They

...are the reason this blog has remained quiet for a year.
...are similar and completely unique.
...make chugging a cold cup of coffee normal.
...inspire me to cook, innovate, be intentional, and create.  and suck all of the energy away that I have to do those things. sometimes by 6:45 a.m.
...are 6, 2, and 2.
...make me one of millions in a community of parents who share a bond over this relationship we live.
...can turn my house from tidy to Armageddon in 2.4 seconds.
...are responsible for making sure I have someone else's food or drink on my person at all times. (and by "on my person," I don't mean a closed sippy cup or neatly wrapped snack in my purse)
...have made my marriage stronger and harder.
...were all cloth-diapered and breast-fed.  and made the day I donated my Medela pump one of the happiest of my parenting existence. and I'm really proud of sticking to what I thought was best.
...make me cry.  proud tears, nostalgic tears, exhausted tears, doubting myself tears.  again, sometimes all by 6:45 a.m.
...eat a lot of groceries. so. many. gallons. of. milk.
...have re-shaped my body in some unfortunate ways.  and made me care less about that and more about keeping it healthy enough to be around to see grandchildren.
...have given me a deep appreciation for the beauty of well-written children's books and programming.
...make it hard to keep up with the things it takes to be a grown-up.  the amount of important everything that I forget on a daily basis is staggering.
...can make a day seem like it will never end while simultaneously making me wonder how they are growing up so fast.
...are a really good cover for keeping things like mac n' cheese, oreos, chicken nuggets, and string cheese in the house.
...make putting them first a mostly guilt-free decision.
...are all in bed.

Until It Isn't

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

A popular topic of parenting humor on social media is a list of all of the things you swore you would never do as a parent, until you became one.  I read them and laugh, knowing that most of them are true of myself and probably most of the other parents of young children that I know.  Many years ago I might have groaned out of annoyance as a child of any age sat near me on an airplane, for example, and now my chest aches with pity and empathy for the haggard mom with the screaming baby in the row behind me, because I have been there too.
As my oldest child approaches school-age, I find myself running into more and more examples of situations that just aren't as easy to stick to my guns as I thought they would be.  Not putting a DVD player in the minivan in order to encourage discussion and imagination?  Simple.  Limiting TV for my child to a set amount of time each day?  Easy....until I had twins.  Staying calm during temper tantrums and trying to re-direct into more positive activities?  Hard in any situation.  But even I am surprised by my newest challenge - ignoring gender stereotypes.

My four-year-old is a boy, and my three-month-old twins are girls.  I have never been one to believe for one minute that girls should have everything pink and only boys should play with trucks.  I couldn't bear to wear pink until I was well into my 20's and dressing professionally.  I started watching sports as early as I can remember and started playing them as soon as the leagues would allow my age.  My husband does most of the cooking, and I will readily admit he is much better at it than me.  So of course it should be easy to continue living these examples with my children, right?

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

My daughters wear some baby clothes that are meant for girls, and hand-me-downs from my son that are meant for boys.  They just stay in the house and spit up on them anyway, who cares?  But after a nurse commented that "I must not have known I was having girls" when I dressed them in neutral-colored clothing for a doctor appointment, I made sure they were wearing something girly to the next one, even though I felt a pang of regret for the reason I was dressing them that way.

I think my son is the sweetest little boy in the world.  When he uses his manners, or sings to himself while he plays with his toys, or gives hugs to his friends and family without being prompted, I just want to squeeze him forever. Two of his favorite things right now are the Disney cartoon "Doc McStuffins" and the Disney movie "Frozen."  Doc McStuffins is about a little girl who plays a doctor that fixes and cares for toys.  Frozen is a movie with two sisters as the main characters, who end up (SPOILER ALERT) saving each other instead of the handsome prince coming to save the day. (If you haven't seen that movie yet, it is amazing, go see it).  I couldn't be more proud that he chooses these types of stories to enjoy.  But when he was so excited to tell me that a friend at school (a girl) had on a Frozen t-shirt, instead of my usual response of "That's awesome, do you think you would like something like that too?", I simply said "That's awesome."  When he saw the Frozen dolls while picking out a gift for a birthday party, or the big Frozen castle, I said it cost too much money (which it did) knowing full well that I didn't want to buy it even if it didn't.  When he asked for the Doc McStuffins play set, all kinds of glittery, pink, and purple, so he could have check-ups with his stuffed animals too, I procrastinated even looking into it until it was long sold-out for the Christmas season. That wasn't pre-meditated, but I'll admit a little bit of relief that it was.  And through all of this the part of my pre-parent brain that thought all of this color stuff was nonsense just looks at this weak mother, caving to the pressures of society, bug-eyed and disappointed.  I'm not actively discouraging him, but I'm not actively encouraging like I should be, either.  Why do I care what "they" would think?  I know I would steal the moon for my children, and I know that I want them to believe that they can be whoever they want to be, and like whatever they want to like, but it is harder than I thought to ignore outside influences.

It is easy to practice what you preach, until it isn't.

Hear Me Roar

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Almost two weeks ago I started a little adventure in the hospital because the twins we are expecting tried to meet the world a little earlier than they should. Thankfully they have still not made their debut, and I hope to be waiting for many weeks until the time comes for them to join us.

On day one, I was transported from one hospital to another to be at a location with the appropriate nursery. At the time it was a very scary ordeal, but if you can find humor even in the face of terror, you might as well take advantage of a little bit of relief.

My ambulance ride was long enough that I had the opportunity to make several observations. First, I could never be an EMT. Never mind all the medical knowledge and skill you are expected to possess, I couldn't even handle being the guy who rides in the back and fills out the paperwork. I think most patients would frown upon the results of my car sickness. So, EMT-guy-in-the-back, I salute you, your inner-ear stability, and strong stomach.

Next, let's move on to the EMT ambulance driver in the front. You, sir, are awesome.  I know it was a small section of time, and there could be many explanations, but I have to admit, I was totally judging your personality based solely on your amazing music choices. Maybe you thought you were choosing what I would enjoy, but I'm pretty sure that was for you. I was mildly amused as we switched from one diva dance groove to the next. When you settled on Katy Perry singing Roar, there was no doubt in my mind you were up there lip-synching and head-bobbing, and it made me a little giggly. When we scanned the stations, landed again on Katy Perry's Roar, and listened to it once more from start to finish, you about sent me into a fit of hysterical laughter. In my mind's eye, you were no longer just lip-synching and head-bobbing, you were full-out celebrating and gettin' down as we flew down the expressway in our little dance floor on wheels. Thankfully I was able to keep it together, otherwise the steel-stomached guy in the back might have added a psychiatric evaluation to my paperwork.

I know that judging a book by its cover is wrong, but I just couldn't help myself. Blame the stress, the anxiety, the need for distraction, but that ride is one I will remember, even a little bit fondly, thanks to my Katy-loving EMT ambulance driver.

Jam on, sir. Jam on.

Too much good stuff...for real this time

Last summer, I started a season of reigning in the crazy.  I recognized that while I had an abundance good things in my life, it was time to take a hard look at all of the activities that I said yes to and set some priorities.    I do think progress has been made.  All of the same opportunities are still there, tempting me and shaming me into thinking I should say yes because I'm good enough to handle it all.  But I think I have gotten a little smarter, a little braver, and a little healthier.  This weekend, for example, is pretty unscheduled.  By this past Thursday afternoon I realized that and started thinking "Who haven't we seen lately?  What project have we been putting off?  How can I make sure this open time isn't wasted?"  By Thursday night I had successfully shaken myself by the shoulders and canned any ideas of filling this open time.  My entire family is benefiting from it as we glide through the hours having fun and getting moderate chores completed.

As I continue to work at being smart about over-scheduling, I am moving from a season of pruning away figurative life-clutter into a season of getting rid of actual, filling-my-house, clutter.  No one in my house is a collector, or a hoarder, but there is just a lot of, well, stuff.  The way this scenario would have played out in the past goes something like this:  Live, obtain stuff, use stuff, put stuff away in different places, lose stuff as it gets covered by new stuff, organize big heaps of stuff into more structured big heaps of stuff, get frustrated, lose my mind, snap, and spend three weeks using every open moment to tackle every single room, donating, throwing-away, and super cleaning.  I suppose life experience and parenting has helped me realize that this is not a sustainable system.  So instead I have made the very sensible decision to just take a section at a time as I go about my normal day.  When that shelf is so full that I can't put something else on it without five minutes of balancing things just right, I will take the 15 minutes required to take the stuff down, throw away what is expired, old, and over-used, start a donate bag for the items that someone else could use for a while, and have one less cluttered shelf.  You might ask why I haven't been doing that all along, but this is a paradigm shift for me.  I am fighting life-long learned tendencies to keep things because I might be able to somehow reuse them and save the money and hassle of buying a new one.  It is why I am just starting, 14 years after graduating from college, to throw away gross college t-shirts that I had just in case I needed to a dirty job.  Not even a mechanic could need the amount of ratty t-shirts I have collected.  My need for order and space is finally beating out that need to keep things "just in case."

So far:

• Expired drug-store items have been trashed (expired in 2009?  really??)
• Kitchen cabinets have been cleared of glassware (how did we ever collect enough sets of margarita glasses and beer steins to entertain an entire frat house?)
• Place-mats that have been used since we were married have been replaced (10 years creates a lot of stains)
• Another bag of clothes has been donated
• An armada of plastic grocery bags has been dropped off at the store for recycling
• At least a year's-worth of batteries was taken for recycling (did I mention we have a three-year-old who likes toys that make noise?)

Next up is a bag of old shoes that need to be taken from my closet floor to a recycle drop off  location.  Since spring is around the corner, I'm guessing something in the garage isn't far behind.  The difference between today and five years ago is that in the past, that list of what has already been done would have been forced into a single weekend and I would have been near-tears by Sunday night.  Present-day, I have completed those things comfortably over the course of the last month or so, and none of them have felt like an imposition to complete.  And yes, it feels really good to not have things come tumbling out of the medicine cabinet when it is opened, and to eat on pretty place-mats.

I am still wondering what finally changed in me that I decided to do things differently.  Clearly, scaling back has been the over-riding theme this past year, and it is a very welcome and positive move.  I'm just not sure what finally pushed me, gave me the bravery, the ability to stand up to myself, the oom-pha, to finally just do it.  I suppose that shouldn't matter, but it is something I ponder anyway.

What mountains have you scaled after living under the assumption they were just too high?  What changes are being put on your heart that you might not be paying enough attention to yet?  

It's all in the eyes

There are times when I catch a glimpse of these eyes looking back at me from a mirror and it startles me.  You probably don't see it, but since I've been staring back at these eyes for more than three decades, I notice the changes.  Sparkle.  Dull.  Bright.  Bloodshot.  Baggy.  Lively.  Exhausted.  I see it all.

I have so many blessings.  Some days I can choose to look at all of my busyness as managing an overabundance of blessings.  Many days I am much less optimistic.  No matter how I choose to look at it, I am tired.  Not just long-weekend of college all-nighters tired, but something rivaling the first three months after birthing a newborn tired.  The kind of tired that comes from trying to do it all for too long.

But I'm also tired of feeling this way.  My usual reaction to long stretches like this is to try to fix it all at once.  No patience to do it right.  So this time, I am going to systematically attack it. I am not going to try and get sleep, work less, relax more, exercise more, stress less, and spend more time playing, cooking, and reading, all in one day.  Small goals this time.  Once I accomplish one, I will be better equipped to accomplish another.

I'm starting with rest.  As much as I am tempted to move straight to the other more fun fixes, I am being smart enough to realize it just won't work without rest.  So, next week, I am setting a time to try and leave the office no matter what is left undone, and I am setting a time that my body needs to be in bed every night. Neither of those sound like they should be very hard for most people, but since I have not been able to accomplish either for about four months, they may not be very easy for me.

We all have to start somewhere.  I choose Monday.

More than enough

I have reached my limit before.  In many ways, at many different times in my life, I've hit that point where it was very clear to me that whatever my limit was, I had found it.  I am confident it's not the best way to handle it, but it takes that point of explosion before I am able to finally hand over the controls.  This time, the limit reached was in regards to too many things.  Obligations, commitments, chores, tasks, work, hobbies, all of it.  It has been a frequent pattern of mine.  I say yes, I plan more, I underestimate the amount of rest I need, and it all goes great until it doesn't.

The past few weeks have brought some changes.  Work has gotten busier and later, time has decreased, stress has gone up, balls have been dropped.  Never in my life have I just completely forgotten plans that had been made.  I might confuse dates, times, need to look at the calendar a few extra times, cancel on short notice, but never just forgotten.  Until I did.  That was the limit this time around.  A kick-to-the-gut announcement that this just can't continue.  So I started making changes.  Things that I wouldn't even consider discontinuing a few days prior were suddenly the things that had to go.

I heard a story a few weeks ago about an Olympic athlete and the after-training recovery he endures.  Rather than ice packs or ice baths to soothe muscles and joints, he goes into some kind of cryofreeze chamber.  For 30 seconds, it gets so cold that the body abandons all hope for the limbs and pulls all the blood flow into the core.   When he comes out of the chamber, the blood that rushes back into the limbs has gone through a filtering process that has removed much of the lactic acid that causes soreness and swelling, etc.  I think it sounds absolutely crazy, but I like the metaphor that it creates.  I am going through my own similar process.  My limbs are important to my body, just like many of these to-do's are important to who I am.  But in a crisis, those to-do's need to be abandoned to take care of my core for a while.  And when I'm ready to start reaching out and getting back into some of those things, the energy I am able to put into them is increased ten-fold.

I am getting a lot of positive reinforcement that I am doing the right thing.  Have you ever had that experience where you hear something you've never heard before, and then all of the sudden it keeps coming up?  Ever since I decided to start pruning things, I've read blogs, seen pictures, heard stories, had discussions, all about exactly this topic.  And every decision I make to reduce the list makes me feel a little bit better.  I know I am doing the right thing, as much as I wish I didn't have to let some of these things go.

One of the blogs I read makes the amazing point that sometimes you have to get rid of some of the extraneous good things to make room to really enjoy the important good things.  That is a great explanation for myself of what I am trying to do.  I have been blessed more than I can ever understand with so many things.  Everything I am pulling back from is important to me somehow; I don't want to let it go.  But if I can't  truly be in the present and enjoying any one thing because I am focused on trying to juggle 50 things, then there doesn't seem to be much point in doing any of them.

I am on the right track and feeling better.  The long-term challenge will be maintaining a lower level of stuff so that I can go through smaller cycles of building and pruning instead of hitting the wall and sliding downward.  I'm not ready for that challenge yet.  For now I just have to focus on enjoying the important good things...

 ....and saying goodbye to some others.

...and then stop thinking.

I went for a run tonight with no distractions: no music, no GPS, nothing.  In the absence of distraction, my brain was overflowing with things I didn't want to think about, including the desire to be done running.  I have no idea how far I ran or how long I was gone.  But after about halfway of whatever that final distance was, I was too tired to focus on anything but my own breathing, yet not tired enough to quit.  So I kept going until tired was winning.  And then I went a little more.  In total brain silence.

In my life leading up to this year, I have never considered myself a runner.  I was a two-sport varsity athlete for four years of high school, and couldn't run long distances.  I kept in on-and-off shape in college, and couldn't run long distances.  I played beach volleyball for six months a year for five years of adulthood, and I couldn't run long distances.  I have been exercising relatively regularly for about seven months now after a two-year parenting hiatus, and all of the sudden, I can run longer distances.  It's certainly not magic.  I've been working hard, losing weight, building muscle, so it makes logical sense that it is improving my distance running.  But after a lifetime of defeat, I cannot wrap my brain around this new ability.

As I sat stretching and recovering, I considered what I just did, and was really fascinated about the idea that when I stopped thinking and kept pushing, it just worked.  Much of what I have been doing the last seven months has been P90X, which has done amazing things for me.  In the yoga workout, there is a point where you are standing tall on your toes and reaching toward the ceiling.  To help keep balance, Tony Horton (the guy responsible for the P90X workout), says "Don't think about your feet on the floor, think about your hands in the air.  And then stop thinking."  And it works every time.  I go from wobbly and shaky to stiff as a board, just like that.  The power of anti-thought.

Am I on to something here?  Is this what I need to do in other situations too?  Consider parenting.  A good friend asked me how it works, how you are able to put it all aside, the exhaustion, frustration, scheduling, etc., to be a parent.  I think about childbirth, sleep deprivation, hour-long temper tantrums, balancing stressful work days with calmer family time, and I know I have used that same strategy.  Too tired to focus on anything but my own breathing, and not tired enough to quit, so I just keep going.  I think this is a solid strategy for sports.  For other areas of life, I'm not so sure.  But it's an honest strategy, and I would hazard a guess that I'm not alone in using it. Unfortunately, it works well for the short-term, but completely unravels in the long haul.  It's helpful when your newborn is crying at 10 pm, 2 am, and 5 am.  Don't think, just do.  It's not helpful when your schedule is so full that you forget the plans you just confirmed 24 hours ago.  Must think, can't do.  There's a balance there somewhere that I just haven't found.  Better go for a longer run.

Maybe next year

This was supposed to be it.  Right now.  Over the past few years, every time I uttered the words "Well, I guess we can't right now, but next summer we should (fill in the blank here)," I was talking about this summer.  Three summers ago I was pregnant.  Two summers ago I had a wobbly, nap-taking, one-year-old. Last summer I had a determined, quicker-than-lightning, two-year-old.  But this summer, this summer, I have a child old enough to safely join in most activities and I am so very experienced at being a Mom that it should be easy to schedule life in order to accommodate anything.
.....Is there a font for sarcasm?  I guess not.  You'll have to improvise.

The air in my house is thick with laters, not yets, and soons that are looking for a place to land.  My son doesn't take very kindly to hearing those words, and I really can't blame him because I don't either. The current focus of my impatience is our garden.  I was so looking forward to the flowers we were going to plant, the landscaping we were going to complete, and endless summer nights of relaxing on our newly-painted deck enjoying the view.

At least the deck is painted.

I don't consider our yard anything out of the ordinary when it comes to the amount of work required to maintain it.  It takes quite a bit of time and effort throughout the spring and summer, but for anyone with a suburban yard who doesn't employ landscapers, that seems normal to me.  And I enjoy doing it.  But the time just isn't there right now.  Every year we research, measure, sketch, plan, and we end up weeding, pruning, watering, and wishing.

I suppose I should be grateful this year, as we sit in the middle of one very long Midwest drought.  Just keeping the few perennials watered enough to stay green is a nightly task that would take much, much longer  if we had planted everything we had wanted.  But seeing all of the empty, dry beds of dirt every night does not give me peace.  I recognize it is more frustrating because it is a symptom of my larger issue with scheduling, but that perspective doesn't put color in my yard.

However, we did manage to try one new thing this year that isn't dead yet.  Back in March we placed an order for a native plant kit from Conserve Lake County, an organization that works towards land and water preservation and conservation in our area.  The kit arrived just after we came home from our June vacation, thanks to some customer service and a purposely delayed shipment, and we were able to plant it right away.






When it comes to planning a garden, it doesn't get much easier than how they set it up for us.  It came like this.....

.....with a little map like this.....











....and once we got them all in the ground, we had ourselves a little area of life that had a plan and purpose:

They look a little tiny and sad in these photos, but a few weeks later, the plants are taller and thicker and generating new sprouts, so we may well be on our way to something successful.  I will wait a while before posting updated pictures; right now there is not much more to show.  In theory, there should eventually be flowers and butterflies, which will make for much more exciting images.

I'm pretty sure these are all going to come back next year, as long as they grow and get established right now.  So next year will definitely be the year that our yard is going to look great.

It's no wonder I am a Cub fan.

Attack of the gnome

Six months ago I started to write a blog.  The blog was some extra motivation to make good changes and stick to them so I would have something to write.  Changes were made, and are ongoing, and that is good.  Looking back at my list of posts, I can see that in February that annoying little overachieving gnome started to poke holes in my happy plan.  In March, he took over.  I'm pretty sure that life has been on the downhill of a roller-coaster since then.  Not downhill as in negative, but definitely downhill as in super-speed.  I know it feels like this has been going on for a while, but when I see that I've written two posts in the last three months, it makes it even more clear.  What have I been doing?  I'm not quite sure, it's hard to pick out the shapes in the blur.  There has been plenty of fun mixed in with the work.  There has been cooking, reading, exercise, gardening, picture taking, time with family and time with friends.  But that gnome has been sprinting laps around my brain for three months, reminding me of all the to-do's that are sitting and waiting for me, and I think it's about time to make it stop.  The to-do's will never go away, and that's ok.  But that gnome, I think it's time to send him on a long vacation, and while he's gone try to figure out how to send him on a swim with the fishes.

So, today is a new day.  Thanks to a long vacation with family, I'm rested.  Thanks to a quiet morning with my son, and a leisurely walk with the dog, I'm relaxed.  Thanks to this post, I'm ready to get back to doing awesome things and blogging about them.  Stay tuned.

Limit Reached

I set out a few months ago with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish.  And in true me fashion, I took that list with the intention of tackling the whole thing.  And in true me fashion, I found the proverbial wall and crashed into it with impressive force.

I have incorporated a lot of the things I wanted to do.  That includes both actions and schedule fillers and also just a better awareness for myself of  what I want to use my time doing.  And I'm happy with what I've done.  But, I'm tapped out.  All of the sudden all of the things, more prayer, more cooking, more reading, more exercise, more family time, more time with friends, more focused parenting, more time outside, more more more MORE MORE MORE MORE has gotten to the point of, well, too many "mores".  But it is also the season where it gets nicer outside and all of the sudden the schedule of things to do explodes.  But the problem is that I don't want to stop or slow down on any of the things I've added.  So somehow I have to figure out how to reorganize what I have with what is coming.  Now I have to make room for gardening and forest preserve walks and baseball games and swimming and vacations, and whatever else summer brings.  Which is all good stuff.  But my brain starts to smoke a little when I think about managing it all.  And I kind of just want to crawl onto the couch and turn it all off and pretend I have plenty of time to do whatever I want.

But I can't.  So I won't.  I'll figure it out.  I think.  Stay tuned.

Free Fallin'

I have been very blessed over the last few months to have many opportunities to write about positive changes I have been making.  Today I want to share with you my regression.

I have a toddler.  Ergo, I have stress.  This is not shocking to anyone, nor to myself.  But even having a very clear understanding and anticipation that a boulder is going to fall on you doesn't make it feel any lighter when it does.  This day.....oh, this day.  This day has been a shake-your-head kind of day.  I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to work longer days and be off on Fridays.  I know that this is a privilege many working moms would love to have.  And days like today make me feel completely ungrateful and wasteful of this beautiful privilege.  Because really, my most stressful days at work don't even hold a candle to what I feel when there is stress on Friday.  Work would be easy.

He is going to be three in a few months.  There has been some turnover in the teachers at his daycare.  He has been fighting eye, nose, chest cold stuff for two weeks.  I get it, he has stress too, and good reason to act the way he is today.  Every request I make floats out in the air never to be noticed.  Every question I ask to get a positive response elicits a no.  All movement at the speed of turtle.  Blank stares.  Every one of mommy's buttons pushed, pushed, and pushed again.  Is any of this behavior really that awful?  No.  But OH MY STARS does it test my patience.

Patience.  That virtue is one that I clearly have not passed the exam on, because God continues, and continues, and continues, to keep teaching me lessons.  Most of every difficult time I can think back on, when I came out on the other side of it, I was pretty sure that it was meant to be a lesson in patience.  And every time, I wonder if I finally learned it correctly that time.  So either I am the worst patience student and am going to be spending every class, every detention, and every summer school continuing to try and get this, or I am dead wrong and completely missing the point.  But, I'm pretty sure the point is patience.  And I'm not good at it.

I am pleased with myself that instead of cozying up in the corner with a party-size bag of M&Ms during nap time, I only grabbed three pieces of dark chocolate, which I am just finishing up now as I write.  Thank you, dear reader, for helping me bring my blood pressure down and hopefully step back from the ledge before nap time ends.

Try, try again

I had a really good idea.

Shortly after Christmas, I was at the library for the first time in about two years.  The last time I was there was to pay a $50 fine and give them a copy of the police report I filed after someone stole my keys, including the mini library card attached, and checked out a LONG list of books that they never had any intention of returning.  Since I haven't been reading much since then, it took me until now to get back there and get a new library card.  So I was at the library, and came across the Bible on CD.  Actually many CDs, 60 to be exact.   So I picked up the CDs, and decided I could put them in my car to use them during my commute.  That would be an hour a day more of the Bible than I would otherwise accomplish.  Surely this was the solution to my struggles of incorporating more time for reading the Bible.

As I checked out the binder of CDs, I confirmed the due date with the librarian, and when I commented that I probably wouldn't finish them all in three weeks, she made a comment that is both true and bothersome.  She said that I could just renew it, because she was pretty sure there wouldn't be a big rush on people wanting to have it as well.  While I know that is true, there is never going to be a long line of people out the door to check out 60 CDs of someone reading the Bible, I guess I just found it disheartening the way she said it with such a snarky tone.

But off I went with my massive binder of Bible CDs.  I have a 6-disc player in my car, so I loaded up all but the first.  (The first slot is reserved for the Wiggles, and a certain someone who regularly rides in the back seat would not be pleased if that was removed.)  For a week, both to and from work, I listened.

I had problems.  There are many versions of the Bible, and this CD compilation happened to use the King James Version.  I doth have-eth a very difficult time-eth understanding-eth this version.  So listening to these CDs required pretty strong concentration, and many times I missed the point of the words I was hearing because it was almost being spoken in a language I can't understand.  I also found myself drifting away to unrelated thoughts as the reader went along, and while I got the gist of where in the Bible we were, what story was being told, I was definitely missing the message.  And there really is something I missed about sitting and reading the words on the page, re-reading and absorbing the verses as I go along.

After a week, I stopped.  I knew that for me, this wasn't the right way to do this.  But I struggled with giving in, because I have not been able to find a consistent way to continue reading the Bible.  I read portions on Sundays.  I read portions at the occasional small group or Bible study.  But beyond that, I struggle.  I was reminded today at church, however, that reading the Bible from cover to cover is not what saves me.  Reading the Bible shouldn't be a "to-do" on my checklist.  Until I can find a way to spend meaningful time learning and applying the messages in that book, just reading it to read it is pointless.

So I'm returning the CD's this week.  Maybe the librarian was wrong, and there actually is a person out there who wants these.  They, most likely, need these more than I do, because this just didn't work for me.  I don't know what to try next when it comes to this topic.  But I bet if I stop trying to do it myself, stop listening to the words and start hearing the message, it will be a good start.