manageable mess

How you spend your time is ultimately how you spend your life I guess. We only have so much life/time. We don’t know how much that is, so many seize the day and live each moment like it’s your last… not. Nope. Laundry and dishes would never get done. I joked with my mom recently while she swept a crowded house before it got more crowded with company that what she was doing was, “an exercise in futility.” She wisely replied, “Yes, but exercise is healthy.”

So health is one of many reasons to have a routine that includes sleep and healthy eating and reading things that enrich your life and the roles you play.

I’ve not written in over a year because I’ve been too busy working and thinking about work to have much spare time for creative thinking or writing. I had a forced fast from media and my regular routine because of poor health, and when I got back to it, the only thing that mattered was reconnecting with the most important people to me. If only everyone had the opportunity to reevaluate what really matters.

What matters? My role as wife and mother and sister and daughter and friend.

To do these things best, I’ve found that leaning into healthy routine helps me. Maybe it’s a personality thing, but when I’m at my healthiest, I also appreciate the little things while doing the seemingly mundane things that helps my home life function.

I wake up without an alarm anywhere from 5:45-6:30 most mornings. This is at least one hour before anyone else is awake in my home. I read my Bible first thing. I’ve been doing The Bible Recap with friends which includes a chronilogical year plan to read cover to cover and a short podcast to help you understand what you read that day. I love it! I also am reading a couple of devotional books, but this one on Elijah is super great. I’m doing this with a group of 3 other women who lift me up and prayer and I them.

I let in the cats for their breakfast.

I run most mornings with my neighbor and friend and this gets out my morning gab. We talk the whole run and walk afterward. If we don’t need to call my mom and dad who rise early too just to have that social time!

I fix breakfast for myself and usually my son then an hour or so later my daughter who is knocking on teenagerhood and all that comes with it. I journal and watch my bird feeder, nature’s entertainment.

The rest of my day is work or not. It involves at least one load of laundry and two or more dishwasher loads. It involves fixing a meal or two or leftovers. It involves cleaning bathrooms and floors and planning meals and contacting friends. It involves audio books especially while doing the cleaning and cooking. It involves emails and appointments and financial management. This brings me to my mom’s best advice, “Mary before Martha!”

Mom let’s me know that yes, all of those things, the tidying and the cleaning and t… excuse me I need to read my Bible now.

Tuna is a magical fish at our house.

My poor Bruce was over-grooming to the point of baldness. I took him to the vet and they tried steroids, but my cat hates taking meds. I tried a pheromone plug-in and fish oil pumped on his dry cat food. He mostly hated it, and it smelled fishy. the pheromone may have helped our other cat chill, but jury is still out in my opinion. Not worth the cost to me to refill it.

So I started giving him a spoon of tuna (yep cheap canned tuna in water from Aldi, one 88cent can lasts about a week for both cats) each morning.

I place it on a plate, but my half feral girl cat, Eartha, shoves Brice away pretty quickly.

Enter… the spoon method.

I now place two spoonfuls of tuna on the same plate and divide the piles with the spoon down the middle to “split” the plate. The spoon is loud against the plate as they finish licking up the tuna and they don’t love the noise. They now stay on their respective sides.

Grapefruit plastic spoon worked fine too!

Best news, Bruce has adjusted to his stress (still not sure the cause, cough Eartha) and tuna has made his coat shiny and full again. He’s one good looking cat.