Rethinking

As Christmas festivities wind down, I gear up for the new year, for these next few months of winter, and I'm full of ambition. I want to continue teaching the boys, and more firmly establish habits of reading scripture at mealtimes and memorizing scripture together. I want to fill our lives with music...from CD's, and learning to play on the piano. I want to read to them...library books and favorites from our shelves and new chapter books. I want to read my own books... so many books, and a shelf of new ones from Christmas. I want to crochet in front of my new old favorite movies, and I want to find new simple ways for my boys to fill their time learning to create...build things, and embroider, and paint, and draw. I want to blog again, so I puzzle to find where to fit it into my days without giving up the time I've devoted to reading large amounts of scripture and daily exercise. I look at all I want to do and my daily schedule is bulging. And I haven't mentioned the daily cooking and cleaning and laundry that consume so much time and yet are so important because all the rest of life suffers without order and cleanliness and the discipline of keeping things clean and put away. There is so much good, so much richness in this life around us, and yet the happiest lives are lived simply, I think. My own days are best when I have a small to do list and room for spontaneous play and time to spend with the kids when they ask for my help.
Today my agenda is fairly simple:

• shovel snow
• take a trip to the dump and the library (Buster Bear is finished, and we need a new book for naptime)
• undecorate from Christmas

These next few days will involve praying for wisdom, evaluating our activities, and weeding out the good to make room for the best things.