Confessions

First, I'd like to say thanks for all of the birthday wishes I received here and for all of the wonderful book suggestions given in the fairy tale post...I am a year older, but at least I have lots of reading material to spice up the new year!

Currently, I need an attitude makeover. I'll share a little bit of my feelings here, because I know that other moms read this blog - and hopefully, you'll recognize where I'm coming from.

I hate it when I get this pinched-breath sort of feeling, because I am well aware of the blessings that actually overwhelm my life. And my children are the best and most beautiful of them all...but every now and then, especially when my last solo venture into the world to do something Christie-ish (like browsing in a bookstore) is at best a vague memory (early spring?), the routines get to me. Seriously - do you ever feel like if you have to pick up the pieces of those same puzzles one more time in a twenty four hour period that you might spontaneously combust? It's these cycles that ever hurtle forwards that can get to me - the laundry, the dishes, the crumbs that mysteriously end up all over the carpet (eight times a day! I don't understand how they sneak this stuff out of the kitchen!), the tussles between toddlers that invariably end in tears and the guilty party hiding under the bed...I feel guilty even writing this stuff down, but it's the truth. Every now and then, I want to run away. Just for a few hours. Just long enough to eat a snack without having to share it and maybe to drink something hot without worrying about small hands overturning the cup...just long enough to get through a chapter of something without an adventuresome two year old trying to yank the curtains down from their rods...if Neil didn't work such a consuming job, there might be more chances for me to have those hours...but he does, so there are these times when the sameness of every day begins to glaze over the joys therein...

Like today.

So maybe venting a little to you, blogosphere, will ease up some of the frustration. In hopes of reminding myself of what I should be saying instead of complaining, I'm including a classic prayer written by St. Thomas Aquinas that I have always loved. I'm also adding a wonderful painting by Craig Nelson, an artist I have just discovered. Definitely check him out.

"Grant, O Lord my God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except Yourself. May I seek always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without You and never seek any that is beside You. O Lord, may I delight in any work I do for You and tire of any rest that is apart from You. My God, let me direct my heart towards You, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment."