Word Therapy

Finish Line in Sight!

Day 14 of the Write31Days challenge...

 

27 days.  TWENTY SEVEN DAYS.  I have completed 27 days on the Whole30.  Some of you may be thinking “big deal”, but I am thoroughly shocked that I actually did it, and the end (Tuesday!) is in sight.  I don’t do long term (more than 5 days) eating plan modifications without little cheats. Like, ever.  Especially not when there are so many social opportunities that have food as part of the main appeal! What am I supposed to do, just skip it? Life is too short.  That’s usually my mentality, and there is definitely a time and a place for that.

 

For these past 27 days though, I’ve been intentionally focused on reseting my body.  That’s kind of the point of the Whole30. The point isn’t weight loss, it’s not a flatter stomach (although both of those things have happened, at least I think so but I’m not actually allowed to weigh myself until it’s over), the point is to allow your body to experience 30 days of rest from inflammation causing foods.  The point is also to either develop or refresh a healthy attitude toward eating.  

 

At the start of this journey, I was experiencing joint pain, stomachaches, headaches, fatigue, almost daily. When I would step out of bed in the morning, my right ankle would hurt, and my knees were starting to hurt as well. I could barely make it through the day without my 2 pm 10 minute power nap, or coffee, if the nap wasn’t happening.  While I’m still sort of tired every day (I believe that’s probably due to the busy pace of life right now), I am feeling incredibly better than I did 4 weeks ago.

 

Tonight we went out to dinner with a large group of people, and I experienced a taste of what Melissa Hartwig (Whole30 creator) calls “food freedom”. The chips and guac were spread all over the table, and everyone was going for it.  It was maybe 5 minutes before I realized “wait, everyone around me is eating chips (MY FAVORITE!) and I’m not focusing on it and having to distract myself from wanting to eat some!” This was a marked difference from day 10 of the Whole30 when we went to Red Robin and I felt utterly deprived as the french fry baskets were devoured by the rest of my hungry family.  This is a huge deal for me.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved food.  I still do.  But I don’t like feeling like I can’t say “no” to food.  Tonight I experienced casually skipping something that I really like, while everyone else around me was enjoying it, and at the same time I wasn’t experiencing inner turmoil. I was focused on the conversation, enjoying being with the people I was with, and realizing that although food is amazing, it’s not essential to enjoying a good time.

 

I’m actually a little nervous for the end date. I’m planning to try reintroducing things 1 food group at a time (except dairy because that’s just never a win for me), and I’m hoping that my newfound self-control will remain ultra-engaged.

To further test my mettle, tonight I came home and got my 2nd son’s birthday dirt cake ready, and even sniffed the pitcher of blended mint Oreos because I like to live dangerously. It smelled like heaven. Chocolate and mint are like Prince William and Princess Kate: Delightful, compatible, and exquisitely endearing. I wanted to lick the spatula covered in cool whip, pudding, and cream cheese approximately 97 times, but I didn’t.  I only have to make 1 more batch of cupcakes for his class before I don’t have to bake anymore delicious things for other people on this round of Whole30.

 

Another thing I’ve been LOVING and I’m sure it’s been helping to sustain me through this, is working out at Crossfit.  Those kind of workouts are my favorite ever.  And I think the whole30 is really helping me to perform well, so that may prove to be quite a bit of motivation to keep my eating more clean than not, even after Tuesday rolls around.

 

I guess, as much as I hate to finally admit it, doing hard things is part of being a grown up. That magic time of adulty self-control is probably never going to show up, so I’m going to have to keep challenging myself to choose well and discipline myself as a means of honoring what God has given me in the areas of health, family, finances, time, and priorities.  So often I want to choose the kid option. But I really believe that as I continue to pursue self-control in all areas of life, I’ll discover God-given strength that I didn’t think I had.  If doing the Whole30 helps me to be more effective at loving the people in my life that God created and also loves, then it’s worth it. If it’s just so I look better in my jeans, then that motivation will never sustain me.  If healthier eating habits allow me to be in good enough shape to spontaneously respond to situations that God drops on me, then sign me up.  That’s why I’m so excited about these changes. Not so I look better in my clothes (although I am glad about that), but so that I can be as effective as possible at living and loving during this very brief time I get here on earth.

Whole30 Day 4. The Good, Bad and Ugly

Day 4.  I’m actually sort of surprised I’ve even made it to day 4. I’m a habitual cheater on dietary modifications. It’s always sort of a slow slide off of the bandwagon for me.  So far this time, I’ve managed to stay within the hard confines of the Whole30.  They are actually harder than I thought, but at the same time, it gives me more freedom than I thought because I don’t have to really think too hard about what I’m going to eat.  It’s a pretty straightforward list of unprocessed, healthy foods.  I love that there isn’t portion control because while I’m not over-doing it, I hate measuring and always having to pack pre-measured stuff everywhere I go.  When 4 pm hits and I’m hangry, I don’t want to realize that I’ve already eaten my fruit quota for the day and I can’t have a banana.  There is no limit to the fruits with this plan, and that’s been majorly helpful.

 

Today has brought about a bit of exhaustion (actually a lot), which led to me falling asleep under a blanket fort on our living room floor while Leah watched Little Einsteins right next to me. It could also be in part due to the workout I did last night…

  

I showed up at the gym, and saw who I was working out with, looked at the whiteboard with all the workout times from the day, and thought I would try to just finish with the 2nd slowest time for the day.  It’s only my 2nd week back to working out, no need to blow everyone away with my athletic prowess just yet.  So last night’s crew consisted of a cute young couple who has crosfitted (that’s a verb actually) together for a few years, one of the trainers, and the husband of one of the owners of the gym. All definite newbies who would be no-doubt jog-walking instead of running, and throwing up the bare minimum on their push presses….or not.  The workout was 4 rounds for time of a 400 meter run, followed by 10 push presses (front squat, push the bar over your head).  “no big deal…I’ll just try to finish less than 5 minutes behind this shredded crew”.  As I ran behind the gym, past a sweet lady emptying her restaurant garbage into a dumpster, I know she was probably thinking “Is that red-head going to pass out? Her face is redder than her hair.”  Bless her heart, I think she purposely took her time emptying her trash so that she could keep an eye on me for all 4 rounds in case I passed out back behind the fence on my run on the dirt track.

I have a crazy kind of competitive streak that feeds on group dynamics.  I would have quit 100% by round 2 if I was trying to do that workout on my own, but I finished because there was no way I was going to give up in front of anyone.  This is again, roughly 60% of why Crossfit is my favorite way to workout:  Peer pressure.

 

Not only that, since we couldn’t see the timer on the wall because it was malfunctioning, I just huffed and puffed trying to keep up with everyone else and had to hope that when Lyndsey told me my time from her phone timer, that it wouldn’t be like 10 minutes slower than everyone else that worked out that day.

 

I was shocked when I finished and she wrote my time on the board.

 

9:40

 

Though I could hardly breathe and I was pretty sure I was going to need the smelling salts at any moment, I was pumped! I finished about 4 minutes faster than I thought I would.  I ran a segmented mile and threw a 53 pound bar over my head 40 times in 9 and a half minutes.  

 

So that was my 3rd workout in 3 days, in my 2nd week back to Crossfit.

 

That, combined with this whole30 has me feeling motivated but wiped out today.  I'm tired and I have a headache. So I’m not working out today, and I’m trying to force myself to eat because I’m actually kind of sick of my choices of food right now.

 

I’m going to hit up the Whole30 Instagram feed and look for fun recipes to try, and I’m going to try to go to bed early.

I think I might be in the thick of the “survival mode” portion of the program, where my body is starting to scream for it’s long lost loves: Coffee-Mate in all the flavors. Cinnabon. Hazlenut. Caramel Macchiato.  That, plus a 2 pm sweet snack, or a 9 pm dessert with my husband while we watch mindless TV…these are the things that call like a siren.

Keep it simple, go to bed early. That’s my game plan for today.

 

Today's lunch was Lettuce with Whole30 mayo, mustard, pickle and sliced turkey, and it was good! Salty and crunchy from the pickle, and almost as good as if I had thrown the whole thing on some french bread:

Overhaulin'...A very unlikely Whole30 participant

Doughnuts, Hamburgers, “salads” (covered in bleu cheese and dressing), chips, wine, cookies, beer…this summer was a bit of a nutritional disaster for me.  I found myself racing around trying to keep us busy because whenever we are home and boredom sets in, our 2 boys seems to think it’s time to kick off round 964 of their perpetual UFC fight.

 

This meant that we were hitting the park, the waterslides, the pool, the beach, wherever we could get OUT and just have space whenever we could. I packed our food along, but convenience won the day because I was so maxed from trying to full-time mom these 3 darlings, that I was grabbing whatever was easiest.

 

Combine that with the stress level of being full time referee, and I was looking for something sweet, salty, crunchy, or a combination of the 3 just about every night after the kids went to bed.  

 

By the end of the summer I felt exhausted, burnt out, anxious, and literally barely hanging on by a thread.  You can ask my husband how many times I called him on the phone in tears during the final weeks of summer break.  And all the while, I medicated with food.  Food to take the stress away.  Only the thing is, that same old paradox was at work that has always been there for me: Eat because I think it will help me deal with stress, but it only increases my stress.

You see, after I binge or overeat because I’m stressed, the shame and guilt start feeding my self-loathing.  This leads to anxiety about when I’m going to get myself under control, and then I become a really fun person to be around. Internally berating myself for having no self-control, wondering why I can’t be as disciplined as “that mom”.  I quit exercising altogether because I grew to hate workouts in my living room, by myself, with kids swarming me, while I sniffed the aroma of dog hair and dirt from our carpet.

 

I reached a breaking point.

 

It was a slow build up, but soon I found myself in a place I never thought I would be, considering an option that I never ever thought I could entertain.  As I found myself feeling like I was 50 instead of 34 when I got out of bed every morning with back pain and an ankle that was mysteriously starting to ache, I also noticed that my eczema was coming back for the first time in a year.  I knew that I felt terrible but I didn’t want to do anything hard to fix it.

 

One of my friends said “Oh you should do the Whole 30 with me!” I was like, “girl I’ve heard about that and it's only for crazy people.  How on earth can I handle the chaos of life without my copiously creamy & sweet 3 cups of coffee every morning? What am I to do when everyone is whining at 6 pm and dinner is still cooking and I’m trying to help with homework and I can’t pour a little red blend? And for gosh sakes ICE CREAM.  I can’t.”

 

But then, it just so happened (haha, who actually believes in coincidences? More like God tapping me on the head and saying “Hey girl"), Melissa Hartwig (Whole30 founder) popped up as the guest of the week on one of my fav new podcasts, For the Love with Jen Hatmaker.

 

As she talked about it, I grew increasingly excited but increasingly ticked.  I knew I had to do it.  Before I knew it I had downloaded one of her books to Audible (Food Freedom Forever), and I was slowly warming up to the idea that *maybe* I could TRY this.  I did not say DO THIS, I said TRY.  But as anyone who has done Whole30 will tell you, it’s an all or nothing thing.

 

Turns out that I warmed up to it pretty quickly when I started at the long-awaited Crossfit 791 last week (and HELLO MOMS, they have CHILDCARE!!!), because you can’t workout hard and feel good when you’re eating garbage. At least not in your 30s. Pretty sure I did eat garbage and felt fine in highschool and survived 2 hour basketball practices with Mr. Kenoyer…but I digress.  It ain’t happening now.

This morning's workout, (much easier to complete when I haven't been living on pancakes and sadness):

So I’m on to day number 2 of the Whole30, and I completed my 5th Crossfit workout this morning. I hesitated to share this with the world because I hate public failure, and that’s a definite possibility. What if you read this and see me eating pizza in two weeks? Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that I just have to keep trying. At this point I’m determined to stick out this Whole30, but even if I don’t I’m not quitting. I’m not going to roll over and die.

 

So this is me, being vulnerable, telling you that for far too long, food has had too much power over me.  This feels like one of those line-in-the-sand moments, where I commit to trying something hard and telling everyone about it, and then almost hitting delete on this whole thing because this is WAYYYY too much accountability. I mean, for gosh sakes it’s only DAY 2. But whatever. Here it is, cheer me on, or join me, or know that if you too, feel like food has power over you and you want to break that, I’d love to talk to you.

 

Today's lunch was my homemade Whole30 mayo with canned salmon and pickles in lettuce wraps.  Really good!

Grantidotes Days 24 & 25

 

It has been a very festive few days!  I’m loving the Christmas season this year.  For several years when the boys were younger, Christmas was more of a stress than a blessing.  I feel like we are in a new season, with the boys being a bit older, more obedient, more helpful, and more perceptive about Advent and Christmas.  They appreciate the decorations and the festivities and that makes me all the more motivated to put some effort into everything.  

 

And, we are officially on Christmas break! I confess, I’ve grown to love the routine and regularity of our school schedule.  Both boys are doing well, and though I still struggle with mom-guilt to even type this, having the boys out of the house under the instruction of their teachers each day seems to be a benefit for everyone in our house. 

I often look into the lives of families that homeschool, and think we “should” be able to do that and have it work out so wonderfully, but in truth I don’t have the temperament for it as a mom.  At least not for our boys. They are both quite strong willed and need a lot of structure coupled with a kind, gentle personality (which they both have received in their amazing teachers this year!).  

All of that to say, I’ve come to realize that I enter any kind of extended break from school with mixed feelings. On one hand I am looking forward to more time together, the avoidance of the morning feat of getting two boys out the door in the morning, and more flexibility in the day.  On the other hand I get nervous that they will be at each others’ throats constantly, that I’ll have to field 50 million requests to “do something fun”, and that we will inevitable end up watching way too many movies.  

I’ve been trying to just let go of expectations and know that sibling fighting is normal, asking to “do something fun” does not mean I’ve created entitled, bored, non-creative monsters, it just means that 2 kids have suddenly gone from busy days full of activities to a whole lot of white space on their little calendars.  And the movies?  I’m temporarily setting aside the AAP recommendation that has legalistically hounded me in my own mind for so many years about “no more than 2 hours of TV a day” because when you all have pink-eye on your first day of break and your mom is trying her best not to lose her patience with anyone on this day of catching up with laundry, baking, food-prepping, and administering eye drops bilaterally to three kids, watching 2 full length movies plus 3 or 4 episodes of curious george in the span of 12 hours is completely acceptable.  I mean, that’s still over 50% of their waking hours NOT spent watching TV yes?

So, fellow moms, join me in taking a chill pill this break. Let go of expectations, other peoples’ rules, and all the triggers that will drive you right out of your own mind and just enjoy your kids and the special time of anticipating the birth of Christ and all the merriment that goes along with it.

 

Now, onto what I’m thankful for (there is more and more every day it seems!).  As I’ve said before, if you havent’ yet started the intentional practice of finding three things to be thankful for everyday I urge you to DO IT! The joy goes up and the internal (and external) bemoaning goes down.

 

1.

I’m thankful I get to be a stay at home mom.  Though I’m not wired to homeschool, I do get to volunteer in the  classroom with both of our boys. Tuesday I got to wear my pajamas to the Polar Express party in Kindergarten. One little boy said “this is the best party I’ve ever been to.” Their teacher is so awesome. She had hot chocolate, popcorn, and Polar Express playing on the big screen.  

Before I went down to the school that morning, I got a text from my friend who works with the Kindergarteners with this picture!

I’m just more thankful than you could even imagine that this boy is succeeding in school and sharing love and respect when he is there!

 

2.

I’m thankful we had warm temps for a day to compact the snow a little bit because the sledding conditions are now AH-mazing.  The boys watched a lot of TV yesterday, but they also made it outside a couple times for some speedy sledding on the hill!

 

3.

I’m thankful for a hilarious husband.  Once he’s home after work I can barely go five minutes without laughing.  He can reframe anything to be funny. He has a reputation for breaking awkward moments with humor.  He is such a gift!

 

4.

I’m thankful for my great-great-grandma’s cookie recipe.  How neat that it’s in her handwriting. I love that it says “Gold Medal” in place of flour because back when she wrote this there was probably only one kind of flour on the shelf! Now we have to pick between 50 kinds. I would love to go backward to a little more simplicity!

BTW, these cookies are delicious. Feel free to use the recipe!

5.

I’m thankful for a long slow day forced by illness to get out some things that we don’t usually play with.  Nick got his straws out and then discovered that they were dirty inside at which point I urged him to throw them away and wait until some new ones arrived that I ordered from Amazon.  Of course that was an unacceptable plan so he got a pumper of hand soap and carefully squirted soap down the straw and sucked water up and then blew it back down over and over until he felt like he had sufficiently washed the inside of his straws.  So gross.  At least he’ll have resilient guts.

6.

I’m thankful for this truth! Oh, how he loves us.  He totally didn’t have to enter into this space to rescue a bunch of rebellious kids, but He did.  How incredibly generous.  That’s some kind of incredible love.  I’m going to try to center myself on this truth for the rest of this week as we prepare our hearts to celebrate Christmas!

 

 

Happy Christmas week friends. I hope your day is full of hope and grace. I hope you get  a chance to love in unlikely and unexpected ways. I hope you find the individual gifts of grace given to us from our Father, smattered all over our lives if we will just open our eyes and look.

Grantidotes Day 4

 

I’m writing this a day late. I was completely exhausted with a headache last night after a full day, so I put my earplugs in and went to bed at 8:45.  

Once again though, I’m so glad to be doing this gratitude challenge because throughout the day, when I’m consciously looking for things to be thankful for, I seem to have such an improved perspective on life.  I’m less of a whiner, even if only internally.

 

First Up:

 

1.

COFFEE.

Thank you Jesus for coffee.  Is that super-spiritual that I’m so thankful for a beverage?  I see that so often it’s lauded to give things up like coffee, or sugar, or some kind of food, but you know what that sounds like to me? Crazy talk.  I actually have a whole theology around coffee.

I believe that God has given us coffee because he loves us. He knows we are weak and often tired.  In his mercy he has given us shadows of his glory here on earth, sometimes in the form of things that delight and empower us as we consume them.  I believe coffee falls into that category. I may be overplaying my hand here, but at any rate, drinking coffee every morning causes me to literally thank God, and to feel more equipped and charged up for whatever he has for me to do in a day.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Colossians 2:16-17

2.

I’m so thankful to have both a body and a car that work well.  Last Sunday I slept on the floor of our boys’ room because Nick was sick, and I could hardly move the next day.  My lower back was completely wrecked.  I literally was moving like I did on the first post-op day after having c-sections to deliver our kids.  I busted out the full arsenal of medications, hot baths, ice packs, essential oils, and with that was able to minimally function.  As the week went on I got better and better and I’m about back to my normal speed.  Yesterday I had a full calendar of errands, drop-offs, and things to do, and it hit me as I was racing through the Costco parking lot with my cart: I am SO thankful to have a body that’s back at full speed, barely sore, and a big car that holds all the things that need to be picked up & delivered in a day.  

 

3.

Movies that highlight the gravity of the human condition.  Kevin and I saw Hacksaw Ridge yesterday evening. Wow.  I sat through much of the movie with my posture somewhat recoiled, face in a grimace, holding back tears, literally wringing my hands.  Such an intense movie. If you’re not familiar, the movie is about a young man who believes that his faith requires him to never kill, even in war.  And yet he feels compelled to join the military because his brother and his friends from home all join and he believes it’s not right for him to stay home while they all go fight.

They end up having to scale a cliff via a large rope cargo net, in order to try to push through enemy-occupied hacksaw ridge.  If they can do this, they can get to Okinawa, a pivotal location in the war.  

I won’t spoil it, because I think you should see it.

I am thankful for movies like these, even though they are sad and painful to watch, because I believe it does a few things for us to expose ourselves to stories like this.

 

I think that our generation (I’m generalizing), specifically in the USA, is very far removed from times of war and great suffering. I know this isn’t true for my friends who have served in the military, but the way wars go now is quite different than 80 years ago.  Even when we are in an active conflict, those of us who get to remain home are still very far removed from it.  During the World Wars, it was truly a national effort.  Our great-grandparents lived through the World Wars and the Depression, and as a result, many of them had a very different world view than most of us now have.  They understood the sacrifice needed to promote human flourishing both at home and around the world.  I fear that we often take so many things for granted for which they often had to put some serious skin in the game.  

 

The other thing that always happens when I watch a war movie, is that I have a renewed sense of urgency about sharing the hope of Jesus.  This world is so broken and in need of a Savior.  It’s easy to forget that though, if I stay tightly sealed off inside of my middle class American bubble.  The truth is though, the loss of life, the devaluing of image bearers of God, the hate straight from Hell that incites these epic battles; it grieves the heart of God.  He hasn’t left us without a way out though, and he has provided a form of rescue and redemption that’s available to all people.  Time is short, life is fragile, evil is real yet so is redemption, & eternity is forever.   Those things get seared into my heart all over again when I watch a movie like Hacksaw ridge.

 

Chaos Cutter of the Week

 

It's no secret that moms have full plates.  Whether you're a stay at home mom, working mom, work at home mom, or some combo of all the above, there are never enough hours in the day, can I get an amen?  I am frequently scrambling at dinner time.  It happens fairly often that I text Kevin at 4:30 and say, "I've got no game plan, so if you want something besides cereal tonight, you should swing by Papa Murphy's on your way home." Occasionally we'll do takeout from Blue Flame Asian Bistro in Cashmere which is SO GOOD, but now that we have two boys eating nearly adult portions....cha-ching!  

See though? It's so delicious.

Our wallets and waistlines can only sustain this kind of last minute-eat-whatever-we-can-pickup kind of life for so long before the consequences set in. 

The thing is, I really don't mind cooking. It's definitely not my favorite thing to do, and I'm not pioneer woman by any stretch of the imagination, but these people that want to live here want to eat EVERY DAY.  Who knew?

I've been listening to a podcast called Ispired to Action, and the host is sponsored by this thing called Plan to Eat. She kept talking about it, so finally after a dismal failure of a week of non-dinner cooking, I checked it out. After one week, I'm sold.  Even though it still takes effort to make dinner, at least I already have everything I need in the fridge, and there is no thought process that goes into "what am I feeding these people????" every. single. day.  

The best part is, it's smart-phone friendly.  See, I've done menu planning, making the list, going to the store and getting all the things, and being set for the week.  But lately?  Something happened to my brain with kid #3.  If I remember to plan the menu, I forget to make the grocery list. Or I make the list and forget to take it with me to the store.  I ALWAYS have my phone with me when I leave the house though.  The recipes are dragged and dropped on the website (on your computer or phone) and then my favorite part: IT WRITES YOUR SHOPPING LIST FOR YOU.  And then you read your shopping list from your phone, checking off items as you go.  So genius.  It literally eliminates all the disorganization steps that would usually prevent me from executing the meal planning and subsequent shopping.

I logged on this morning to build my menu for next week and saw a banner that advertises a 50% off yearly subscription as their Black Friday promo, and I just had to share.  If I can share this amazing tool and help you to not want to drink a half a bottle of wine and yell at your kids at 5:00 every night because you are trying to think of what to make for dinner, figure out if you even have food in your house besides Gerber puffs & Apple Sauce pouches, while simultaneously trying to help with homework and break up a fight, then I would be a criminal not to share this with you!

I'm not getting a kickback if you click the link, and I'm in no way affiliated with or compensated by Plan to Eat. I just know this: dinner prep is a major hang up for me, and I've talked to enough of my friends to know that it's a thorn in your side too.  

PS-In case you didn't know, Papa Murphy's has $10 Tuesday every Tuesday.  ANY large pizza on their menu for $10.  You can't even make dinner for $10.  So please give yourself that night off every week and use their new DRIVE THROUGH PICKUP LANE designed especially for moms.

 

So try it! I promise you won't be disappointed!

That Time I Threw an Un-Perfect Party

I didn’t realize I was a raging perfectionist.  Maybe I remember my mom saying something about it at some point, but I didn’t believe her.  How could I be a perfectionist when nothing around me ever seemed perfect?

Lately, I’ve been realizing how much perfection really drives me.  It shows up in how I try to keep our house (notice I said try-because I can’t even pull it off AT ALL).  It shows up in parenting & marriage as well.  It also impacts my relationships with people outside of our family. 

I’m not likely to go out of the house to catch up with a friend if I feel like I can’t leave because the floors haven’t been vacuumed in a few days. 

I’m definitely not likely to invite people to our home when I constantly feel like there is the clutter of 5 people living in 1700 square feet, in every possible place you could find to put anything.

When our yard has absolutely no aesthetic appeal whatsoever because 2 boys have spent the past 7 years driving toy trucks & tractors through what once were flower beds, and our remodeling project pretty much killed the whole yard on the other side of the house, I’m not likely to want to throw out the welcome mat.

Let’s not even talk about Pinterest.  Who can even have a party now without a custom banner, coordinated water bottle labels, & themed snacks?

So, here’s the thing.  All of that stuff I just talked about, I want it all to be done.  I want it to look good.  But I totally lack the skill set and personality type to ever pull it off. 

This has left me in a state of hospitality paralysis.

I’ve noticed there are some people who like the Pinterest perfection, and somehow seem to nail it without breaking a sweat.  Then there are others who don’t even mind living in spontaneity and chaos and mess.  I seriously wish I could pick one of those and go with it, but unfortunately I fall somewhere in the middle.

This leaves me acting like a crazy person anytime I try to actually invite anyone over.

I knew I had been avoiding this, and as a result, we hadn’t hosted a gathering at our house in quite some time.  I decided now was a good time to bite the bullet and do another Cider Press, which hadn’t been done for 3 years.

I busted out my handy “Wunderlist” app, and started planning.  When Thursday morning before the Saturday party arrived, I realized, today should be the time I start to freak out and act like a jerk to my family. 

I so desperately did not want to do that.

So, although I’ve done this many times before, I asked God for help. I asked him to help me love the people I live with more than I am tempted to love having everything go my way. There was no “Alleluia” chorus, and I really didn’t feel super loving at the end of my prayer, but I was so desperate to not lose it on everyone,  I basically told God “I’ll obey whatever you ask me to do these next couple days, if you’ll just help me to love people more than I love things.”

And he totally answered.  He must have helped me so much because 90% of the time the next few days, I felt like I was on mild tranquilizers.  There was one time the morning of the party, where I started to feel that familiar tightness in my chest and thought “Oh no!” I felt like there was too much to do in too little time.

I felt God say-“Go sit down and open your bible”. I answered back “Sorry, tight schedule.” To which he replied-“Kristi, do it.”  So I did.  I really can’t even remember what I read, but it was something in Matthew.  I got up with a renewed sense of calm.

When my sister & her friend Levi arrived a little early to help me set up, I gave her a job and we caught up on life.  After a while I said to her: “You’ve been here prior to several parties, do I seem any less stressed than I typically do?” To which she replied “YES! I was just thinking that! I actually warned Levi on the way up here that you get pretty grouchy before a party!” 

Wow.  My sister has to warn people about me. That solidified my conviction that I needed to chill a little bit.

So, if you were at the party and you’re reading this, thank you for coming! I purposefully did not mop the floors, did not put up any decorations, did not dust, did not give you a water bottle with a fancy label, and I didn’t even have time to sweep the leaves off of the sidewalk. 

We ate, the kids played, we made a TON of cider, and hopefully there were good conversations had.

I’m giving God all the praise for making me simmer down a bit.   As a result, I had a wonderful day with my family on the day before the party, and then went on to have a great time all weekend, during what would have normally been very stressful.  I did get a migraine mid-way through the party, but I took the full arsenal of meds and was able to knock it down enough to enjoy the rest of the day.

I’m hoping this is the beginning of turning over a new leaf.  Maybe this will give me the motivation to invite people over for dinner.  Maybe now I can stop explaining every unfinished project, uncleaned area, and dirty pile of laundry hidden behind a bathroom door, and just enjoy the people that I get to do this life with.

That is, I believe, what Jesus wants for us. He died to reconcile us to himself, and to give us love for each other.  None of us are perfect, so I’m going to intentionally try to stop pretending that I am, and let people in to see the real scene here at the Ahrens house.

Party on.