We are not busy

A couple of months ago, I answered the query, "How have you been?" with the standard, "Busy!" Then, after a moment's reflection, I recanted, and confessed that actually, no, we aren't busy at all, and I didn't know why I had answered that way. I guess that I equate "busy" with "productive" or maybe "purposeful" or perhaps even "popular" and possibly even "virtuous." I know that this is faulty thinking, and that more apt synonyms are probably frazzled, exhausted, and distracted.

So, we are not busy. We have one day a week (Wednesdays) where we have to be somewhere in the morning at a particular time (we get together to play with two other homeschooling families)and somewhere in the afternoon at a particular time (Harper's ballet class). Two Friday mornings a month we get together, rather informally, with a group of friends at a park. We go to church most Sunday mornings. And that is all we have planned. See? Not busy.

There are all sorts of philosophical and spiritual and emotional and educational reasons to homeschool. On any particular day, I have several internal debates in which I revisit our decision. I'm sorry to report that there are many days when "Because the thought of the carpool line makes me fall into apoplexy" is the most compelling reason I can muster. That's not good. There's no use in creating a vacuum if you aren't going to fill it with something Good. So, the goal for these days we've left wide open is to really strive to be productive--joyfully, actually productive.

RESOLVED: to have sufficient time to clean the house properly (and with a happy heart--Oh, the agony of this impossible aspiration), to read aloud, for an hour or two if interest dictates, to go to the museum on the day it is free and find a Georgia O'Keefe painting of a shell to copy, to practice kindness and thoughtfulness and generosity...it's an endless list, really, and every day I think of something new that I'm not doing and should be. Then I get overwhelmed and I can't keep the dishes from piling up and I just mopped yesterday and the floor is already sticky and crumbly again and the 20 year old mini-blinds are so encased in filth that when I, with great trepidation, took a Clorox wipe to them this morning (for the first time since we moved in here 19 MONTHS ago) something inexplicably disgusting began flaking off and wafting to the sill and I wanted to simultaneously vomit and weep so I gave up and we took a bike ride to the park and Hudson had a meltdown in the middle of the street because his nose is running and this is, for reasons I can't understand, THE SADDEST CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS TO EVER BEFALL ANY FOUR YEAR OLD BOY IN THE HISTORY OF FOUR YEAR OLD BOYS RIDING BIKES, and so, again, I am using a tired, frustrated (read: TOO LOUD) voice and counting the minutes to nap time. Then it's nap time and Harper's hour of quiet time passes so quickly and now she wants to sew some pajamas for her stuffed stingray because she had such a great time with the octopus-making a few days ago:
and I really just want to say no. No, I do not want to sew any stingray pajamas. I also do not want to load the dishwasher. I do not want to read On the Banks of Plum Creek out loud. I do not want to deal with the mini blinds. I do not want to clean my desk (which is piled up with stacks of papers and books) or my bedside chest(which is piled up with stacks of clothes that need to be put away). I do not want to do another load of laundry.

So.

Instead of all of that whining, how will I fill the vacuum today? How about this:

1. A faithful, kind husband (who has a job that he truly loves).
2. Healthy kids (who obey far more often than they disobey).
3. Healthy grandparents (who love our kids and are not too far away for frequent visits).
4. A good many good friends.
5. 73 degrees and sunny (in the middle of February).
6. Many good books, yet to be read.

Now, I feel better. Perhaps we might even make some pajamas for a poor stingray who has none.