This is the first evening it feels like since Christmas that the house has truly been quiet. We got home from my parents to jump right back into school and then the boys and I got pretty sick so there went a week and a half, followed by our friend Daniel showing up to add a fourth bedroom in our upstairs for guests. I have missed church for almost a month with travel and illness, missed two bible studies, and am just now catching up on plans laid weeks ago. Somehow I got all the Christmas stuff packed and put away and even managed a hair cut this weekend so I am no longer shaggy. Jeremy is off to Home Depot with Daniel for a late night last minute supply run and I am just. . .taking. . .a. . .breath. Don't get me wrong, I actually got plenty of rest when I was sick but quiet time to write? zilch. Of course the new year brings resolutions and re-thinking about life etc but I feel I haven't had time to process and set goals like I usually do. I got one crazy idea which was to read all of the Penguin Classics. Did you know there are over 1,000? I read one of the initial 10 (Poet's Pub) picked to be in the first set of books published by the fledgling Penguin publishing house and it had a cool introduction that explained how Penguin publishing was formed and why. It was a quaint little English mystery that was charming though not witty and I thought "wouldn't it be fun to read them all"? I could keep a diary of my "road to being a well-read woman" and perhaps put it into book form. People do stuff like that all the time. Then I began doing a little research and realized that it could take me well over a decade to accomplish such a task. I found a complete set of them for a mere 13,000 dollars on Amazon. I used Wikipedia to look them up by author. There was something like 16 books by Dickens alone and others like Les Miserables are massive on their own, without being a collection like Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I began thinking of ground rules. They would either need to be free on Kindle or available from a library. Since some are out of print or not readily available they could be published by other companies as long as they were on the Penguin Classics list I don't care it would still count. I would count ones I was one hundred percent sure I had already read (hello Jane Austens) but re-read any I was not quite sure of. The list of rules began to get lengthy. I found a book from the title list at the library. (Flatland: by Edwin Abbott) So far it's an incredibly dry story of a two-dimensional world. Apparently, this book is sometimes used even today to introduce geometric concepts in intro classes. I.Hate.MAth. Why would I want to read a book about triangle vs pentagon characters? My sister says I shouldn't have to read the ones I don't like but I just couldn't claim to have read them all. . .but the handful I didn't like. Hmm, I think perhaps I have enough distracting me from being a good wife/mother without starting a project like that. Still I couldn't quite shake the idea so I'm not sure what I will be doing with it. Sit on it a while I guess.
It feels so good to type! I am going to post about the new room soon but right now I am enjoying finally "processing" the start of the year. A goal I have wanted to set for this year is more scripture memorization. I was reminded of this by my friend Rose who is also setting out on a mission of memorization. Last year I did the book of James. I could still say half of it for sure but would need prompts to make it straight through. I enjoy memorizing in large chunks. A chapter at a time is perfect for me. I like a train of thought. This year I am challenging myself to separate verses. I'm not sure how many yet but they will include old and new testament favorites starting with some that I can quote but just need to learn the references for -isn't that sad that I can quote verses but not tell you where they are??? - and finishing with new ones that God brings to my attention one way or another throughout the year. (I haven't talked to Him about this yet but He is faithful and I will get some good ones I know!) For the spring I also want to go through a new study I got over Christmas called Why Do You Believe That? It is designed to help a person witness and be able to converse about their faith in a natural way. Sounds silly but if you have ever awkwardly tried to share something about your spiritual life and it came out all wrong. . .thinking of a time? me too. I will take something that will help me be articulate and kind. A struggle to this spring is that we are still looking for a home church. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record and I do have hope that we will settle into the current church we are attending but not having a "home" brings a frustration I've hardly ever had to deal with before. Our efforts to connect with a small group were thwarted by a crazy fall schedule including my brothers almost impromptu choice of surgery for the removal of his tumor. The church's lack of a women's ministry blocks my usual avenue of meeting people so it is harder to really get to know anyone but I feel the Lord is telling me to give this church some more time so that's what we will do.
I have been doing SOME reading and finished a good parenting book called The Whole Brained Child. Really good info on how the brain works and ways to help your child navigate strong emotions and subsequent behaviors. I feel like life moves forward so fast I barely have time to evaluate where I am at before the whole parenting equation changes again. I'm back and forth between take it day-by-day and what about their future?!? I will never be perfect. That's always good to remember. *The next few sentences were written the next day because it got late and I got sleepy.* Oh yeah and another goal is 6 more songs for this year! Not to mention I am looking forward to my children turning 9, 6, and 2, plus Jeremy's and my TENTH anniversary. A true milestone. I bought a dress for a cruise. A girl can dream right?
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