Letting my Roots Breathe

Friday afternoon. The car is getting some quick work done, and I have escaped from the house to the teahouse to settle myself for the weekend. It has been a crazy couple of weeks with standardized testing and basement flooding/asbestos fiascos. The kids and I are tired.

All week, I've started my days with imagining/planning which part of the day had time for me to write. Each day other things have filled that time. I know about time management and priorities – I DO. I know about giving the important more value than the urgent. I know about setting boundaries. And I'm actually quite good at them and the kids have grown to respect my quiet space and times.

But there are some urgent things you can't put off. I remember the season of diapers and nursings. At least those 'urgents' were attached to 'importants'. I feel like our life is full of new 'urgents' that I haven't quite connected to 'importants' – but there must be a connection, because these things have an incredible impact on how I feel and how I operate.

I'm in a new season of What is Important. The last time I did some serious work on a 'mission statement' was when Anna was an infant. She'll be 10 in May. Part of that is because I really like what I wrote. I wrote it to have longevity. (As I look at a new mission -quest- statement, I'm determined to not study that old statement until I have a fresh 2012 perspective.)

I don't do a lot with potting plants,
so I'll include one of my sunflower pictures from
summers past. 

Beyond all the big important questions of life as I get closer and closer to 40, what matters most is an hour in a teashop as I end the week/start the weekend. Surrounded by comfort, smell, sound – that frankly isn't me, my kids, my home. 

It's a bit like repotting a plant – only putting it back in the same pot after letting it's roots have time to breathe.