I push against the idea that one must get out of one’s house to live life. And that life lived inside these four walls are just preparation for what happens without them. And it always feels like that somehow time wasted at my kitchen table is time wasted altogether.

But we know that sometimes that isn’t always the case.

Last Monday morning I dropped my kids off at school, went to Target with not a stitch of make up and proceeded to find someone I knew there. After I’d apologized for my appearance and we chatted, I made my purchases and went home.

Less than an hour later I got a call from the school: My oldest was sick. I put all that I was working on down and went to get her.

Since Monday I’ve been out of the house only once or twice on non-school related errands. Both girls have been sick all week: high fevers, chills, achy little bodies and coughs. We’ve canceled everything on our schedule and I’ve rearranged everything on mine.

Wednesday was the first day I got out of pajama pants.

In some ways it has been glorious. I’ve gotten a lot done at home: a lot {a LOT} of writing and I’ve cleaned out a few spots in my house. And in some ways it has been very limiting. I finally got out the supermarket yesterday for the first time since I left for Allume almost two weeks ago.

Circumstances that are sincerely out of my control happen on a daily basis. In fact, most of life it outside the realm of my effect. Very few things are things I can actually control.

But why do I live life so worried about what I can’t fixed, or irritated that things didn’t go my way? Last week taught me to roll with it and that often what happens inside my house is just as important as what happens outside it.

It’s like the tension between a fantasized event and the real one: life is never as golden as it is in your fantasies. As a child you dream of Christmas morning.  You play it all out in your head, the toys, the food, the hours of engagement your new treasure would bring. But instead of the part in The Christmas Story where Randy falls asleep with the Zeppelin, your day turns out more like when the Bumpus’ Dogs tear through the kitchen and gobble up the turkey.

I knew how my week would look but at the end it looked nothing like I had planned.

Just roll with it.

Yeah, so we have to stay home again and I have to cancel two meetings and a lunch date? Roll with it.

She can’t do her math homework because her head genuinely hurts when she sits up? Roll with it. Teach her that there is more than one way to do things.

We don’t have much other than PB & J for lunches all week and the berries and lettuce have all gone bad? Roll with it.

The fevers are too high to enjoy our Halloween plans? Roll with it, hand out candy and meet some of the neighbors.

My husband says he’ll be home at 5:30 {because this Mama needs some relief!} but strides in the door at 8:30? Roll with it and then bake a cake.

Maybe it seems like a simple thing to you, but I realized something last week. Most of what we do is compromise of some kind or another, yet we get so upset that we have to do so. We plan and we make lists and goals, but so much of life is governed by the rest of the world that our plans and goals often don’t pan out.

And sometimes when it doesn’t pan out, wonderful things happen.

Yes, I did bake a cake {baking is my love language}. I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with each of my daughters. My mother-in-law swooped in one day and helped me when I really needed it. I wrote 16,000 words on a new project. I let my introverted brain rest after 5 days at a conference.

So today, Monday, roll with it. It may not be what you’d planned but good things can come. I promise.

Is your day turning out like you’d hoped? 

Happy November!

As much as I loved writing everyday (almost) through the month, I’ll be happy to stop seeing your inboxes every single day. (To subscribe to me by email, click here. It won’t ever be as crazy as October 2012). The month of rest left me a bit tired.

Today, however, my post is up on {in}courage. I’m so happy to be a part of that community. I’m talking about being life-givers or life-takers. Some friends of ours came for dinner recently and this is what my friend Susie taught me. {And her 31 days was about wisdom. Check it out here.)

Giving Life to One Another

“They’re gonna be late!” Chad called from outside. We were still barbequing in October this year. I figured if it’s eighty degrees outside we’ll just treat everything like summer, including our dinner menu: Tri-tip, green beans and fresh bread.

I walked outside to hear more.

He looked at his phone and saw a message telling him our dinner guests had locked their keys in the house on their way out the door to see us. “I’ll just keep the meat warm when it’s done cooking,” he said. “I was running behind anyway.”

In the busy schedules of our families, our friends, who live more than an hour away, were making the trek out here on a school night with their four boys, including a baby, just to see us. This was the only night that worked in any of our schedules.

When they walked in the door a bit later, Susie and I hugged and we thanked them for driving so far to see us. The last time we’d met we had chosen a dinner spot in the middle, so this time it was a labor of love and time for one of our families.

“Oh we love to do it,” Susie said after I thanked her for driving so far. “You are some of our life-giving friends.”

I agreed that they were the same to us and together we put the finishing touches on an autumnal-summer meal. We gathered the children and ate outside as dusk overtook our yard…

Read the rest of the story | click here.

I’m going to guess that if you are anything like me, it has been awhile since you’ve just stopped.

Sat. Stayed. Closed your eyes and let yourself just be.

No phone, no kindle. No laptop. No magazine.

Just stopped.

You drive and run and rush to all the places and people who need you. You tick boxes off of to-do lists and you race around after toddlers who leave comet-trails of goldfish crackers in their wake. You build businesses and followings and you walk dogs and search for new things to fill your time with.

In the past weeks you haven’t taken the time off of laundry or dishes and organizing the kids drawers before school starts for the fall to even

Take a breath.

And then when you aren’t running you are sitting and moving your fingers along the electronic devices that are knit to your hands.

Nothing bad will happen if you just stop. I promise.

Nobody will die if you put it all down for an hour or a day and just let it all stop.

Yes, your kitchen may pile with the dirty leftovers of a morning and the toddler might dump her dress-up box out all over the stairs. The grocery list might go un-bought for another day and that blog post might still wait in the draft folder.

But you will remember what it is like to be quiet.

So today, turn the computer off. Place your phone upside down on the kitchen counter and leave it there. Tell your to-do list it will have to wait another day. And then begin the process of unbinding your mind to the information that hangs in it and your body from the need and desire it feels to keep moving.

Rest today. Sleep, even. But just be.

Maybe you’ll find that smile again {and some silence} if you stop.

Do you find it hard to stop? What makes you stop and rest?