When thinking about how I want to teach my children, "exemplify" continues to ring in my ears. Watching Adriel's communication ability daily expand has my mind academically turned. How will I teach him to read? To write? To think? There's no good way to effectively teach a child the importance of reading, analyzing, and carefully sharing their conclusions when they don't see any relevance in the teacher's life. With that thought, and the ever-present whisper of "example", I decided it would be good for me (and for my children) if I took time out of every day (or every few days!) to write out some of the thoughts that formulate through-out the day. That's when the blog light started blinking for me.
Right now the "example" whisper is saying "get off the computer, get out into the beautiful day and paint with Adriel." He has come in to the office twice while I was writing the above paragraph and pointed at the paints, "please, Mom." Time to teach by example that beautiful days are made to be enjoyed, are made to point our hearts to the Beautiful Creator; time to teach that quietly coming in and asking nicely sometimes gets Mom moving the fastest!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Full, not busy
As I was driving along with a friend yesterday,(having finished my secretary work by 8:50 in order to get to her house by 9:00, practice yoga together till 10:45, shower, and get our 3 children (and car seats) buckled in my car around 11 to drive to a lunch party at 11:30) we couldn't help but discuss "rushedness". So often when I have a morning or day that is booked by the hour I operate in "rush mode". Now I'm trying to either not book things so close together, or realize that going from one thing to the next is fine, as long as I truly let myself get into each individual task, instead of investing half my mind in the current activity and half in what I know is coming (which is "rush mode".)
On the same note, I have an aversion to the word "busy". Maybe because when I hear "oh, we're SO busy" "life just keeps getting busier" etc..., it mostly seems spoken not with fulfillment and joy but with a rather exhausted resignation. Thus, in my mind "busy" has a heavy, burdensome connotation, embodying an idea I would like my life to be without. But I have found that for me, it's more in the mind-set than the activities. If I'm not thankful for the opportunity to have the choice to fill my life with such an open variety of activities (and non-activities), then I'd be better off not having that choice (e.g. a slave.)
On the same note, I have an aversion to the word "busy". Maybe because when I hear "oh, we're SO busy" "life just keeps getting busier" etc..., it mostly seems spoken not with fulfillment and joy but with a rather exhausted resignation. Thus, in my mind "busy" has a heavy, burdensome connotation, embodying an idea I would like my life to be without. But I have found that for me, it's more in the mind-set than the activities. If I'm not thankful for the opportunity to have the choice to fill my life with such an open variety of activities (and non-activities), then I'd be better off not having that choice (e.g. a slave.)
Friday, November 9, 2007
The No-Title Post
As I sit down to write my first post, my mind is grazing over the many thoughts on the many subjects that I have blogged about in the past (in my head.) To my dismay, I realize that tonight I am not prepared to articulate much of anything. I stared at the title box for quite a while, trying to decide what to write about. Finally, I typed in a title. Backspaced. Tried again. Backspaced. My self-doubter was now in full control. And I started to see a bit of myself: unable to decide; afraid of writing something less than great. And I saw that a bit of myself needs to change; to grow; to be able to make a mistake and learn from it; to be humble.
To illustrate: I'm already a little embarrassed of the title of my blog. When I was in the set-up process, I drew a blank as to what the title should be. I had decided on "Anne's Blog" (can't go wrong there, I thought) and then looked up the "help" to see what was recommended in a title. It said a title should be descriptive of the intent of the blog, not something generic (i.e. "John's Blog"). I was stumped. What WAS my intent? I felt like I had MANY good intentions. (Yes. I, too, have heard a saying about that.) So I prayed, asking God for guidance and help and an indication if this is something I should spend any of my time on. I prayed that I will always remember how little I know, how limited my understanding is, that I am here to learn. Immediately I thought "Here to Learn"? Or "Hear to Learn"? My first thought was "how fitting, especially for a Suzuki-thinking person" and my second thought was "way too cutesy, dumb, and 1st-grader-ish." Already, my fear factor was taking control again. I re-set the title to "Here to Learn", kept the background white, the text black, and branched out by letting the links be grey. Then I left for a few hours. When I returned, with Roy strumming his guitar on the bed behind me, I told him of my waffleing about the title. He laughs; "A-R is great. What's wrong with it being cute?" So I changed it back, this time determined to leave it alone and move on to posting some thoughts.
When I tried to decide what to write about, POW! My inability to decide hit me right between the eyes. It was too obviously what I needed to confront first.
I am here to learn: to learn by doing: to learn by listening (even if it means hearing my own mistakes.)
To illustrate: I'm already a little embarrassed of the title of my blog. When I was in the set-up process, I drew a blank as to what the title should be. I had decided on "Anne's Blog" (can't go wrong there, I thought) and then looked up the "help" to see what was recommended in a title. It said a title should be descriptive of the intent of the blog, not something generic (i.e. "John's Blog"). I was stumped. What WAS my intent? I felt like I had MANY good intentions. (Yes. I, too, have heard a saying about that.) So I prayed, asking God for guidance and help and an indication if this is something I should spend any of my time on. I prayed that I will always remember how little I know, how limited my understanding is, that I am here to learn. Immediately I thought "Here to Learn"? Or "Hear to Learn"? My first thought was "how fitting, especially for a Suzuki-thinking person" and my second thought was "way too cutesy, dumb, and 1st-grader-ish." Already, my fear factor was taking control again. I re-set the title to "Here to Learn", kept the background white, the text black, and branched out by letting the links be grey. Then I left for a few hours. When I returned, with Roy strumming his guitar on the bed behind me, I told him of my waffleing about the title. He laughs; "A-R is great. What's wrong with it being cute?" So I changed it back, this time determined to leave it alone and move on to posting some thoughts.
When I tried to decide what to write about, POW! My inability to decide hit me right between the eyes. It was too obviously what I needed to confront first.
I am here to learn: to learn by doing: to learn by listening (even if it means hearing my own mistakes.)
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