Simple Life

This past week has been bad.  Sickness has hit the entire family and we each still have some varying degress of colds.  I finally made it into the doctor, and 5 days later still have a bad cough.  Half way through my battle Bob and Sarah both got it.  I am hoping the weekend brings a return of health and happiness for us all!

That being said, we have taken things very slowly.  We have tried to get fresh air each day, but keeping on top of the laundry has been a pain.  LOL  What do you do when you are hit by a sickness that leaves the whole family reeling and coughing for days?  I am so glad we are homeschooling, it has allowed us to take it easy instead of me forcing a sick and cranky child to get up and go to school.  Even though she is now well past the stage of giving it away, she still is tired from coughing, etc.  I think of how I feel and look at her and all that yucky condensed into her little pint sized frame is too much for me to bare.

I have been thinking-- and really it's along the lines of what I have been thinking for months--I have to go to school, but there has to be other ways to free up time and in the end have more fun with my daughter and make a better home environment for all of us.

I recently read this

"We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls" (Mother Teresa). 

 I don't think Mother Teresa ever met my four year old.  :-)

The point is, we need to live simpler lives. Let me say that again.  We NEED to live simplier lives.  We need to as a family, as a society even.   Think about it, we have all these hightec gadgets, even low tech gadgets and we are busier and more stressed then ever.  I was reading on Manage Your Life Now that the causes of stress today "emerge from the too many obligations" that we have to juggle, every single day.  Not only do we have to juggle them, our kids have to.  Our children are starting their lives stressed.  Childhood and its play and exploration has been replaced by structured activities.  When we expect 5 or 6 year olds to act like Mom and Dad we force expectations on them that we never had as children.  I wasn't whisked off to play dates 3 or 4 days a week, were you?  I wasn't put in camps every week of the summer, were you?  I wasn't in structured sports at 4, yet we have 2 and 3 year olds doing these things and it can't be good.  I speak as a mom that has done this.  I have been driving from activity to activity myself, doing business on the cell phone and throwing McDonald lunches at my toddler and preschooler because we are rushing from one thing to another.  No more, my daughter just wants to be happy and do things with me and her daddy. 

I thought getting rid of all those bags would be the key, it wasn't.  It helped, it was a start, but it isn't the key.  I am still looking for the key, but I think the next step is organizing and deleting the stuff that don't really matter.  You know the stuff that doesn't increase the joy and happiness of the family unit.  Do we really need to be busy all the time?  Nope.  I want some lazy family days that don't involve grocery shopping or trips to the mall, heck how about some days with trips to NO WHERE?!  Yeah, now we're talking.  So, more bags will go, and that's good, but we also need to get to a place where we can relax and that, frankly will take work.  Work on the part of the whole family.

A simpler and calmer (quieter) life.  That sounds divine. 

So my challenge to you:  Give up some outside activities.  Pick a day that will be media free in your family.  I think I will pick Monday.  I'll see how the family feels, it may change, but Monday sounds good.  No Computers on Monday.....  Maybe we will enjoy it so much we will do two days, but we will start with one.  Simpler and Calmer....  a new mantra in our house.  Think and Believe and it shall BE!