The Village Blocksmith

earns his living by transforming reclaimed wood and into these beautiful, simple blocks.  He travels around going to events (like the Charles Dickens festival) with his benches and block-stations, so people can sit and enjoy his creations… and yes, hopefully they will want to take some home with them.

I don’t know why this speaks to my soul like it does, but it does.  Sure, I could wait until I actually see them to post about it… I could include cute pictures of the Smithlings and their creations.  It would be great.  You’d be sold.

But then it would …

is most likely to be achieved when founded upon

the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I love The Family: A Proclamation to the World.  Isn’t that one sentence just loaded with great food for thought?

What’s your happiness founded on?  What’s mine?  Our families’?

As you roll that around in your mind, read the next sentence, too.

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained
on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect,
love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities…

I still jump up and down in excitement when I find that the Church has added another wing to their presence on the web.  This one is awesome.  I love it.

I want to sit down with everyone I know and say, “Look!  Isn’t this great?!”

But since everyone I know won’t fit here on this couch at the same time, and …

I ambitiously thought I could pull off a new post for all 12 days-after-Christmas.

Hahahahaha…  Nice idea. It’s not happening.

What is happening is life.

Back to real life again! 

Yay!  Real life without Christmas hanging over my head with it’s many nagging thoughts. 

<deleted: long list of the nasty little life-draining guilt-trips that ran through my head beginning, oh, the morning after I clicked “publish” on my last post.  Ironic, yes.  Pleasant, no.  Fair, uh-uh.  I was hoping that euphoria would last a little longer!>

BUT — above all of that, always, I had running through my mind the following:

Do our Christmas traditions bring us closer to Christ?  Really?
and 
How do I want Christmas to be in the Smith-house?

In other words, what motions do I go through just because I think we have to, vs. What things really matter to me for our family?

Me, Myself …

Yes, I know “stati” isn’t a word.  It’s quite a bit more fun to say than “statuses,” though.  I’m leaving it.

So here they are.  My statusi (ooh, that’s good too!) for the day since I’m not spending any time on facebook this week.
(I could quit.  Any time.  Really!)

Mrs.Smith…

hopes the baby gets over his cold quickly.  (6:30am)

is grateful she can stay home with the kids and play fun phonics games.  Homeschooling is a blast!  (9am)
(PS: I’m loving Accelerated Achievement – thanks for the referral Karlyn!  It fits in perfectly with the “Master Plan of Education for Smithtopians.”  No sense in reinventing the wheel.  Go check it out.)

wonders if she’ll be able to keep up with the laundry caused by the potty-training 2yo.   (10am)
(It’s completely his idea, though, so I’d better go with what Mr.I’llDoItByMyself wants.)

just put …

I don’t do this very often… have I ever before?  No?  I didn’t think so…
but I love this photographer and her work.  I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I think Creativity will look exactly like said photographer when she grows up.

If my mom didn’t already take such great pictures, I’d totally book her.  Go check it out!…

Full with so many blessings.

And you know what is up there on my blessing list currently?

This lovely blogging community.  You know who you are, all of you.  At least I hope you do.  And I love you.  Even if I don’t comment often.

Alas, I haven’t spent a great deal of time reading everything everyone has written, and I clearly haven’t been writing much either.  You should see how my stats have tanked over the last 2 months… Whooo-wheee!  Not that I care. —  No, really, I don’t any more, which is a rather refreshing change.  I’m a curious person, so I leave …

Tackle one thing at a time.

One shelf.  One cupboard.  One box.  One room.  One little step at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed at the huge disaster everywhere, but focus on where you are and what you’re doing.

I say “you” but of course I was talking to myself through all of this.  Don’t take it personally.

This is why most of my “success” posts only show one itty bitty shelf or corner.  The cleanliness spreads, but it’s slow work.  I’m happy to let you know that my conquered empty-bowl shelves & the cupboards around them remain largely uncluttered.  Yay!

The rest of the house, though…. Well, let me go back to the topic and remind myself some more that it’s best to…

Try not to think about how long it will take to eat an elephant, but …

– it wasn’t working. –

The stuff accumulation vs. stuff purging ratio was going to result in us living in a completely uninhabitable place eventually.  It was simple math, and only a matter of time.  Many thanks to the fabulous, timeless book It’s Here… Somewhere, for insights & directions.  Something had to change, and I floundered for a while (like, a year) trying to balance the ratio.  I knew there was a problem and that I needed to fix it… but…

Things really started moving when I found a WHY.

Too much junk would stifle my children’s development.

No, really, it would!  And it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Not only was …

More specifically (and importantly) getting rid of the *attachment* to stuff.

That’s what’s been on my mind lately.

Why?

(1) Because I don’t have the energy to continue doing the work of streamlining and beautifying our home, I’m hoping to find solace in ignoring the mess around me and writing about it.    I’ll let you know if it works out.

(2) And also because I had an experience recently that helped me see how far I’ve come.  I wish the me now could have written a letter to the me from 4 years ago.  I’ve really learned a lot.  Here’s that experience, fwiw…

Recently my bff came up from CA to save my sanity during that last week before my sister came.

(Yes, you heard right.  I have a friend who drove 1200 miles roundtrip with her daughter just …

This is one of those. 

Go click on that link and read it.  It’s great.

And I could write it if I weren’t pregnant and then spent a few hours doing some research about television & movies, and on top of that had a good night’s sleep under my belt.  Yes, then I could andwould because this whole anti-television thing is something I’m getting more and more passionate about the longer we go without it.

But the truth remains: I am pregnant and it’s going to be a long, long time before I get a good night’s sleep, spend a few hours researching anything, and write a super-fabulous post like that one.

So you can just go read hers and think of me.

But lest you think too well of me, I shall show you how I’m still in …