Unstructured?

Do you ever have to get past yourself to enjoy something you want to enjoy anyway?

Today, for instance, school was canceled! We have well over 10 inches of snow and it's still steadily falling. Absolutely nothing just had to get done around here -- no groceries to buy, no laundry to do, no dust-bunnies screaming my name (they are bound and gagged under the couches where they belong)...

A day free to just be. The hardest kind of day for me.

Honestly, it doesn't take me long to fill such days with plans. Even making lists of the fun we should have since we don't have to do anything.

Do you still love me?

(Do any of you perhaps see a little of yourselves here? I can always hope...)

So here's to playing Memory, Meg's mini- mani-and-pedi, legos.com, tomato soup and grilled cheese, snow angels, and a very furry dog that hates the cold as much as I hate the heat.

So many possibilities... one reality to enjoy...

High hopes...

Snowing again!

Honestly, I'm hoping to wake up to a blanket of snow tomorrow, so that Meghan's soccer game will be canceled (the predicted temperature: 26 degrees!).

This mentality may not win any "mother of the year" awards, but I'd rather snuggle together on the couch with hot cocoa than shiver under blankets outside that early in the morning!

First snowfall...

Watching snowflakes fall always brings Robert Frost's poem to my mind. Today, God used Frost's poem as a framework to write His own on my heart. I hope these truths stick even if today's snowfall doesn't...

Whose woods these are I surely know.

His throne is in the heavens though;

Smiling, He sees me stopping here

to watch His world fill up with snow.

My temperament does think it odd

this sudden, stolen time with God

and tries to shake this reverie

But God has spoken here to me.

He bids me come embrace His rest

and seek His face, and so be blessed.

Snow softly falling, coverings makes;

thoughts lifted upward, new forms take.

Earth silently transformed to white,

Peace within rebukes dark night,

And all creation hears a hush

When chooses it to halt the rush.

SAFE!

Whew. I just BARELY slid into home plate on that one.

Fellow moms:

How is it that now-too-small dress-up shoes, Happy Meal toys that have not seen the light of day for months, and that obscure stuffed animal now-overridden-by-under-the-bed-dust-bunnies can suddenly evoke a Smeagol-complex from our sweet little ones?

"MY PRECIOUS," they shriek, at even the slightest suggestion that something has been worn out or outgrown.

So what's a mom to do? Ahhhhh... Stealth mode.

A few hours at school... a few milliseconds distracted by a friend or a cartoon, and I'm pocketing Happy Meal toys, clutching broken nerf guns against my chest as I race up the stairs, to...

The Bin.

A purgatory of toys and various asundry items, awaiting their final destination: mission or trash bin.

Meghan has a playdate today. On the car ride home, sweet Leila said, "Look! I brought the toy I have like Meghan's!" One glance in the rearview mirror and I had a heart palpitation.

The Littlest Pet Shop stuffed pony. That I had put in The Bin.

Just last week.

The Bin which must remain secret. At all costs.

Distraction. "Awwww, girls, Keeper (our REAL pet) sure looks lonely. Why don't you love on her a minute before you go play?"

(I owe Keeper big time.)

Race to my room. Plunge through The Bin. Retrieve said pony. Race back to living room. Fake having climbed stairs from Meg's room. Extend thus redeemed pony to my eager daughter with a big smile: "Is THIS what you were wanting?"

And I kid you not, as I have sat typing these words, in walked Meghan.

"Mom, what happened to all that stuff that was on the top shelf of my closet?"

Fun at the Farm

A new tradition was born Saturday, as our family soaked up the fun at Miller Farms. This family-owned local farm offers tractor-pulled hayrides out into the fields to pick... well, basically as much produce as you can carry! Back near the farmhouse, Caleb and Meghan LOVED all of the fun activities for kids. I was thankful for the kids' opportunity to see all of the hard work that goes into farming and harvesting, and for a day of shared smiles and sunshine.

PART of the plunder!