How to do nothing for 31 Days

Snowmen

While individuals vary in their levels of ambition, I am pretty certain that most mothers are unaware of the overambitious manner in which they approach their normal day. Wake up, get the kids off to school (or set on their homeschooling curriculum), and survey the house. Set to work on the part that needs the most tending to, while reviewing the day’s calendar in your head and mentally tackling the first chore on your to-do list for the day. Delegate to tomorrow’s – or next week’s – to-do list that pile of papers sitting on your desk, unless there is something in there with a looming deadline.

My New Year’s Resolution this year was very different from my normal list of ten areas in which I can improve. I decided I needed to “reclaim my time”. I had to limit how much of my valuable time I gave away outside the home, so that I had something left over to give to my family. There is nothing really pressing to do once Christmas is over, so why not give myself a period of rest during the month of January? So I set about to do as little as possible for 31 days.

My husband is permanently like-minded, seeing the home as his haven for rest after his long work day. If he is home, he is most likely on the couch. I joined him on New Year’s Day, resting and napping and watching television with the children. In the middle, I made homemade pizzas and cookies with the kids. Then we went back to resting. That was a great start to the year.

I had also given myself a week off from taking writing assignments in between Christmas and New Year’s so that I could be fully present to the kids. So when they started school, I started working again. But I restrained myself in bidding on work, so that I would not be overwhelmed with overlapping deadlines, nor would I have to work past the time the kids got home from school.

This strategy worked out great. I was able to go through my days at a normal pace, get my work done plus the basic housework, and be sitting in the window with newspaper in hand by the time the school bus arrived. I could be completely present to the children, helping with homework, and making dinner while they worked in the next room. I left some chores for them to help with, such as carrying the laundry downstairs and setting the table. My two younger children had a re-awakened interest in playing the piano, so I pulled out my beginner’s book (which is 30 years old) and started from Middle C.

Over the Christmas vacation the DVD player had ceased reading disks, but the VCR still worked. So we reorganized all our old VHS cassettes and reacquainted ourselves with some really good old children’s movies. Some of the original Walt Disney movies, such as Dumbo, my littlest one had never seen. She would pick one out and we would cuddle up on the couch for two hours.

During high school testing week, my teenage daughter accompanied me to the Catholic school to help me in my volunteer hour overseeing the kindergarten lunch period. Afterwards, we stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant. We were great friends for a couple of hours – until I reminded her she needed to clean her room. I also got to go to one of her track meets.

After each day, I was completely happy with how I had chosen to spend my time that day. At the end of this month, I am feeling rested and ready to prepare for tackling my busy spring season. My family is happy and secure. Can the job of Mommy be done while doing next-to-nothing? I think my month-long experiment has proven that it can be.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10

Living Deliberately

Walk Along Walden

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

A long time ago, it seems – really just five years ago but it seems like a lifetime ago – I had a pretty quiet life. We were homeschooling, and took life one day at a time. I looked at some of my friends who worked and had their children in multiple activities and felt sorry for them. Their brains seemed so full of scheduling dilemmas that there was no room for intellectual depth.

Now, with three kids in school and all of them involved in travel softball and baseball, we are busy every day. There is so much activity packed into spring and carrying over into the first few weeks of summer that it takes a few weeks to catch one’s breath. I try to schedule some “down time” into every day, a few hours of swimming in the pool before dinner and that night’s ball games, but it is still mentally and physically exhausting when there is no break in the constant commitments.

Leisure is needed to allow for depth of thought. Why I haven’t been writing as much as I used to has as much to do with the state of my brain as with my schedule. I used to wonder why those busy friends of mine seemed so “shallow”. Was I becoming like them? If I kept up at this pace, would I become a thoughtless creature, going through the motions of life without the whole of my soul involved?

We finally had a few days with nothing scheduled, and I even turned off the computer, which often provides distraction from absorption into family time. We read books, played chess, watched baseball, and just hung around. It was great. After a full day of doing next-to-nothing, I sat down and did a long-put-off project and was quite pleased.

Summer is a time for rest and restoration. As the kids get older and are provided with more options for activity outside of the house, it requires much deliberation to balance purposeful activity (whether work/play, or a combination of the two, such as sports) with rest and thought.

Are you getting enough rest to restore your soul on a daily basis? Is there a deliberate purpose to whatever you have planned for your family this summer? Are you just keeping busy or are you living deeply, sucking the marrow of life?

An Amusing Day of Rest

We got an early start to the day but still had to rush out the door for church.

“Get your coats on and get in the car!” I commanded.

I put the baby’s and my coats on. I heard the doorbell ring. I assumed it was my seven-year-old son playing around.

“Mommy! There are two ugly people at the door!” my nine-year-old yelled.

I assumed she was joking again, and opened the door, toddler in arms, ready to walk to the car.

Two female Jehovah’s Witnesses were at the door.

“Oh!” one said in surprise, “I’m sorry, were you on your way out?”

“Yes, we are on our way out to church.”

“Can we leave you some literature?”

“No, thank you,” I said with a sweet smile.

“Cute,” the other said about the baby, and they both walked down my driveway.

Perhaps rudely, I let the car alarm chirp as they passed my car on one side and I got the baby into the other.

Later, my nine-year-old told me that she had dutifully gone out to the car, then saw the strangers coming and ran into the house.

Meanwhile, my ten-year-old opened the door to go out to the car and saw them standing there. One said “hello”, and she promptly slammed the door in their faces!

They had all followed the proper protocol for strangers, and I was proud of them, I said.

My toddler climbed all over me in church. The older lady next to us was very understanding. When the baby wanted the kneeler down, she let it down so she could stand on it. When she wanted to walk the length of it, she stepped back and told me to let her pass her by.

Those around us were quite prompt about picking up the blue and green crayons (“crons”) that flew past them.

The kind old lady behind us must have looked like the type that would have bagels. “Gagels?” the baby asked her, “Apples? Cookies?” loud enough for the entire quadrant of church to hear.

We decided to stop at the bagel store on the way home, but they were fresh out. They had another batch coming in twenty minutes. I put the baby to bed and went back. It sure was worth it for the fresh, warm bagels, to be perfectly topped with Neufchatel cheese. They were so good that I had two, and laid down on the couch for a nice nap.

I woke up refreshed, finally ready to do some work. I made dinner, did a load of laundry, and went food shopping (again- I just went two days ago). When I got back, the girls were still talking about the ladies at the door. They found the whole story so hysterical, and could not wait to tell their friends on the bus and in school tomorrow!

“So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation.”
Genesis 2:3

Above: The Creation, Matthaeus Merian the Elder, 1625-30