reflections on my free time

I don't have too much to say for myself these days.

I thought with the coming of autumn and the sending of 4 children back into the classroom I would suddenly find myself swimming in free time.

Free time in which I would update the kid's photo albums and burrow through the box of mending and knit slippers for my children and reflect on the past 5 years of my life and make projections for the next 5 years and organize all the dresser drawers and desk drawers and the filing cabinet and start up a card business and sew a few dresses and write a weekly letter to my grandparents and visit my widow neighbor ladies and of course, stay caught up on my regular work around the house.

The truth of the matter is that I am still running an 8 person, 1 dog household.

And an 8 person, 1 dog household produces mountains of laundry and dirt and scrap paper and dirty dishes and hearty appetites.

The last little line about staying caught up with my regular work around the house ends up being an all consuming task in itself.

 I am just one woman with just two hands and two feet and too little brain to come up with any great  efficient, time saving propositions.

I have two little girls with me 24/7 who value things like group hugs and stories and walks and swing rides over getting the housework done.

I have been enjoying the opportunity to spend more time doing things with these little girls that makes their eyes twinkle. It's relaxing for me to be able to indulge some of my 3 year old daughter's requests without having to process the competing requests of the 6 and 8 and 10 year old brothers and 12 year old sister.

I have also been soaking up some interaction with ladies from church and my neighborhood which was completely unknown during the summer months.

I have had the freedom to say 'yes' to a few extra curricular assignments/projects. In hindsight,  I would've been better off saying 'no' to a few of them. However, it is a luxury to have the margin to even consider taking on an additional tasks. It makes me very happy to be able to be a 'yes' person.

So while I haven't even really started on my list of things that I hoped to accomplish in my free time this fall, I do recognize that I have been fulfilling some of the deeper longings of my heart in the last 2-3 months.*

I get to make decisions every moment of every day about where I will invest my time, energy and resources.  I pray daily that Jesus would direct me in these decisions.

I look back over the last few months and I am grateful as I sense His presence leading me to the places and the people and the tasks  in which my soul was truly fed and refreshed and stretched.

And that forever long chore list???

It will be around here as long as I don't accidentally throw it out with all the other scrap paper.

I can keep chipping away at over the next year or two.

It's not growing wings.

Not like these fast moving people anyway!!!

*It's helpful for me to process this especially when I'm feeling discouraged about what all I am NOT getting done.