{"id":1679,"date":"2016-03-03T18:22:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T18:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=1679"},"modified":"2016-03-03T20:49:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:49:01","slug":"thanking-god-the-dishwasher-broke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=1679","title":{"rendered":"Thanking God The Dishwasher Broke!"},"content":{"rendered":"

9\u00a0<\/sup>Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. <\/span> 10\u00a0<\/sup>Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; <\/span> 11\u00a0<\/sup>not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; <\/span> 12\u00a0<\/sup>rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

~Romans 12: 9-12~ (Authorized KJV)<\/em><\/p>\n

I recall a line from a quote, meant\u00a0to be\u00a0inspirational, that goes something like this,\u00a0‘be grateful for dirty dishes for they mean your family is feed’.\u00a0\u00a0 This little blurb has been coming to mind a lot more of late… as my dishwasher has been broken for months now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I have gotten into the groove of doing the dishes as soon as the kids leave for school in the morning.\u00a0 As it has turned into a habit I have stopped missing my dishwasher so much.\u00a0 I can begin to understand why my mother has always refused to have a dishwasher and claims to\u00a0‘like’ doing dishes by hand.\u00a0\u00a0 Minutes after kissing the kids good bye, waving and calling out “Je t’aime”, the door is shut and my hands are in the warm soapy dish water, without thinking about it.\u00a0 While I can not say I am at the point of being super grateful and positive about the mountain of dishes I wash each day (sometimes 3 times a day) it has provided me with some time to think, pray, listen to a sermon, enjoy an audio book or practice some French with the help of the lessons on cd my husband bought me. The hands are busy but the mind is ready to wander.\u00a0 Many days the wandering is purely aimless.\u00a0 Other days I wrestle with the newest life change and work out some resolutions to do things differently.\u00a0 Such a deep moment, while up to my elbows in dish soap, is what this post is about.<\/p>\n

Dishes brought me out of an escapism slump where I plugged in thoughtlessly to a daily circuit of social media, followed by streaming tv, then texting and repeat.\u00a0\u00a0 For those well off enough to have access to constant entertaining screen time now a days do we ever get time to freely think?\u00a0 I find if I don’t take time to\u00a0do some thought collecting\u00a0during the day I am going to be kept awake, by my mind, at night.\u00a0 I imagine my brain is pleading with me to just take the time to unravel all that it has collected during the day.\u00a0 If I have been thoroughly plugged in for a while doing the dishes equates silence and silence equates time to think and for the first while that feels almost painfully uncomfortable.\u00a0 I do not\u00a0believe I am unique in experiencing\u00a0this ‘coming off entertainment’ sensation.<\/p>\n

The rewards of\u00a0resolving to include daily unplugged time in life can be subtle but are also\u00a0delightful.\u00a0 It is no secret I practice enjoying the ‘little things’, but\u00a0as my kids have gotten older and I have more time to myself I have not actually been trying so hard to spot the small stuff that so often help me find thankfulness in life.<\/p>\n

The kids say less obviously cutesy things and do less obviously adorable things… they need more privacy now and that means I need to\u00a0share less on social media\u00a0and\u00a0in my\u00a0‘in person social circles’ in\u00a0regards to them personally.\u00a0\u00a0All of this is a good thing… with one side effect… a new stage of mommy loneliness.<\/p>\n

In my case, being physically less able to go out and have adult interactions was part of having\u00a04 little ones.\u00a0 Most people\u00a0can equate being a new mom with feelings of being alone, even though you’re never actually alone.\u00a0 A crew of kids accompanied my every move!\u00a0 The solution for me involved mom and baby groups at a local church, as well as actively recording\u00a0and sharing the good moments\u00a0(to look back at during the bad moments).\u00a0 This time of life has passed for me.\u00a0 Now I have less I can and should say about my children’s personal lives as they are very very much their own persons already.\u00a0 Baby mommy groups aren’t where I am going to get\u00a0peer connection\u00a0anymore.\u00a0\u00a0The crew of kids\u00a0no longer go with me as a big group EVERY WHERE I GO.\u00a0\u00a0 So mom’s of older kids can feel alone too… are often literally\u00a0alone more…\u00a0 Every new stage is going to have a great excuse to fall into loneliness and loneliness is an excuse for escapism… but the more I escape the more little things I miss.\u00a0 I came to this realisation in the young mom stage and decided to check in so I had no regrets once that stage\u00a0was over and I resolve to practice this through this young adult stage as well.<\/p>\n

It is not hard to find awesomeness in this stage, once you are looking for it.\u00a0 My kids still need me!\u00a0 They still need me present, in their lives, and available to talk with\u00a0and love them.\u00a0 Perfect example is the\u00a0picking up after; does that ever really go away??\u00a0\u00a0Cleaning up the dining room\u00a0the\u00a0other morning I found my eldest son’s sweater on the floor.\u00a0 Picking it up I was flooded with thankfulness that he specifically is in my life, leaving sweaters all over the place… thankful he has warm clothing in our frozen province,\u00a0thankful that\u00a0the sweater\u00a0was a hand-me-down and that meant folks in the community\u00a0wanted to bless us and invest in our families welfare.\u00a0\u00a0And then\u00a0I just thought about him; how wonderful he is, how I still think he is cute, how very funny and helpful he is.\u00a0 Finally I thought about how he is still under my roof for a while, to pick up after sure BUT best of all to still pour love and time into.<\/p>\n

Later as I gathered up several pairs of yesterdays socks from all corners of the house, all rolled up into balls and covered in dirt and dust, I laughed about how\u00a0every one\u00a0of my kids inherited this habit from their dad!\u00a0 I recalled how in the last house\u00a0they all still did this the minute they got back into the house\u00a0but we had made a compromise\u00a0in that\u00a0they\u00a0contained their sock collection to a spot behind a door at the top of the stairs.\u00a0 Easier for mom to collect them for the laundry that way, or for them to put the same\u00a0socks\u00a0back on to go outside again.\u00a0 I enjoyed that memory, especially as I looked at how massive their feet are now and recalled how tiny the socks used to be.<\/p>\n

It is okay to delight in the ordinary.\u00a0 In the right state of mind none of my daily life\u00a0can be called\u00a0mundane (lacking interest or excitement; \"IMG_20150906_181311_1\"<\/a>dull) as it is all full of worth.\u00a0\u00a0Worth and purpose are in every task performed out of love…\u00a0that husband, those four kids and two pets are\u00a0lovely to love.<\/p>\n

Do you recall your Mother liking a particular ‘mundane’ household chore?\u00a0 Did you ever ask her why?<\/em><\/p>\n

P.s. Just so you know, being thankful for this lesson in life doesn’t mean I am not\u00a0also hoping for a good enough tax return to get a new dishwasher!<\/p>\n

TTFN<\/p>\n

Always<\/p>\n

Lady Mac an Rothaich<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9\u00a0Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10\u00a0Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; 11\u00a0not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; 12\u00a0rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; ~Romans 12: 9-12~ (Authorized KJV) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,9,13,15,8,5,14,10,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1679"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}