TheLionRampant.net

I’ve moved over here: Circling the Story

I needed a fresh start.

Are you getting ready to wear the same dress all month long?

Here’s a bit of my ponderings from last year:

But, wearing the same dress every day helps reorient that default position of my heart — finding satisfaction by outward things, whether clothes, or nail polish or what other people think of me — and in turn, leaves room for much more. It reminds me that I don’t need much, that I don’t need a closet full of clothes and that a green dress can serve as my ‘daily bread’. It inspires me to be creative with what I have rather than longingly flipping through magazines wishing I had ‘that’ thing.

Will you take the challenge with me this year?

On the whole, I seem pretty put together. My house is usually decently clean considering I have two little boys who love to scale the heights of anything and toss books off of bookshelves. We have clean underwear. I even get in a bit of reading now and then. But underneath the supposed serenity sometimes that breaks down and I’ve discovered I deal with chaos unhealthily by 1) mindlessly filling up my time and 2) not spending my time well positively.

This means that I don’t get on the floor, at my children’s level nearly enough. I have to train myself to really, really listen and absorb the chatter and noise and mess, so that I can have genuine encounter moments more. And I’ve been convicted that I need to spend a bit less time online — no more obsessive checking of facebook, twitter and words with friends on my phone. I don’t even spend *good* time online; I’m much less active on on places where you can actually interact with people — say, blogs and Mothering by Grace — than on mind-sucking wastes of time like facebook, watching too much TV, and going through classifieds for great furniture deals.

I don’t want this to be a post that’s a sort of pull-myself-up-by-my-own-bootstraps and stop being addicted to the media. Bryce and I are putting a few things into place to start to reshape our daily disciplines so we interact with each other more, with our kids more intentionally, and have energy to give to others. So we’re going to go to bed on time. We’re going to read our Bibles and pray. And gasp, we’re going to exercise (once ski season hits, this will not be hard). So today, we put the kids in the stroller and walked around Liberty Park. It meant we were awake enough to not have to have a cup of coffee and that helps too.

But even if we make it a habit, there’s lots underneath the surface that has to change. Much more than just switching the routines. And for that — for actually using my time well — I need help beyond myself.

Because if you haven’t seen how beautiful Ginette makes our family look, you should.
Check out pictures from Ginette’s blog here!

I know this is controversial and honestly I don’t really want to get into it here and now. We don’t spank. Slash that — we try not to spank. But last night, I was fed up. I had volunteered to help the church nursery out in the morning and so had missed the worship service — balm for my weary mommy soul. And so it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to our RUF (Christian campus ministry) Gathering in the evening. I’d get to sing hymns, listen to my husband give a short homily, and reflect on Jesus with students. Sounded wonderful.

That was until my eldest got over-the-top excited that students were coming over. I missed most of the “service” trying to get one or both of the boys down. I finally brought both jammy-clad little ones and sat on the outskirts, trying to get them to be quiet. Finally, I got the youngest to bed but the eldest just would not have it. I pleaded. I threatened. I quietly but sternly told him that he’d be in trouble if he woke his sleeping brother with all the flailing he was doing trying to resist getting himself in that little bed.

But I had had it. I spanked him. And it wasn’t this calm thing. I was full of anger. Maybe some people use spanking well — I don’t know — but I know that I do not think I’m capable in doing it well and so, it’s best if I just don’t do it. I know myself. I know that there is something about a little creature that knows you so well that he can push every one of my buttons and that I don’t respond well. I have a tantrum like him, except I’m much more skillful at using any poor parenting choice to get my way: manipulation, threats, physical force.

After I spanked my little boy, I apologized and hugged him and told him Mommy was wrong to react in anger. He forgave me and grabbed me around the neck and pulled me as close as he could while I sang him goodnight. Feeling still sad and ashamed of myself this morning however, I got still more grace. He came into our room at 6 am (early! and I was grumpy) saying he wanted to cuddle. After he got a fresh pull-up he came into our bed and cuddled and fell asleep glued to this Mama’s side. Even though I sin, even though I react in anger out of my own self-interest, he loves me, he wants to be near me. And the angry Mama is no longer rembered. It’s truly beautiful and restorative. Another thing is that there is grace even for me, even from others with similar parenting philosophies. We all blow it. We all get angry. We all do not always love and respect our children. But there is much grace in loving one another through the process.

For those of you who might be interested:

From my post from last year:

In other news, I’m really considering and getting excited about participating in The Dress Project. It’s a month of ‘fasting’ from our clothes and choosing to wear 1 single dress all month. The website mentions this helpful note:

My dress provided a type of canvas. It reminded me that I do not need half of the things I desire, and if I focus on something for a while, I can get to know its character as a “thing” in creation. There is a wealth of hidden possibilities in every part of life that most of us are too lazy to uncover. Rather than pursue mere novelty, I had the opportunity to bring out the possibilities inherent in the dress, molding them into something slightly different every day.

SO….all 2 of you out there who both read this blog and may be interested — start thinking about a dress you have in your closet for next month or make a run to your local charity shop to see if there’s a dress you can use or refashion for October.

First let me wave to all my friends out there! Hi! We’ve been gone ALL SUMMER LONG. It’s nuts. It’s crazy. We touched both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans this summer in efforts to do some fundraising for RUF. And I don’t think we recouped our costs yet — but that’s another story.

What I want to actually blog about — yes, blog you say? I know, you’re staring in disbelief given I haven’t posted in 4 months! — is Ministry of Reality Mondays. Some of my lovely online friends over at Mothering by Grace, a parenting forum I belong to, are starting a weekly blog round-up where the focus is:

“is being able to be REAL about life. Homes are not always (not *usually* even!) spotless, children are not always dressed adorably, children do not always “behave,” marriage is hard, and there aren’t simple answers to hard questions. Being honest about all of this makes it easier (in my opinion) to live life… because we can ASK for help about problems we aren’t covering up. We can be encouraged by others’ stories of surviving similar seasons and trials.”

Being real, being vulnerable. . . in that we can ask for help from others, be approachable when others need our help. In the Ministry of Reality we can acknowledge just how dependent we are on God’s grace daily, and (hopefully, prayerfully, fallenly) show what that dependence looks like.

I’m excited to start and since the kids are waking up from their naptime, it’s likely to be Ministry of Reality Tuesday — because tonight is Reality *show* (hubby and I watch HGTV’s Design Star the night after on Hulu, so shhhh no spoilers!!) night. So I’ll be back tomorrow, complete with links to other bloggers.

So the boys are still sick and overtired lately. Ezra is going through a very “2″ phase and potty training is regressing. Some dear friends of ours are grieving. I’m having RUF girls over tonight. Life continues and spring cleaning isn’t nearly what I’d like it to be given all the emotions and chaos that happens in life. I’m committed and I’m excited to purge, so in baby steps, we’ll keep on keeping on.

We’ve had some lovely little moments lately. Our baby tree in the front has some lovely white blossoms on it and I saw a bird land there for a minute and it made me happy. We’ve purchased some soil and herb seeds and hope to begin sprouting some seeds. It’ll be a great messy project for the boys once I get around to pre-soaking the seeds. The sun has been out and I’ve worn flip-flops. The wind is still chilly but the blue skies and things growing have done my soul good. I’ve been pretty worn out with the emotional fortitude needed to withstand daily life around here. But small glimpses of beauty help rectify that.

Now if I can have my home participate in some of that beauty, that too, will refresh me.

Firstly I apologize for the slightly out-of-focus images; I believe it was caused by little finger smudges from a certain toddler who shall remain nameless.

These photos were all taken right before naptime, i.e., right before Mama did clean-up #133 of the day, so you can see our house in all its toddler glory (i.e., mess)! (Pictures of the boys’ room to come. It was naptime after all).

Mudroom:

Kitchen:

(more…)

I’m really loving SimpleMom’s explanation of why we hold onto things instead of giving them away. She really gives you freedom that you needn’t associate some cheesy trinket with a memory (chuck it!) and that you needn’t keep things around “just in case”, that it actually adds stress to your life. Check out her short blog post, it’ll help you purge, I promise.

The reason I’m doing this spring cleaning is 1) I hate that it takes me inordinate amounts of time to find something I need, 2) I’m never going to get around to unpacking the boxes that have sat at the top of our stairs since October unless I have a plan like this, 3) having a clutter-free room/house really helps me actually relax and enjoy the people who are in our house, 4) it will make my husband able to relax and enjoy being at home.

I bought her e-book and I’m excited to get started today. I need a plan, otherwise I get overwhelmed and discouraged and don’t follow through. Today’s task is a “clean sweep”: to get rid of trash laying around the house and immediately put things into “give”, “sell”, and “maybe” boxes. It’s a quick task, though it covers the whole house. After the clean sweep, we’ll go room by room. I’ll try to take some pictures along the way.