squirrel.

every single day random snippets run through my mind at a break-neck pace. i keep thinking i want to write them down and then i get to my computer to type and my mind moves like the dog from "up". the dang squirrels are everywhere.

i keep feeling this tug on my heart to write more. to sit down and put some sort of something on the page. i have yet to discover if this is something out of my own subconscious which tries in vain to assign meaning where none exists, or if it actually comes from a place of God-led direction. 

i suppose the best way to find out is to put the words dutifully on the page and see what happens. i'm not sure what i expect to happen. i'm not sure what could happen to give me confidence in either direction, but i'm still hopeful i'll know it when i experience it.

the last few weeks have left me a bit harried. trying to shove too many things into too many days in a row will do that to you. {granted i think that i must be different and special and i can do it even though others fall on their faces while trying because i'm a conceited fool.}

some weeks life takes it out of you in the best possible way, and some weeks life just takes it out of you.

i spend over an hour talking with my husband many evenings after the kids go to bed. he helps me process my days - sometimes even willingly - and helps me see things about myself which i'd prefer to stay blissfully unaware of. but he will have none of that. usually because he loves me and wants what's best for me, and sometimes because i'm acting like a complete idiot who looks a lot different than the person i imagine myself to be and he has to call me on it. 

he doesn't let me get away with lying to myself, which is extremely annoying.

it's also one of the reasons i married him. i've thought a lot about our marriage recently. i've thought a lot about our children {mostly because it's a rule of being a parent since kids are the pieces of your heart that walk around outside of your body}. i've thought about real everyday life and the wins and losses that come with it.

last week i came home from soccer practice late and got to hear the story of the evening. that my youngest {who is potty-trained, but every once in a while she forgets this} had an accident on the carpet of our bedroom and decided to use my cashmere sweater to mop it up as best she could. 

oh.the.joys.

{this was one of the losses if you're keeping track.}

parenting brings so many unexpected moments into my life. lately, i've thought a lot about the pieces of everyday living that together make up a life, and i've thought about how i'm living mine. i attribute this mostly to my overly-analytical tendencies and to all of the books i've read recently.

over the last couple of days i started listening to the audiobook of jon acuff's start. and i realized that i can sit here and talk about all of the things i want to do with my life, but unless i actually carve out time for the things i say i want to do then they're just thoughts and dreams and never make their way to plans. 

a few weeks ago i read scott erickson's new book, say yes. toward the end he lays out an exercise to help his readers figure out what their "thing" is, what their "say yes" is. and i realized that if i get to the end of my life and i didn't take the time to write consistently, i would regret it. it doesn't mean that writing is something that will turn into something in the grand sense of the word {see above}, but it will be something in my life.

a few days after i finished scott erickson's book i listened to a podcast tim ferriss did with anne lamott. anne lamott is one of my absolute favorite writers mostly because she's so honest and doesn't try to pretty up the gross and hard parts of life. she doesn't shy away from hard truths just because they're hard. after i listened to them talk about it, i pulled out my highlighted and worn copy of bird by bird for another read. last night i read a few chapters while walking circles around the living room after the kids went to bed mostly because i'm a little bit crazy and didn't have enough steps for the day.

i have so many hamsters running on so many wheels it's amazing that some days i manage to keep them mostly straight.

but hopefully at the end of the day, or the week, or the year, or the life, they end up running somewhere that matters. i don't know where this path will take us, my friends. to borrow from a couple of literary giants: i can't see around the bend in the road, or farther than the headlights can see, but i know that i don't want to get to the end of my life and wish that i had done things differently. 

so i'll start where i am and see where we end up. 

you're welcome to come along and see what happens.

happy wednesday.

xoxo