Big Fat Stinking Do Over

I miss do overs. Do you remember being a kid and missing the ball? "Do over!" Remember when you spun a terrible spin in a board game? "Do over!" I wish do overs were just that simple; but, like many things in life, do overs fade as we get older.
I'm not sure that we can never reclaim do overs, in fact I hope that we can, but it sure seems like there are a lot less of them to use when you "grow up." Well, right now...Carolyn and I need a Big Fat Stinking Do Over.
We've pretty much lost the edge and passion for change in regards to simplicity. We have slipped (not too big, but enough to impact us) back into consumerism a bit. We've given up and bought new a few times too many. We've made sporadic purchases that were unwarranted and unneeded. Most of all, we have just about lost all of our creative juice in making the whole thing workable.
We didn't realize how tenacious one must be to really live simply. It's like walking on a mountain pass, one or two false steps and you're cascading down the mountain side into an abyss. All this to say..."Can we have a do over?"
Obviously, our struggle has been in isolation (hiding from the accountability of friends and fellow earthlings) so here we are, laying it all out again. Hold us to it, we need your help. Simplicity CANNOT happen without community. Isolation is our worst enemy.

Blessings

Such good things!

We are so blessed. All of us are. But we really felt it this weekend, I think. We live about 25 minutes away from a beautiful lake, and our friends invited us to join them in camping Friday night.

We have fished there before, but never camped as the campground seemed kinda lame. But they said they only camp where they have to boat in. And boy, was it awesome! We had our own little peninsula -almost like an island. There was no one out there this weekend, either!!

The weather was gorgeous and the kids were easy.

My friend found this beautiful moth on the shore by our campsite. It was dying, but this allowed us to be blessed by it and take in all it's details.

There are so many things we miss in the rush of life and it's never ending needs. Theres so much to see and feel and hear NOW. So many blessings just sitting on rocks or laying in the woods.

I hope to slow down more.

How to Ruin a Weekend

This weekend sucked! Well, in the end...I guess it turned out okay, but it was touch and go for most of it.

Carolyn and I are in the toughest season of parenthood we have yet faced. Three little ones who all need different things at different times for different reasons. We are physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally spent. Knowing this we begged and pleaded some family for a few hours of wrestling our children so we could sneak away to a nice dinner. We wanted to eat where we could sit and talk without seven trips to the bathroom, without ducking flying pasta, without answering the same question asked a dozen different ways. We wanted to go to a place that didn't serve chicken fingers or have crazy straws or place mats that you color. So we picked the perfect place...

Have you ever gotten a call that you wanted to ignore because you knew what was coming? Well on Friday afternoon, our child care was no more...meaning our night out was no more. We had nothing prepared and were very low on groceries, so we packed the kids up and went out to eat. The kids gave us a little grace, but the evening was far from the romantic refreshing evening out that we had expected.

Saturday we got groceries, a dresser (we've need one for a long time and haven't been able to russle one up at a garage sale or thrift store so we went to Ikea and bought sensible). After half a day of shopping, we went to a family birthday party and endured a lot of jesting about how exhausted we looked, how tough our kids were, how we, "really should think about birth control."

Before either of us lost it, we went home and woke up to a mess on Sunday morning. We spent the entire day cleaning. We're barley within eye shot of finishing. But alas, it is midnight and we're exhausted.

I guess there is nothing to say...I just needed to vent.

It is amazing though; it's after midnight and everyone is asleep except me. I just went around checking beds and I cannot help but think that as tough as life is right now, I wouldn't trade parenthood for anything. I just hope my wife and I can survive it with something left for each other. But, then again, we're one being...so she doesn't have a choice ;))