daybook :: ordinary

Daybook :: a humble return

FOR TODAY  {January 17, 2011}
{more daybooks here}

Outside my window...it has been rainy and grey for several days now, but today, today the sun shone in all her glory and the afternoon was a winter warm

I am thinking about new, very new, routines.  About how to not let myself get discouraged when my children aren't enthusiastic about my ideas.  About specific ways to take better care of myself--physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

I am pondering...

For the opposite of sin is faith and never virtue, and we live in a world which believes that self-control can make us virtuous.  But that's not how it works.  How many men and women we have encountered, of great personal virtue and moral rectitude, convinced of their own righteousness, who have been totally insensitive to the needs of others and sometimes downright cruel!  ~Madeleine L'Engle

Thoughts?

I am thankful for so many generous friends in our lives.  Equally humbled and grateful, actually.

From the learning rooms...generally, just really happy with this spring schedule.  My little kindergartner is eating it up.  History!  Geography!  Music!  Math! Poetry!  She wants it all and she loves retelling it all at dinner. She excels at narration this one.

From the kitchen...I finally sat down to tweak and fill in the remaining gaps on my 30 days menu.  Three meals a day for thirty days all detailed with recipe sources.  And, I kept my vow to get us back on the vegetable train.  Not that we'd abandoned them, but we were certainly in a rut:  green salad, baby carrots, potatoes, and the occasional broccoli.  Tonight we had brussels sprouts!  With mustard butter!  There is no stopping me now.

I am wearing...can you believe it?  A black maternity skirt again.  No, not pregnant.  It's just that I don't seem to have much of a non-pregnant winter wardrobe and I do love this skirt.  Alas.

I am creating... weekly grocery lists to go with my thirty days menu.  More simplicity.  A few new resolutions for the upcoming months.  Or maybe resolutions isn't quite the right word:  new habits.  I find it motivational to work toward one new thing each month.  This month it really is the menu planning and sticking to the menu.

I am going...sticking close to home these days.  Love it.  Not because I am a home body, but it just feels good and right at the moment.

I am reading...we took a break from our regular reading to do some holiday reading.  So, I am a bit embarrassed to say that we are still reading Farmer Boy and The Phantom Tollbooth.  Thankfully still enjoying both of them. 

Last year my dear niece-in-law gave me L'Engle's beautiful Walking on Water.  I was most of the way through it when it disappeared.  In the last couple of weeks I found it (under the bed!) and have taken an unexpected detour back in the sparkling prose of the brilliant Madeleine L'Engle.

I am hoping...for some answers to prayers.  Clear answers.  And a surge of grace.

I am hearing...just the hum of the computers.  And, soon, not even that.  Silence.  Blessed silence. And the deep sleep breathing of the three dear ones that are already in my bedroom.

Around the house...righting the neglects of homecare that the holiday busy-ness brought.  In my home we should never, ever go four weeks without cleaning out the fridge.  Enough said.

One of my favorite things...my evening grace cup.

A few plans for the rest of the week...having a dear friend over, some creative endeavors and getting myself to the Farmers' Market.  Oh, how I miss it. 

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

reflection of my two little ones at play