a speck in the vastness

Last night, Bullet was making us all a little batty.  He kept stealing the kids' stuffed animals and chasing his tail and basically being the physical manifestation of cabin fever.

So, even though I really really really (did I say really?) didn't want to, I pulled on my sneakers for the first time in about ten days and took him out for a jog because he needed to smell and pee on weird things and be in wide open spaces of the fields behind our house.  And once we got back there and dusk was already blanketing us and, as I was headphoneless, the crickets were singing their favorite tune for us, I realized that was exactly what I needed to...not the smelling and peeing on weird things of course, but to be in the wide open spaces.

I've been all wrapped up in my own head the past two weeks between the start of the school year, which truthfully has not been going anywhere as smoothly as I had imagined (like everything in life, right?) Grey has been feeling homesick at school and whines about going every day.  every.day.  so my mind has been a whirlwind of how to support him, how to encourage him, how I've basically done a poor job of preparation and I'm bad at being a mom (I know, that's going off the deep end, Tabitha - but this is how I speak to myself inside of my brain at 11:30pm, so let's just be real).

Plus, the news.  ugh, the news that's been breaking my heart and I have not been able to drag myself to this keyboard and write anything that seems important when there are babies washing ashore in Greece.  what is wrong with the world, everyone seems to ask.  to point fingers at everyone else.  there's an us and a them everyone seems to agree.  everywhere you look everyone is distinguishing between an us and a them.

So back to last night, Bullet and I were jogging in the mostly dark trails behind our house, and it is rare to see another living human.  We see all sorts of living things, deer, turkey, last night I swear there was an anteater like 50 yards away...I know it couldn't have been, but then what was that?  And I get to look across the fields, and over at the mountains, and running past the forest lined trail, I can feel myself coming back into focus.  If you zoomed out to helicopter height, would you even see Bullet and I?  Wouldn't we just blend in with the topography of the landscape?  All of my worries and thoughts and stresses contained to just this one tiny person on a back dirt road in the middle of corn fields and meadows.  A speck.

It has always been a great comfort to me to know I'm a speck in the vastness.  When we travel to the beach, one of my favorite things to do at least once while we are there, is to take a kayak out past the waves and the reef and as my husband holds his breath in panic and shakes his head at me incredulously but supportively (the story of our marriage), I hop off the side and drop myself into the deep blue sea.  I only stay in for a moment or two (mostly because Brandon is scanning the vicinity with expectant eyes of any giant sea creature to just jump up and swallow me whole), but I can picture myself zoomed out in that moment: me and my heart full of so much and my brain full of so much feeling as grand and big as the world itself, then I drop into the ocean and it would be impossible for me to make a smaller dent.  Sinking underwater with a big leap but only dropping a few feet in with the whole of the ocean beneath me.  A speck.

I love the city, which many people find incredible considering I was born and raised country and also love living in the country as an adult.  Who in a stable mental capacity loves both the city and the country?  well, me.

Anyway, I can get the speck feeling in the city too, I used to walk home from teaching and pass apartment building after apartment building, each building holding a hundred apartments, and knowing each apartment holds a different person or family.  And each of them are bursting with their own heart full of so much and their own brain full of so much.  There I was walking on the sidewalk while hundreds, thousands, millions of families were eating their dinner, or arguing, or falling in love.  A speck.

There's a freedom that comes with recognizing that you are only a speck.  Because life does not usually exist in the zoom out, but rather the zoom in, which is incredibly overwhelming.

Zoomed in, I am actually everything, all things - especially in this home and to my family.  If I'm off center, the whole of our daily life is crooked a bit and everyone feels it.  There's chores and bills and the stress of our bank account numbers and worrying about loving the kids enough each day, and don't forget to schedule that appointment, and make time to write on the blog, and I can't believe a friend would share that divisive article on facebook, and how long has it been since the dogs got a bath, and crap, I need to order new photos of the kids for the grandparents, and why are we out of diapers again already?

"How Mom feels," the elusive 'they' say, "is how everyone feels."
In my day to day living, a speck is the opposite of how I feel.

I wrote about this idea of recognizing that each of us are only a speck in the vastness in my 25 Lessons for my Daughters post:

17. Remember you are just a very, very small part of this great big world
It's a harsh reality, sweetheart, but nearly everything that happens to you in your life has also happened to someone else. Yes, you are unique and wonderful and completely you - but this world and her history is so great and big that you are really only a teeny, tiny piece of a vast puzzle. You fit just right into the picture that we all make together, but keep an anchor in knowing that you are but one small part. When you forget this fact, it's easy to believe that your own problems are all-encompassing and more important than everyone else's. Sorry baby, but they aren't. Time marches on, my girl, no matter what happens to any of us.

And it's liberating to know that I am one of many.  So, so many.  One of billions of women.  One of billions of Mummas, one of millions of bloggers, one of millions of writers, one of thousands of people who call their favorite book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of the hundreds of people that woke up this morning and thought 'I want a biscotti to dip in my coffee right now so much it's bizarre." All the things that make up me, there are other people that are feeling, doing, experiencing, and thinking that too.  In no things am I alone.

and yet.
there is also no one else on the planet and in the history of the planet that has had all of those things that make up me all together at once.  I share all the things about me with billions, millions, thousands, hundreds of other people through space and time.  But no single other person has all of the things at once like I do.  And that too is quite extraordinary.

As I said in my post for my daughters:

18. Remember, too though, that your actions have never-ending ripples that will go on to affect people that you may never meet.
Even though we are each a very small part of this great big world, every action we extend to another person leaves an imprint. Try to choose kindness to which you react and distribute to others. It's no easy task to choose patience and kindness when others are not doing the same, but remember that you are in charge of your own ripples that will make their way out into the world. Make it so that when people think of their experience with you - it is with a smile and gratitude for getting to have crossed their path with yours.

So friends, on this Saturday morning while all three of my kids are still sleeping (!! joy of joys) and my coffee is still hot, I'll finish with this.

There is no us and them.
We are all just specks among other specks.
All of your worries and problems and stress is also being experienced by someone else, lots of someone elses.  Someone else that you might initially believe is a 'them' to your 'us.'
Nope, all just specks.

But don't lose sight too, that your speck is important and unique and singular.  Still just a speck, but an important speck.  Just like every single one of everyone else's speck that is unique and singular and valuable.

Just a drop in the ocean...but oh how our ripples float out.

What do you drop?

Sometimes people will comment to me, "How do you have enough time to do that?" The 'that'referring to any number of things:  blogging, writing, family yearbook making, teaching CCD, The Hunting Daddies, volunteering, etc.  However they mean to say it, it generally comes off feeling like they seem to think I have more time than them.  And although I'm supremely blessed to be a sahm, that doesn't mean I don't tend to go overboard on jampacking my own plate.  Efficiency is an obsession of mine and I could probably use counseling but c'est la vie, right?

There are ways that I've tried to combat the overwhelming feeling that comes with juggling so many balls at once and keep me focused on getting as much in as possible without going a little nutty: 

• Things like instituting a chores schedule (Mondays: our laundry washing/drying and vacuuming & dusting upstairs; Tuesdays: folding & ironing, ebanking, etc).  
• I have a planner that is filled weekly and daily with tasks that I need to do or at least start to think about to make sure no aspect of the juggling acts swings too far out of control.  "Add money to Greyson's lunch account online," and "Plan upcoming weekend trip to SU for 10 year reunion"
• I am faithful to Monthly Meal Planning and doing only one big grocery trip a month (filled in with small trips for bread/milk/produce as needed).  
• We don't have any 'shows' and rarely watch any grown up tv, with the exception of AMC on Sundays at 9pm, of course.  
• I force my tired behind out of bed before anyone else is awake in the morning for at least a half hour to an hour and a half to get the day started without little hands pulling at me.  

..and yet.

There is a running list of things that ideally I'd like to accomplish each day.  Things that fit into certain criteria.  The house chores that are assigned for that day as per my weekly schedule: laundry, folding, ironing, vacuuming...  Then there's the food:  preparing, making, cleaning up.  The kid related stuff; reading books, playing games, teachable moments, hygiene...The adult necessities: bills, scheduling appointments, returning emails/calls, groceries...My own personal stuff: blogging, writing, volunteer projects, exercise, reading...

and however it might appear out there in the world
try as I might, I just cannot seem to get it all in.
ever.
not any day.
EVER.
something gets dropped because the hours in the day (or my energy) run out.

There are definitely things that I am more willing to readjust or drop all together when I inevitably need to make changes to the day's plans.

Nine times out of ten, it's my own personal agenda that gets prioritized and resorted (or dumped off the list all together).  For example, in August, I put an effort into getting the jogged miles in for both my and Bullet's benefit.  We got out on the trails behind our house and we did it!  We made it to our goal of 30+ miles in the month of August.  Which meant that the time I put in there replaced the time I have to put into something else on the list; ahem, blogging/writing which I did nearly zilch for last month.

I also put a big push into finishing our 2014 family yearbook in the last two weeks (I did it!! It's done!! only eight months later!  97 pages and filled with all of our adventures and favorite pictures! But it's done and ordered, thank goodness!!)  Which means I slowed down on the jogging toward the end of the month and continued my poor output on the blogging/writing.

I'm always trying to figure out ways to squeeze the most life out of my days, and this fall season will be no exception.  I'm hoping to do loads more writing - both on the blog and for my novel - and with the yearbook wrapped up and one kid in school (!!) that might be possible without dropping something else.  But as history shows itself, the hours in the day don't generally line up with the ambitions I set up in my mind.

I sometimes look at the women in my life and think, how is their house always so clean?  How do they do so many awesome projects with their kids?  How do they fit such great exercise and healthy eating into their life? How?  How do other people have it seemingly all together?

Every time I catch myself thinking enviously, I'm trying very hard to remember that 'She' is probably just like me, at the end of the night, laying in the bed and grumbling about all those tasks still left on her list that didn't get done today.  That she, like me, is probably trying to weigh the day overall:  "Well, I didn't get in any decent exercise, but I did read that extra book to the kids and we had a good laugh about it and also I finally cleaned the oven...so that balances out, right?"

Are we doing the same thing each night?
If yes, hi.  you're not alone.
Maybe tonight as we tally and count the day's productivity we can both try to remember that if we're doing our best with what the day throws at us and our kids got hugged and giggled a little today, then we're doing pretty damn good.

xxoxo

12 Months of Kindness Mid-Year update

Kindness and giving back is fundamental to our family and one of the ways that we try to keep that in the forefront of our minds and hearts is to commit to a task of kindness, (at least) once for each month of the year.  The important piece about 12 Months of Kindness is making sure that you plan out and/or track  your efforts each month.  Otherwise (as we've found in the past), it's easy to forget about your dedication by the end of the year...because you know, life.

Here is where we stand now at the mid-year point in our 12 Months of Kindness commitment.  First quarter of the year update.

January - it took us until March (!) for Violet and I to finish up our January kindness when we headed east to visit a high school friend who had recently had her first baby (hi Renee and Ava!) to visit for a little while and drop off dinner and dessert.  It was a great visit and I loved catching up and talking about all things newborn and new momma.

April - the kids and I put together a special care package to send all the way to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Raph, our WorldVision sponsor kid.  The kids worked hard on drawing colorful pictures and letters for him and we stuff that envelope full of pencils, erasers, toothbrushes, colored pencils, and stickers.

May - Gemma accompanied me to the Conemaugh Valley Senior banquet in May to award our family scholarship to two deserving twelfth graders.  We have students complete an essay explaining the positive impact they believe they've had while attending Valley and we've selected scholarship recipients for the last seven years! This year, Brandon and I selected Kaitlynn and Becca.  Our scholarship is one of my favorite kindness tasks and I so appreciate getting a peek into the lives of young people into our community and all the good that they do!

June - I led the efforts with the amazing help of the Conemaugh Valley Alumni Association to put on the second annual 5K and family fun run/walk in June.  This year we had a blue and white theme and a scavenger hunt for the family portion.  The 5K begins early in the morning, followed later by the family fun run/walk scavenger hunt.  We had several 5K runners even return to walk the trail again with their families.  As always, this event reminds me how lucky I am to have supportive people in my life ready to help and volunteer wherever they are needed.  This CV community has something very special and this event was another reminder of that.

If you're seeking some inspiration, check out my Kindness Pinboard here, or the 12 Months of Kindness Pinboard here that I collaborate on with Ashley from The Big White Farmhouse.

There are also amazing opportunities in your own local community if you keep you eyes and ears open for it.  I recently joined the Family Service Group - Johnstown, PA (thank you, Megan!) in which projects and ideas are presented each month that are geared specifically towards families with kids.  This month we are saying thank you to our local heroes (firemen, police departments, EMS teams, etc).

Also, you can check out:
12 Months of Kindness 2015 intro post
#12mokp (on instagram)