Busy Mom Diaries: Calendars

My April Calendar

I used to frown upon Moms who flashed their family calendars on Facebook.

So I realize I am being a total hypocrite by flashing my schedule on the Internet. I want to make the point that I love calendars like many other moms out there.  I love the beginning of the month when I can use my new chalk board marker and add everything we are doing that given month. Sometimes it is hard for me to wait until the end of the month. 

I love schedules...activity schedules, exercise schedules, work schedules, daily schedules, church schedules.  I get anxious when myself or someone from my family is involved in some kind of activity and there is no schedule.  

I love lists..."to do lists" mostly.  I always have a written list.  I tried apps which give me a list on my ipad or phone.  I don't like them and I always go back to the simple pen and paper list.  I like to cross things off when they are completed.

There are many times in my life when I feel like I am not in control of my schedule.  My schedule is controlling me.  The constant demands awake me in the morning and I feel stress at the pit of my stomach.    

I think  in these moments God reminds us how much we need to rely on Him every single day.  We may think we have control of our schedules, but we are not in control of our lives.  Anything can happen to shake up our lives on any given day.  Clean slate summers have turned into times of intense struggle.  New fall excitement has turned into anxiety ridden months.  Days off to relax have turned into days of "putting out fires."  Sometimes weekends turn into days more exhausting than the weekdays.  

I remind myself often, "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."  Rejoice always.  Rejoice in everything.  Rejoice in every single season.

As for exercise...we started this new tradition of going to a local park on Sunday afternoons on our bikes or skateboards.  Sometimes it is simply a short ride to the park a stone's throw from our house.  It still gets us outside and gets me back on my bike.  Today we even tossed the Frisbee around.

Look I match Orange Mango!

Then I managed to get to the gym and I swam 900 yards.  I stepped on the scale and I am not going to put my weight on the world wide web.  I will say I am six pounds over what I call "my standard weight."  I am not surprised.  I did not exercise at all last week and I have been eating more sugar again. I felt a little heavier in my stomach.  I think I can get it back down again. 

Busy Mom Diaries: April Eve

A few years ago I made a check list of everything I wanted to accomplish each day: do a load of laundry, do one household cleaning task, read my Bible, exercise, read a chapter of a book for pleasure, practice 15 minutes of guitar and pray for my family. I could rarely hit all of them. While I love to plan and deep down I crave routine, I hate discipline. 

I often find myself surfing Facebook instead of loading the dishwasher. I will google search something useless instead of switching the laundry. Some people think I am a disciplined runner but there are many many mornings I ignore the alarm and choose to sleep later than I realistically need to. 


I don't like being told what to do. Sometimes I feel like there is this 
adolescent trapped inside of me who wants to eat what she wants, do what she wants when she wants to, spend money on whatever she wants, and this makes life way more fun. I am constantly telling her to grow up but yet she is asking me to hang out all the time.

It reminds me of Paul's verses in Romans 7...these are the verses with the "I do's" and "I do not's" in regards to his struggle with sin.  You have to read through it carefully word for word in order to digest what he is saying about his struggle with sin.  

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

(Romans 7:19-20)

I am not lazy.  I work a 40 hour week job in the school year and I daresay I work pretty hard.  I am involved in church and my children's school.  I spend time with my family.  

I am not trying to live up to some "perfect mom" standard either.  I don't set unrealistic goals and beat myself up when I fail to attain them. I stay away from self help books and I am leery of some women's ministry events if they push "a works religion mindset."  Like Paul I will never fully be able to carry it out and I will keep on doing evil because sin is living in me.

Paul goes on to say:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with my mind, I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

(Romans 7:24-25)

I know we are on the eve of the month of April.  It is a hard month for me...at least it has been the last two years.  It is the end of the school year but there are still many days of school with no breaks (except for Memorial Day but by that point we're almost done).  We are not a huge sports family but we have at least two children in spring sports and one in spring theatre.  There always seems to be extra events tied to Easter, graduations, and school.  There are always big school projects due. There always seems to be extra stress that comes out of nowhere...the last  two years it was tied to my work environment.  Sometimes it is church or family or something else. I always think it will come to a screeching halt once May hits.  However, May always seems to be a continuation of April.

I struggle with anxiety anyway.  Sometimes things are magnified and exaggerated in my own mind.  It can cause me to have extreme emotions.  Or else I go to my default mode of surfing social media or sleeping.  Honestly sometimes I wake up in the morning hit hard with fear because I am scared to face the day and what it entails.  I can usually breathe a sigh of relief and sometimes even feel peace at the end of it.  Sometimes I wake up the next morning and the whole cycle generates itself again.  

I am not making an unrealistic goal of having myself put together the whole month of April with zero moments of overwhelm.  I am not saying I am going to handle everything the way it should be handled. I know I will sometimes do what I don't want to do, but I will do it anyway.  There has to be more than coasting through life with a busy schedule trying to keep from getting overwhelmed for the sake of not falling apart.  

So I look to Romans 5 where Paul talks about what sufferings produce...

...but we also rejoice in our sufferings; because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

I want to grow in character and be an adult. We use the term "adulting" more frequently now.  As adults we have to do things that are unpleasant or boring or tiring or cause anxiety.  Adults clean their houses.  Adults balance their checkbooks.  Adults watch what they eat.  Adults take care of their bodies.  Adults go to bed on time.  Sometimes I admit I don't want to be an adult and I am more prone to be that irresponsible adolescent.

I want to come out of April with a strength of character and a hope that does not disappoint.  Because I know my strength comes from God's love that He poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

And since this is my exercise blog...I will continue to record my workouts here and elaborate more on my running/triathlon goals

Today I biked 8.67 miles on Orange Mango (to the gym and back) which was a success in and of itself.  I still have too much unnecessary anxiety about riding my bike.  Once I start riding, I really do love it.  At the gym I did about a half hour of weights and strength training.