Manic Monday: all is calm

"Music is the silence between the notes."
~Claude Debussy

My world has never had so much volume than in these past few days. Christmas was full of laughter, music, food, and so many people I love dearly. Yet I wake up this morning to complete silence. My son is sick. My daughter is with her grandma and my husband is away at his grandma's funeral. This is one of those times when the music of my life is made sacred by the silence. When I realize how very rich I am.

Tonight we are having a big family party to celebrate my brother and his beautiful new wife. In just a few hours, it will be so manic around here. But in this quiet moment, I know that my life is not made up of a million things to check off of my to-do list. It is made up of a million people who love me and who I love. We cook together, clean together, play games together, we sing together. We celebrate life together.

To do today:
~remember Granny
~dispense medicine to my sick boy
~vacuum floors
~process credit card information
~love well

My prayer for you today is that you know you how much you are loved. That you realize your to-do list is not what defines you. I hope that you (and I!) can look up from our lists to see all the love that surrounds us.

Manic Monday: impossible things

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
~Lewis Carroll

After 10 days of travel and conferences, today was the day things were supposed to get back to normal. And if you are in Nashville, you know that this Manic Monday is anything but ordinary. There are 4 inches of snow on the ground. All the kids are out of school and this kind of adventure, layered on top of the anticipation of Christmas, has both of my children functioning at 10x their normal intensity. Squeals are louder, crying is longer, fights are more fierce, needs are more needy. It feels a bit more like panic Monday to me.

Where on most Mondays, my to-do list feels daunting, today, it feels like a lovely, calm place to escape the chaos right outside my office door.

Snow days, like sick days and vacation days and special holidays require me to downshift letting go of my plan and opening myself up to a different day then I had anticipated.

So this Manic Monday, the impossible dream (that I had even before breakfast) was that I would get back on top of my life today. Friends, that is not going to happen.

My agenda got hijacked. And it is time for me to surrender. Before I could even get those words typed out, my son had just finished a pot of homemade hot chocolate and all the neighbors that were sledding outside were ready to thaw out. A new plan quickly developed.

Manic Monday To Do:

1. make 2 more batches of hot chocolate
2. get the fire place warmed up
3. remove 10 pairs of boots
4. put all wet clothes in dryer
5. set out legos and crayons/coloring books
6. sit back with my dear neighbor and watch 10 happy kids enjoy this snow day

All the neighbors just left to go have lunch in their own respective houses. My daughter said this was the best day of her life. My son said, "Thank you for doing all that, Mom."

Mind you, I am still in my pajamas. Still working on that first cup of coffee. I wasn't ready for this day, but this day was more than ready for me. Although this office is a lot more peaceful, I am glad I got pulled out into the chaos. Because that is where my real life is...
impossible as it sometimes seems.