Restlessness

I have had a couple of nice quiet days at home, by choice but also enforced because Miss Cheeky has had a head cold.  It's a change from the end of last year, where I was out almost everyday.

It has been nice, Miss Cheeky is all but we'll again, I've gotten a lot of housework done, though I wish I had more motivation when it came to doing the ironing. But there is a few big BUT's that go along with the peace and solitude of staying home.

*I feel duty bound when I am home to do as much housework as I can, but then I feel guilty for doing the housework instead of playing with Miss Cheeky so I give up on the housework and play, then I feel guilty because she has worn me out and I can't be bothered with the rest of the housework.  I believe it's called Mother Guilt, if anyone has found the cure please share it!

*I worry about Miss Cheeky's socialisation.  I don't really need to, she plays very well with her friends and the other kids at Church and is always making new friends with kids at the shops or anywhere else we go for that matter.  More Mother Guilt.....

But the biggest BUT I have noticed is that being at home with all the housework and tradesmen coming to give quotes and food preparation etc is that I have time to think.  Don't get me wrong. I don't necessarily think that thinking is a bad thing, but I have always found that when its too hot and humid to do much (and our house retains the heat, in fact since the cool change over the weekend the house has often been hotter than outside) I begin to get restless.  I lose my motivation, I can't focus on anything that has to be done, though I can focus on wasting time on the computer and I start to notice every little thing that I don't like or need to change or fix about the house, the garden, what I feed my family and there begins the spiral of fault finding, worry and anxiety.

I have decided that the spiral isn't going to take me down with it today.  I am going to keep going and even though if I look at the list of jobs to be done around the house, the list of projects to be started and the list of activities that I want to do with Miss Cheeky I am very quickly overwhelmed, today, I am not going to let restlessness, worry and anxiety win.

Discovering Discontentment

We watched a movie called "Courageous" a few months ago, it was aimed at encouraging fathers to become better Dad's and be fathers the way God intended.  Hubby really like the movie and found it challenging, so I bought him the book that goes along with the movie (The Resolution for Men) and at the same time discovered that there was a "The Resolution for Women" book, which I had really been hoping for.  After all, why should the guys be the only ones getting some guidance on what exactly God wants from us as parents!

Well, I finally started reading my book, and in the very first section of the first chapter I was challenged.... no confronted might be a better word, with a look at my own life.  The author, Priscilla Shirer talks about her inclination to rush through stages of her life to try to get to the next happier, better stage and I it felt like she was talking about me, not to me, but ABOUT me.  I have always, since i was a teenager, tried to move past where I was to a better place, to a happier time to anything that was better than where I was, no matter how good where I was was.  And I made a decision at that moment.... I was going to change that attitude, I was going to learn to be content with where I was, what I had and who I was, right now today.

I am stubborn, and impatient and I like to make resolutions like this, then within a few days or weeks it gets hard, so I give myself a hard time about failing yet again and move onto something new.  Not this time, I want to be content, I want to be happy and more than anything I want to enjoy my daughter, just as she is today, without realising that I missed out because I was worrying about being better, making the house better or just the next stage of our lives.  So here I am, sharing this with you, because maybe, just maybe I can find some like minded people out there who want to share my journey and we can keep each other accountable and encouraged.

This is where you can find info about the movie "Courageous" and the books I've mentioned:
Courageous and The Resolution