This weekend I learned that my kids don’t need a bath every night and that the best place to read a book is cozied up high near the rafters in a bunk bed.

I learned that sunglasses look better on three-year-olds than they do on 35-year-olds and that the bench near a post office is more fun to climb on than a jungle gym.

I remembered the sounds I like the best: listening to my husband write music, my kids chatter as they forge life long friendships over tricycles and puzzles, and sharing laughter over coffee.  The best way to pass a Saturday morning is at the breakfast table of an old friend.

This weekend I learned that songs heal hearts and little hands can make a good song better.

This weekend I found they best way to see my future is too look at my past and that the older I get, the more I sound like my mother.  I learned that people are the same everywhere I go, but the ones that I’ve known the longest have a box seat in my soul.

I learned that my words spoken in His name will go far.  I hope.  I pray.

**photos by Lisa Leonard

I hope you’ll forgive me today.

My mind has been a million places (hovering closely around my blog is one of them) but today my mind is somewhere else.

So I hope you can forgive me.

I’ve been working HARD hard hard on this book.  If you didn’t know I’m working to write my story, our story and I guess ultimately God’s story, into a book.  It’s taking a lot of hard work and creative scheduling.  Proposals, editing, re-editing, scratching out whole 500 word blocks and then re-writing….

You get it.

So by the end of the week certainly, and by the end of the day sometimes, my “word allotment” for the day has all been used up.

I’m not going anywhere, but I hope you’ll forgive me today for simply letting you into a corner of my life.  No big life lessons. No big “Ah Ha!” moments today.  Just me talking to you like we were hanging out at the park.

I’m mothering will all of my strength and then with what is left over, I’m writing hard.  I’m letting my workouts go (unless one of my amazing friends, Vanessa or Stacia, calls me and promises to meet me at the gym or on the hill for a jog).  I’m wading through piles of clean laundry to find my bed.  [Sigh] And then when I finally fall down to sleep, I’m dreaming of Starbucks or blinking cursors.

Today we’re traveling north a few hours to spend the weekend with our friends, Steve and Lisa Leonard.  Chad and I will be sharing our story with their college ministry at their church in San Luis Obispo where Steve is the college ministries pastor. If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by.  Click here for information.

And if you’re not, please pray for us.  It will be the first time we’ve shared together as a couple.

So today, I’ll be enjoying a workout with Vanessa in the morning, packing the car for our trip and chasing after my three-year-old.

I’ll see you on Monday when I’m sure I’ll have pictures and stories to share from our weekend.

What are you doing this weekend?

I impatiently asked my three-year-old to

BE PATIENT

a few days ago.  I don’t need to explain the situation.  It had something to do with velcro tennis shoes and getting out the door to preschool and with both her and her sister asking for multiple things at the same time.  Well:

BE PATIENT!

Because I am only one woman and I can only do five things at a time, not ten.

And I’m sure I said it a bit too harshly because they both reeled back as if the words themselves had smacked them in the face.  I guess words have physical power of their own.

Later that day as I sat in a doctor’s office waiting for a doctor that was on the phone to another patient with only my phone and a 13 month old People magazine to keep me company (anyone want to know what Catherine Zeta Jones was wearing last year?), I remembered what I had snarled out to my daughters earlier that morning.  Be patient.

Right.

I’m aware of my frailties as a mother, as a woman, as a Christ-follower. I’m aware that I’m often grumpy, impatient, cluttered and undisciplined.

So it’s not just patience.

It’s eating right and exercising. It’s keeping a calm and tidy bedroom.  It’s living in moderation and taking care of my husband.

It’s all of it.

How can I fairly expect from my daughters what I’m not modeling to them.   How can I ask them to clean their rooms if mine is full of unfolded laundry and piles of books?

So today I’m endeavoring to be patient at the very least and at the most, take my own advice.

What are you expecting from others that you don’t do yourself?

I didn’t grow up a storyteller.

I didn’t need to because I really didn’t learn how to lie well until I was about 25. Before then (like most kids needed to) I didn’t need to craft wild stories to hide my disagreeable choices because for the most part, I was a rule follower.

Any stories I told were ones that were real and I wasn’t even good at exaggerating so, you can imagine, most of them fell flat.

You know what happened last night?

Suddenly all eyes in the group are on me.

Well (nervously) when she was driving me home this song came on the radio…

I’d try to make it interesting.

I’d try to get people to listen to me past the first sentence.

But so much of the time I was either boring, didn’t know how to explain myself the right way, or got interrupted by someone else in the group who had something more fun to talk about.

Sigh.

I’d like to believe since high school I’ve gained a little ground in the storytelling arena.

I’m a mother so by trade I’m forced to create elaborate stories out of unicorns, daisies and butterflies in fields of freshly fallen snow, or meadows, or a castle terrace. And now I’m a writer so I’m working on crafting words together to make up interesting stories that people want to read.

I’m pretty sure I’m getting better.

But only because of necessity and practice.

There have been some periods in the little lives of my daughters when they have wanted a DIFFERENT story EVERY night for months. I’m forced to be creative.  And with writing I set out 2 1/2 years ago to begin a blog (and then somewhere along the line decided to write a book).  Blogging has given me daily practice in attempting to produce something that resonates with others.

Back in high school, after embarrassing myself enough times in groups, I just stopped telling stories.  I laughed at other people’s stories but I faded into the laughter of everyone else. I didn’t know that I just needed a little more practice.

Writing this book has put a lot of things into stark perspective: I’ve been practicing but I’m far from where I need to be.

So I’m going to keep practicing on all of you, if you don’t mind.

I promise I’ll try to be more interesting than what I heard on the radio last night.

What do you need to get better at?  Are you a storyteller?

I don’t read the Bible every day.

[insert shock and awe here]

But I don’t say that often, at least not on a public level, because it’s hard.  I know what’s expected of me from other Christians. I know what’s expected of me by my friends.  And I’m pretty sure I know what God expects from me.

And quite honestly, I’m embarrassed. It kinda makes me cringe.

But I imagine I’m not alone.  I know I’m not alone.

But this isn’t a post about if I think I need to read my Bible every day to be a Christian.  We can talk about that another day.  But this is my confession: what I hate about my own faith.  I think everyone has something about their faith that they wish was different, that they wish would change overnight.

I just don’t get a chance to read it every day and I’m confessing it to you all here.

So before you go racing over to the comments to tell me about the Read the Bible in a Year books, hold on.  I read the Bible and I love the Bible. I just don’t read it every morning at 5:45 with 4 colored highlighters and a OT/NT schedule taped to the inside flap.  I have a living, breathing relationship with God, but it may not look exactly like the next person’s.

Nonetheless, I still hate it that I don’t read it everyday.  I hate that I know I should do it because my whole day is different when I do. And I know that it glorifies God.

It makes me cringe.

Confess here today: What makes you cringe about your faith?  About your life? Be anonymous if you want.

Fever.

A mother just knows. My husband will call for me from upstairs:

Honey, I think she has a fever.  Can you bring the thermometer?

But I don’t need to.  Plus I can’t find it (but I don’t tell him that).

I’ve held her in my arms enough when she is healthy and kissed her above her eyebrows thousands of times so that I can tell when she is too hot.  To my hand her head feels warmer than normal and a quick brush of my cheek against hers confirms it.

She has a fever.  I don’t need the mercury or digital reading to tell me that something is wrong with my daughter. A fever tells me that her body is fighting off some kind of infection and she needs to rest.

Fever equals sick, simply.

In the same way, I can tell when my relationship with my husband is struggling, when it is sick and broken, or when there have been unresolved arguments and unanswered questions. I can tell because of the fever.  I just know.  I’ve spent enough time with him when things are good to know when they are not.

A quiet meal.

A swift answer.

A hurtful word hours later.

They all show me that something just isn’t right. I don’t need a book or a counselor to tell me something is wrong.  It’s obvious.

If we ignore it, like we’ve done in the past, then it just gets worse.  The infection becomes a sort of relationship pneumonia and then it’s too hard to fight on our own.  Only a doctor can help now.

But if we recognize the symptoms and work hard to find the root then things can be changed. Ignoring the fever and going about daily living like we’re not sick is the worst thing we can do.

So we stop and rest. Or we drop the kids off with my parents and spend a night away from the call of dishes, laundry and computers.  Or we simply sit across the table from each other and work it out.

What’s different about us now than before is that we feel the fever, we acknowledge that we are struggling, and we face it.

Even if it’s hard.

What are the fever symptoms in your marriage or relationship?  What do you do to heal it?

One morning we set out in search of Fall but instead found something much grander.

In the woods, we crunch through  leaves and scare a flock of crows that have made their new home near the brook.  Less people are walking now so they aren’t ready for us to crash through the dryness toward them.

Up and down the stairs.  Over the bridge. Through the tunnel of branches.

Tears because we’ve left a much-loved dolly back on a bench.

Collected acorns in a small hand.  Some left on a tree that hint of animals who might need them.

Sunlight and shadows. A too-big sweater borrowed from her sister because that was all we had.

Shedding burdens for a few minutes and I’m aware that all of this is a gift.  That I don’t deserve the least of it: the tiny hand in mine, the deep breath of a cool morning, the surrounding of family and watching the world through eyes that aren’t mine.

We looked for Fall and together found glimpses of other things:  each other, peace away from the norm, and joy in this small moment.

Where have you found joy in the “tiny” lately?

Saturday afternoons growing up we’d pack our roller skates and kites into the back of my dad’s truck and pray for the wind to blow over our tightly packed suburban landscape.

With no fields to fly kites or safe roads to skate on he’d drive us to the local public elementary school to get out and play.   During the week my sister and I were sequestered at our (much more spacious) small Christian school several miles away.  So a weekend excursion to the nearby school was a treat for us.

We never came there as students, just as visitors to an empty school on weekends.  The asphalt covered schoolyard was a foreign land to us.

We’d climb the jungle gym that had held hundreds of kids yesterday, but now stood vacant just for us.

Hanging upside down.  Jumping into the sand.

Roller skates on now, in true 80s fashion: me in braids and bangs and my little sister with her hair free.

I’ll race you! [knowing I'd beat her]

Wait for me…

And we were gone. My parents stood back near the gate and talked to each other without little ears close by.  We’d rush to the far end of the concrete yard, over the cracks that had been molded by time and California heat.  We’d skate around the hopscotch numbers and then try to jump the boxes with heavy feet.

If it was windy, we’d sit with our skates splayed out spinning in front of us and unravel the string of our kites.  My dad would stand as anchor and we’d skate in the other direction letting the string out.  On a good day, the kite would catch the air.  And on a bad day, even the worst of afternoons, we’d have at least gotten our energy out and played out the day in a new place.

The school yard was just an asphalt square with a few trees in the corner and a lonely jungle gym in an oval of dirty sand.  But it was enough of a departure from our normal November week at school that it would send us laughing and rushing to the far end of the yard.

With the change of scenery came a change of heart.

I’ve been depleted lately and my mind feels muddy.  I’m giving out and writing (out) and nothing seems to be coming back in.  Like when the tide rushes out and exposes the crabs and shells on the shore.  But a tide always returns.  I wish my tide would return.

I think I might just need a change of landscape.  Writing on my bedroom floor next to my bed with Strawberry Shortcake playing in the background just isn’t cutting it anymore.  So tonight, I’m going to do things differently.

I’m going to see if my energy and my inspiration might just change by simply changing my surroundings. So I’ll retreat to the room in my house that calms me rather than drains me and see what happens.

You: take a walk today and change your route.  Or pack your kids and some lunches into the minivan and drive to the beach and play in the sand.  Bring out the umbrellas for a puddle walk.  Go to a museum on your lunch break.  Stop by the Farmers Market on your way home and let your kids pick out the vegetables for dinner.

Change your scenery.

If you can’t change your physical scenery, change the scenery of your life.  Turn off the TV and put away your phone.  Cook something new for dinner tonight or buy a used cookbook online.  Pull an old book off the shelf to reread or call an old friend you haven’t talked to in two years because you are “just too busy.”  Read a new book to your son or let your daughter wear your high heels around the upstairs.  Watch a documentary after the kids go to bed.  Learn about something, but whatever you do, do something different today.

And then pay attention to what happens when you change things.

You might just find that you have the energy to lace up your roller skates and race your little sister to the edge of the playground.

What will you do different today?

I’m famous for browsing without purchasing: picking up items from a store, walking around with them for the duration of my arc around the displays and then replacing each item one by one before I leave. I put down the spatula I don’t need, the pan I can’t afford and the candle that is on clearance but not the right color.

I talk myself out of it.

Maybe it’s a good thing when it comes to buying (or not buying) things from Williams Sonoma.

But sometimes I talk myself out of doing things I need to. Because right now I’m sitting in Starbucks and just hit “send” on an email that I didn’t want to send.

I needed to address something that had happened that had hurt me. And I didn’t really make a big deal.  I just sent a simple email that explained my hurt (not anger), and my confusion (not bitterness).  If the person had been in my circle of immediate reach I would have asked them to have coffee.

But, being impossible to talk in person, I sent an email (one step above a text and two steps below a phone call).  I hate the emotional distance that the written word (vs. the spoken word) can carry.  My currency is the written word so I did the best I could.

I wrote from where I was.

Hurt, but not angry.

Confused but not bitter.

I even sent it to my husband for him to edit.  And then I looked it over once again. I clicked send quickly before I could talk myself out of it.

But I did it.

It wasn’t about getting an apology or an explanation, or even about me feeling resolved.  It was something that needed to be done and I was avoiding it.  I jumped into it, I didn’t talk myself out of it and I did the hard thing.  Because it would have been easy to let this roll into Internet oblivion and never address it.

[note that I often do NOT do the hard thing: I avoid doing the dishes and cleaning the playroom on a regular basis]

The side effects?  I do feel a lot better.  I got a very nice and apologetic email from the person. And I conquered a few mini fears: the someone-getting-mad-at-me fear and the what-will-this-person-think fear.

It was one little step on the road to began a habit of forcing myself to do a hard thing.

Maybe I should stop off on the way home and buy a spatula.

What are you talking yourself out of doing that you KNOW you need to do?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken a spin class.

Now raise it if you’ll ever do it again.

I’ve been taking indoor cycling classes on and off for about 9 years. Off for my pregnancies (and that one time I pretty much got banned from one) and then on again in between.  The first time I endured an hour in a dark, close spin room I wondered one thing:

How did they get their feet to go so FAST?

I mean, they don’t go that fast all the time, but when the instructor calls for a sprint, we all pump our legs as fast as we possibly can but I could never keep up.

After my first few cycle classes (and trying so hard to mimic the form and speed of all the seasoned cyclers) I still didn’t get it.  Now I was armed with dual water bottles, new cycling shoes that clipped into the pedals and some questions:  the girl I asked told me to focus on the PULL not the PUSH.

Oh.

I’d been focusing on the pushing down of the pedal during the sprints.  Doing that, I would never go as fast as anyone else.  If I focused on the up motion and pulled the pedal rather than pushed it, immediately I could spin my feet as fast as the rest of them.

It had nothing to do with physical prowess or fitness, but it had to do with how I completed the action.  What I spent my focus on.  The funny thing is, to the outside observer, the motion looks exactly the same.  Totally different muscle groups are used but it looks the same.

Hmm.

So now I spin fast during sprints and share my tiny bits of indoor cycling knowledge with others if they ask.

Who was it who said that the definition of stupidity or insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results? That’s what I’d been doing those first few classes.

I sat in a cycle class yesterday morning and I wondered what else I was pushing in my life.

The styles of disciplining my children I’ve settled into: is that a push?  Are there better ways to accomplish the same (or better) things?  What about the communication with my husband? We seem to fall into the same three arguments over and over again.  Should I be looking at us with fresher eyes? And to be really really honest here (because you all pretty much know all of my stuff) I’ve been trying to lose the same ten fifteen pounds for about 2 years.  And I know it’s because I am too lazy to give up certain foods I love.  I am doing the same thing over and over again and wondering why I’m not losing the weight.

I need a new perspective. I need to get up, grab my new cycle shoes and take charge of those situations in my life that seem to present the same (unhappy) results over and over again.

I need to learn to PULL.

What about you?  Have you been PUSHING when you should be PULLING?