It is one of THOSE weeks, when everything converges and happens at the same time! So it is incredibly overwhelming but I think I can squeeze some crochet in between all the other activities. I love busy but this is a bit much!
Here are some lovely peaceful photos from our days at the beach.Â
It rained just a bit every single day! It was wonderful to sit around and play a board game with everyone involved. There were the 7 of us and my Mom. Our oldest son and his wife joined us and it was wonderful to have everyone under one roof eating meals together.
One of the joys of reaching this point in my life is the ability to say “I don’t do that well and I don’t have to prove that I can, or I can survive quite well not doing ___________.” In fact I reached this point one Thanksgiving when a very close and dear friend gave me a recipe to create a 3-d turkey cake. In fact it is this very cake here.
Susy made it and it was beautiful. “You can do this, won’t it be fun! It is so Easy” she said.When I was finished, my turkey was laying on his back with his little turkey feet up in the air. He looked like someone had blasted him with a shot gun. In fact, I made little turkey feet out of pipe cleaners and stuck them in so that you could see that he was in fact a true Thanksgiving turkey! I still smile about that turkey cake. Will I every make an elaborate cake like this again. Nope, never, ever, ever… I can make a bundt cake from scratch and I can cook good meals. I don’t have to make 3 -d cakes ever again! I don’t have to keep up with the other women in my life…they have their gifts and I have mine!
There are other things that have I have decided that I just don’t have to stress about anymore. I don’t have to have superstar perfect children. Bear with me a minute on this. Then there is the time we were signing some papers and I sent all four of  the kids 10 and under out the back yard to play. The lady we were meeting with said “what well behaved children you have.” I said, oh they are probably playing in the mud in the back yard. What were they doing…yes, exactly playing in the mud, rolling in the mud, throwing the mud. There wasn’t an inch on any of them that didn’t have mud on it or in it.
Our children are perfect children, and are perfect at being imperfect human beings growing, learning and making mistakes. Don’t even get me started telling you how I know what five rolls of toilet paper dissolved in a bathtub looks like…or how much water it takes on the floor to make it like a slip and slide,or exactly what kittens do when they are dunked in a kiddie pool, or what happens if you put a twist tie in an electrical outlet, or ….well the list is endless.
I don’t have to have a perfect house. Wow, I admitted that on paper. Really, all my real friends really already know, I don’t have a perfect house. It is usually in a state of perfect disarray. It has six visual people that leave things out so they can find them again. A perfectly logical thing to do. We also tend not to see the work that needs to be done, but I will admit that I am working on that. It is getting better and getting cleaner as time goes by but a neat freak I am not. Come on by and hang out.
Do you ever get frustrated at the speed of life? I know I do, sometimes life seems to crawl along and other times it is moving at light speed. I wish that I knew the secret of keeping life at a steady pace. When life is zooming by me, I tend to feel like I am missing something important. When life is at a snails pace then I feel that life is passing me by.
Well, I think this all boils down to one thing contentment. Learning to  be content with our lives and not reaching for the one thing that is out of reach will help us to live in the here and now. When times are slow I need to prepare myself for the days when spare minutes are non-existent. When times are fast I need to learn to slow down enough to enjoy the ride. I feel that God wants us to learn to lean on him throughout all of the times of our lives. Thankfully life’s speed tends to ebb and flow like a river during the seasons.  It is ok for life’s speed to change we just need to be ready to work or rest depending on what our life speed is.
This is my theme for this year. I really don’t have a better way of saying it than this. No matter what you are trying to do. You can get some part of it done! Is it organizing? Then use the boxes your food comes in or roll newspapers and make newspaper baskets. You don’t have to wait to go to the store to get all pinteresty on it. YOU don’t have to have a beautiful pantry. IF it is organized for you and you can find what you want then it is beautiful. Do you need a new planner? Then print one down off the internet and get on with life. Are you wanting to start crocheting a granny square blanket but think it is going to take too long? It surely won’t take 20 years which is how long I have been working on the cross stitch from the post before this one. Just start. NIKE: just do it. Life is too short to wait for the perfect moment or when you have lost enough weight for family photos or a beach vacation! DO it anyway….unless you have debt and it means putting it all on the credit card and Dave Ramsey has your phone number. Then by all means wait until the right time and when you actually have money to do it, But plan it and start saving. There is never going to be a more perfect time to tell someone you love them or write that letter or finish that project. Do not put things off that are important to you. Learn to speak another language, knit, or paint if you have always wanted to know how. Don’t wait, life is too short!
What have you been waiting to do?
Karen
P.s. I featured the pillow cover above from Casa and Co. You can find the Etsy shop here:Â https://www.etsy.com/shop/CasaAndCo
I have never bought from their shop nor are they paying me for this feature.
