Sacred Mundane: The Blog

• Family walk down the lane before bed.
• Blackberries along the way…
• A day to seek God.
• A friend who pushes me.
• Lake run!
• Zucchini fritters.
• Line-dried laundry.
• Simplicity.
• Rosemary essential oil.
• How God weaves our lives together.
• His bigger plan.
• Strawberry lemonade.
• Kids playing in the dirt.
• Green beans from the garden.
• Peach-blueberry cobbler.
• Painting Heidi’s toenails.
• Dinner under the birch tree. Every night.
• Colossians.
• 1 Thessalonians 2
• Psalm 84.
• A fellow pilgrim, a Jesus-follower, a friend from Molalla, in Spain.
• Looking ahead.
• Trusting.
• Laying everything — item by item — at His feet.
• Knowing He holds the future.
• Crossing things off my list.
• Fly Lady.
• Homeschool curriculum.
• Making schedules (if only life fit into such neat little boxes!)
• Teaching the Littles.
• Eager hearts.
• New beginnings.
• Old friends.
• Knowing smiles.
• Arms raised in worship.
• Eyes on the King.
• Macy’s online sale and free shipping on orders $99 and over. Ordering all the wedding gifts for upcoming weddings and totaling …wait for it … $99.58. I know I’m a nerd; I love stuff like that.
• Comfy clothes.
• Family Night.
• Popcorn.
• Savoring life.
• Simple faith.
• Learning to become like a child…

Yesterday it was 2pm before I left the kitchen. Why? Why am I always there? Do any other moms feel like this? Yes, we cook all our food from scratch. Yes, we have lots of (wonderful!) people over for dinner. Yes, we’re taking in lots of produce from our garden and other generous gardeners. Yes, we’ve been picking berries and freezing apples. Yes, I have two Littles who are growing like weeds.

In other words, I feel like I live in the kitchen.

And honestly, I’m kind of tired of living there. As soon as I get one meal cleaned up, there are two little tummies hungry again. And sadly, the result is that I’m turning into the mom who doesn’t want to cook anymore — is it really that bad to BBQ hot dogs every night?

Do you ever feel this way?

So today, here are two ideas to turn around this trend: 

1.  Fly Lady. Perhaps you know about Fly Lady already, but she’s my new friend and she’s teaching me how to clean. Her cornerstone principle: Shine your sink. Yes, it seems simple, even silly, but her philosophy is that if you start with a shining sink, every single day, you’ll be more inspired to keep your kitchen clean and therefore your kitchen remains a place you enjoy and want to be.

So I gave it a try. Now first off, I have to admit, I said to myself: “How do I shine my sink?” and then was embarrassed by the fact that I didn’t know how. But no worries. Fly Lady tells us exactly how, step by step, right here.

2. Clean as you cook. Aimée Wimbush-Bourque, editor of SimpleBites.net, says that the very first lesson in cooking school is how to clean as you go. This is the key to staying sane and creating a pleasurable experience in the kitchen. She suggests these tips for keeping clean as you go:

• Start with a clean kitchen. (Insert FlyLady here) She explains that it’s hard to be motivated when your workspace is already chaos (yes!), so start out clean and you’ll feel better about the task.
• Be ready for waste. Be sure all your disposal receptacles are ready and available. Compost, recycling, and garbage. Have them all emptied and ready. As soon as a package is empty, egg is cracked, or stems are removed, toss it into the appropriate place.
• Arrange your workspace. She suggests filling one side of your sink with hot soapy water for easy rinsing hands and tossing dirty dishes to soak. Have a few dry towels out and ready to dry and wipe messes. Fill a cup with warm water and put a few spoons inside. Then you can stir sauces and replace the spoons, reducing dirty dishes and preventing those sticky spots on the counter where dirty spoons would rest.
• Cook–and clean as you go! It takes practice to build a habit, but try cleaning up each step as you go. Toss garbage, wipe spills, sweep crumbs. Wash and dry ALL dishes as you finish and put them all away. Fly Lady insists that dishes be dried and put away, not left in the dish dryer all day looking messy (guilty as charged!).

I have a loooooong way to go in terms of keeping a spotless kitchen and always cleaning as I go. But I must say I am feeling encouraged–and inspired–by Aimee and the Fly Lady’s advice. And snce my sweet Littles will continue to get hungry, and cooking will continue to be on my daily to-do list, I might as well do it joyfully and enthusiastically, amen? Amen. I’m off to shine my sink.

Happy weekend! Thanks for reading. 

We meet on the corner of Rosemont and Carriage at 6:10am.  

The first quarter mile I run alone. But then I turn the corner and there she is, her ponytail bobbing as she runs, and I can’t help but smile.

Our first words are always how tired we are, how rough it was rolling out of bed that morning, how little sleep we got, whose child was up at what hour. There’s no way I’d be out there running if it weren’t for her. And as we finish our 5-miles we inevitably say, “It’s just so much easier running together.” So true.

This is the girl who somehow got me to sign up for the 200-mile relay race, Hood to Coast. I have no idea how. I panicked for months afterward, convinced I couldn’t do it, anxious and worried about how hard it’d be. But now that it’s just around the corner I’m excited.

I’m so grateful for friendships who make me go farther than I ever could on my own. 

Nowhere is this truth more evident than in my marriage. My friend helps me run five miles … Jeff helps me run eight. Somehow he managed to lure me all the way around Foster Reservoir, up and down the hills of West Linn, and around and around the winding trails at Mary S. Young. He can get me to do what no other friend could, because he’s willing to let me get mad at him in order to help me grow.

I’m so grateful for a man who makes me go way farther than I ever could on my own. 

But here’s what I’ve noticed: We’re good at joining together with others to help each other accomplish what we couldn’t do alone. But sometimes we’re not very good at considering what it is we’re helping each other toward.

I think we underestimate how powerful our partnerships really are.

Just this week I’ve been struggling with conflicting emotions. I’m excited for our new venture, but also grieving many relationships that I’ll be leaving behind. The team starting RENEW is small, and sometimes I look around and feel alone. But just the presence of my friend this morning encouraged me with new strength. Just one email I received later this morning bolstered my faith and gave me fresh perspective. It wasn’t anything magic, just a small kindness–a touch.

Women are great at helping each other find deals, lose weight, or swap recipe-ideas. (I like all those things as well!) But are we also passionate about pursuing Christ-likeness together? The same way we run together at 6am, could we also meet to pray, read the Word, or simply text one another and cheer each other on in our quiet times? Could we pray for each other every single day? Email verses, encouragement from Scripture, reminders that this world is not our home?

Basically I’m saying that everything we’ve been talking about this week, We must do together. Take a step of faith and be the first friend to suggest reading a book together, praying together, memorizing a verse together. It might be a challenge, but what are friendships for if not to take us farther than we’d ever go alone? 

{I pray this space can be just this in a tiny way — let’s help each other grow and go farther than we ever could alone. Who can you reach out today to encourage toward Christ? Who can you ask for help from? Thanks so much for “running” with me … and for reading.}