Coveting - That sounds bad too. But its a lot shorter than "things I'm currently trying to find room in the budget for" although that is technically more accurate. Again, thanks to my new studies, I'm wanting to go minimalist for shoes now. The kids got water shoes in their Easter baskets but not just for in the water. They are good, inexpensive "barefoot" shoes (zero drop, securely attached, thin and flexible bottom) which is kinda rare. Thin and minimalist shoe do not normally go well together. I'm still looking around for myself but I did go on an actual barefoot hike a while back and plan to again.
UPDATE: I bought these (see what happens when it takes me two weeks to finish a blog post! I buy and wear shoes I was only talking about before). They are not to expensive or weird looking. I've only worn them one day but I like them so far. Now I can throw out my last pair of athletic shoes which I bought for my, uhm, honeymoon. Yes, that is correct, I haven't bought new sneaker type shoes in over 9 years. Despite how this post is all about clothes so far, I really don't like shopping much.
Reading - The Circe magazine. Love it! I got a hard copy which makes me really happy. I used to love magazines but stopped reading them because 1) I don't have time to sit and read in a library and I'm too cheap to buy them and 2) they were so frivolous. This one is free and completely not frivolous. And who is Wes Callihan and were has be been all my life? If you can only read one of the articles, please please read his interview. Some of his points were so simple to understand and yet, so profound.
Pondering - Prayer. It's everywhere! Our church has been talking about it recently but now its just seeming to be in every conversation and situation. That article I just mentioned, got a big dose of prayer in there! (Yes, an article about classic education!) I even picked up a silly random book from overdrive and bam - turns out its chock full of prayer! Okay God, I'm listening! Prayer has never been my strongest discipline but recently I've started realizing how much my other struggles are really the same struggle. I'd been putting prayer in this box and isolating it and telling myself "Yes, must work on prayer. I'll get to that - someday" meanwhile I struggle with discipline and priorities and cynicism in these other areas of my life. Hello! It's the same thing!
I can struggle with my smart phone and wonder if I should get rid of it or try and put a time tracking app on it (oh, the irony of the time tracking/app blocking app) just like I get a prayer journal and make a plan to pray and then..not a whole lot changes. Because those are not the real root issue. The real issues are the discipline and priorities. When it comes to many of the non-prayer areas where I come up lacking, I can kinda brush it off or compare myself to others and like what I see. But with prayer, it seems to be so glaring obvious that I can't avoid it unless I just avoid prayer altogether. I have no idea what other people's prayer lives are like and I don't really care. I don't want to be as good a pray-er as someone else, I want to be as close to God as Jesus. That's my aim even though I know I won't reach it. And to be sadly completely honest, for me I can't say it isn't priorities. Because I do make things happened in my life because I value them. I make room somehow. And when I'm not making room, it says something. I may not like what it says but it says it nonetheless. So I've got to go back to God and wrestle that out with him and be refined some more. And that has to be through prayer too since he doesn't communicate by smartphone.
But God's so good to me and is helping me out. Since all this prayer focus has started for me, he's put a couple very easy to understand opportunities for prayer right in front of me. Like a flashing light saying "Pray for THIS" because my personality was saying "DO SOMETHING" and there was really nothing else I could do. And I would, then I'd stop and again it would come up, "Nope, pray for this!" He's also put some great people in my life that when I ask for prayers, follow up with me and in a way, hold me accountable. I can't ask someone else to pray and care about a situation in my life unless I'm really there praying about it too (well, I can, and at a different point in my life I might ask them that but this isn't that time) and when they ask me to pray about something, I know they really want those real prayers, not just a chance to share news via the "prayer request" and that helps me too. Maybe my prayer for help on praying is working :-)
Preparing - For summer? How did that happen?! But I just signed Lucy up for swim lessons and the morning class was already booked for the entire month of June so I was hardly too early. Although the afternoon class might end up being a good thing since it will leave our regular morning school/outdoor play time unadulterated and that seems to help a good deal life in general. I'm not sure where we'll be school wise then because I haven't done that much planning. I'm taking it a term at at time. But we just started week
Speaking of moving fast, my littlest two are asleep, my biggest and her dad are gone for the night and my evening of peace and quiet reading are about to pass by me so off I go to grab a book and maybe a stolen piece of Easter candy or two. Till next time!
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