. LOVE. MY. BOOK. CLUB.

Well, more accurately, I love the women who attend the club.

I do, in fact, love to read books and discuss them -- it's a great challenge for my brain to

1) manage my time effectively to the point where I can fit in reading a book a month
2) pay close enough attention to what I am reading to get something out of it that's worthy to share

However, when it comes right down to it, I would get together with these women even if it were a knitting club.

Admittedly, knitting would also be a challenge for my brain.

My overall point of this post, though, is how grateful I am for these women. They are busy moms, too. Most of them homeschool their children. Yet they take time out to bless my life by sharing their thoughts, their wisdom, their talents.

Ya see, it's a multi-faceted book club, in that we spend the first hour or so doing things other than discussing the book. We sing together! We eat -- it's ALWAYS a potluck. We share each others good news -- as well as our burdens. And THEN we discuss the book -- solid discussions, with lots of insights and applications to our lives.

It's like an intellectual challenge wrapped up in a hug!

I cherish my time with these women, wise women, whose wise words come home with me and help me in my attempts to become wise.

I'll take time to type it again, even though I must jump up and run out the door:

I. LOVE. MY. BOOK. CLUB!!!

Too busy singing

My awesome husband is awesome for lots of reasons... Besides being intelligent, handsome, kind, and hard-working, he's musical!

Now, he'll be the first to tell you that he won't be making CD's of his musical talents to sell to his fans... but that's part of what makes his musical talents so endearing! They may not be professional-level offerings, but he offers them anyway -- and blesses the world, or his little corner of it, in ways that only he can.

I think there's a lesson in that for those of us who worry that we have to shine like the top of the Chrysler-building before we can share our light... but, alas, that is not the lesson I was going to give for this post, so let me stop digressing and get back to the original purpose!

Recently, my music-man was asked to play the piano at church for when the men meet together. He agreed, under the condition that he would get to practice far in advance! So the person making the arrangements convinced another fellow to play every other week, giving my husband, Ted, two weeks to practice the assigned hymn.

As a family, we are encouraging his success by singing the hymn during our daily devotionals so he can squeeze his practicing in.

At one point during today's practice, Ted stopped playing between verses so he could apologize for the mistakes he had made. A couple of the kids responded that they hadn't noticed the missed notes, because they were too busy singing.

So there's the lesson I intended to get across originally!! If we are each too busy singing our own parts, we won't have the wherewithal to pay undue attention to the mistakes of our accompanists.

Now, it is an important part of the metaphor to note that our accompanists are supposed to lead us: our leaders aren't always perfect and need us to just keep singing even when they've messed up!!!

I sure appreciate my husband's willingness to lead our family -- in many ways beyond just our daily hymns -- even though he knows he's not perfect. And I pledge to keep singing and not take time to notice his mistakes, and trust that he's not too worried about when I get off-tune!

In spite of these errors, and maybe because of how we deal with them, we'll be making beautiful music together!

CLAP at Chitty-chitty BANG BANG

So, I've had rhyming mantras on the brain since Amy's comment requested more... and today I had the thrill of joining my family to see Chitty-chitty Bang-Bang at a LIVE THEATER -- how crazy is that?!

Our neighborhood theater is really quite high class, and generally they enforce an age limit. Today's performace was a special matinee when little ones could attend. I told my three-year-old that we were going to attend a play and could see the confusion in his eyes as I used this verb as a noun. I tried to explain: "It's like a movie, only in real-life!"

What fun to get to see his reactions to the costumes and the dancing and the fog and the incredible props -- including a flying car! Tickets weren't cheap, but I think it was worth every penny... We asked my husband's parents for help with the cost as his gift for Christmas -- thank you, wonderful in-laws! It was magical! (Oh, and the 3 y.o. is generally afraid of bad guys, but we met the Child Catcher afterwards, and my son reported to his grandmother that he was nice to us!)


Since I knew we would be coming home to do chores, ummm, I mean, BIG Bless Our House (what we call the Saturday, more-thorough version of housecleaning) I was excited to hear some good inspirational words...

Teamwork can make a dream work, if we all pitch in and try.
Teamwork can make a dream work, and no mountain is too high!

I must say... I LOVE the concept of a FAMILY TEAM!!!  Maybe it's the cheerleader in me that never really got to come out... although, I was a matmaid for the high school wrestling team (and we took state!) Anyways, teams are a great analogy, because every member of a team has a different role, but every member has the same goal!

© Paha_l | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Another couple of phrases that I like for those times when we're rolling up our sleeves and working:

"We're workers, not whiners!" (alliteration is almost as good as rhymes, right?)

"Things don't have wings, they can't fly back to shelves all by themselves" (lyrics from Wee Whispers)

How about you, friendly readers?! What kinds of clever rhymes or alliteration or otherwise have you found to be useful in the quest to motivate and inspire your family team?

There is no I in SMELL

Today I will share a birth story.

Are you thinking: "Man, this Clueless Mama sure is GRAPHIC -- she writes about poop, vomit, and now blood and private body parts!"

Allow me to calm your fears by specifying that I will share the story of the birth of...

 the S.M.I.L.E. acronym

                                        ... and luckily, there was no blood or birth-related-body areas involved.

Back in 2005, when I was organizing a mothering convention, I decided I needed to be able to articulate the purposes of the convention, so that when I asked speakers to come, I could give them a clear vision of how/why/what, etc. The four words that I boiled it down to were Support, Motivation, Education, and Laughter.

Being an unabashed acronym lover, I could "SMELL" the start of an acronym, but it was obviously incomplete -- and a little bit embarrassing. Yes, I confess, as a mother, I do smell. I smell dirty diapers, I smell dinner burning... and I sometimes smell LIKE dirty diapers... but that just was not going to promote the convention in the right way...

So I moved some letters around and realized that if I could just add an I-word, then labor would be over and the acronym would be born! Puuuuuuuushhhhhhhh...

INSPIRATION!

Originally, I thought that "motivation" and "inspiration" were redundant, but a Clifford CD-ROM taught me there is a difference. (Yes, I strive to learn new things in any situation, even while helping my three-year-old play on the computer with his favorite Big Red Dog).

Motivation is about forces (innies or outies) that get us to ACT, to DO something that needs to be DONE.

Inspiration is about wanting to improve and enjoy what we already are doing.

I can be motivated to do the laundry because it's neither comfortable nor socially acceptable to be naked (oh, no, another questionable graphic)... but I can be inspired to do the laundry because I love the smell of my fabric softener or because seeing my children in stain-free clothing is a feeling of triumph!

© Fotokolosov | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Do you see the difference? Being inspired puts a touch of glory into your duty. (Don't tell my daughters that I just used the word "duty" -- the Wreck-It Ralph movie has forever made that a potty word... and my apologies to those of you who have not yet been affected!)

Reader friend, can I ask you about cooking? What motivates you to get it done, and what inspires you to do it well?