I had a few minutes today by myself while sitting on the back door steps to eat my lunch.
I watched the breeze ruffle the sheets on the washing line, and that often gives me such a quiet sense of contentment. I noticed my own breathing, which felt one with the movement of the wind.
Then I followed the breeze over the neighbours' backyards, along train lines and through little creeks. I tugged on racy knickers and horses' manes and nudged empty trolleys in shopping centre carparks and kicked up some dirt off someone's newly dug grave and then I blew into the city and out to sea.
I thought of ships sailing on far-off seas, flurries of snow whirling over distant glaciers on the other side of the world, and me, held in the breath of the world. Then the kids found me.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Lunchtime meditation
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What kids see
Friday, September 11, 2009
Taking a break from the world
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Decluttering
It's not too hard to declutter our house. Still, it took me three days.I started on Monday afternoon, going through the house looking for anything broken that I wasn't going to fix - broken crayons, pens, toys, earrings without partners, cheap costume jewellery. In 15 mins I had about 30 objects to throw out.
It makes me feel so good to have done this. It takes time, but I reckon if I didn't have the kids around I could have done it in a day.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Spring cleaning
Spring.
At last.
I'm spring cleaning. I'm starting with decluttering; my house, my mind, my heart and my time.
That's one reason I haven't written on this blog, or read anyone else's, for a while. The other reason is that I wrote what basically amounts to half a book in just two weeks, in preparation for leading a Catholic Engaged Encounter weekend.
I don't think I've ever worked so hard for that length of time before! It's our own fault of course (my husband's and mine), for leaving it all to the last two weeks.
So, back to the decluttering. We all have such limited hours in the day. I'm trying to revise how best to use mine, so that my time is offered in a way which is life-giving for me and for the people I love.
I'm not really sure if this blog will stay or go. I suspect it will stay, but it was interesting having almost two weeks' enforced break from the internet.
I suspect I had become addicted to having the damn thing there to look at all day long, whenever I passed the computer, which is a lot. After a bit of withdrawal, I am feeling a lot better.
So I am really keen to go very, very carefully. Perhaps there will be less blog posts but (hopefully) they will be greater quality. In the meantime, my house, my kids and my marriage need me more (not in that order of course!).
For my blog friends, I've caught up on your blogs tonight, don't have time to comment, but want to say 'hi!'