I want to sit at the table hungry

June 28th, 2022

Because I’ve lived here my whole life, I have a very American way of viewing food and eating. The quicker the better, for everything: the preparation, eating, even the shopping. Meals were the thing in-between what was happening in my life.

In the last couple of years I’ve been reading a lot more about food. I want to nourish my body and my soul and what I was doing, the way I’ve always done things, isn’t cutting it.

I’ve returned to a book by Mireille Guiliano several times in the couple years. The way she sees eating changes me. I keep going back because I’m refreshed by the gladness she takes in meals. Not as in-betweens, but important moments in themselves.

Taking time to adjust my perspective on meals, a little habit change here and there, more care for the grocery trips, less frustration in longer preparations, more intention to linger at a meal, it’s all changed me, a bit at a time.

One thing that’s been missing is our lunch hour. I haven’t really set a rhythm around it. It feels hard to do because it’s in the middle of the day, in the middle of everything. But maybe that’s what makes it more important. Taking the time to pause and reflect on a morning, breathe before an afternoon and evening. Stop. Be. I have written across on of my journals from like 10 years ago, I’m a human being, not human doing. I don’t think that hits everyone the same way. But it’s stuck with me.

Our lives are made up of years which are just months lumped together, and months are just the weeks made sensible and tidy for our calendar, and our weeks are just our days… so my days are my life. And I think… how do I want to live it?Certainly not rushing from task to task so often I can’t sit at a table and savor a meal, taking pleasure in each bite because I’m present enough to pay attention to the textures and flavors and temperatures and joy of the things that make up my plate.

I don’t want my life to be such a buzz my children don’t remember sitting down and thanking God for the provision of whole foods and a safe and beautiful home to enjoy them in together, and often.

I’m the mom who eats what she’s cooking while she’s over the pot and in the mess, before I’m at the table with my people. But I want to choose differently. I want to prep patiently, I want to sit at the table hungry: for the food, for the conversation, for what happens when we enjoy a meal socially, hungry to become the kind of person who dines long and well, no matter what’s on the menu.

Reckless, boundaries

May 2, 2022

My default setting is to run my life at reckless pace. Because my mind runs at a reckless pace. I know part of this can be accounted for in the personality I was formed with, a desire given to me to want to pursue better, for me, for the people around me.

The gift of always wanting growth comes with the challenge of a rushed nature, a forward leaning mind instead of one planted in the present. My unsanctified state, which is easy to fall back into is: it needs to be done, and done right now,

and it probably really needs to be done my way, because I know what I’m doing. (ha ha ha)

Sometimes I crawl under the covers at night and it washes over me: that deep knowing, that I didn’t stay present, I wasn’t in my day, and if I’m not careful my whole life could go by and I won’t have experienced many hours of it, not truly,

not with intentional presence, because I wasn’t here, now. I was there, then.

The freedom I’m finding is that I don’t have to give up my gift of dreaming extravagantly to live presently.

I can both desire and pursue growth, while planting my heart and mind firmly in my Wednesday morning, cleaning up spilled milk and wiping down sticky, jammy toddler hands. Appreciating the way the light hits my kitchen table and floors, really listening to the sounds of my own home and children,

I can be here, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, I can choose that.

And all that requires of me is as simple as it is hard: having boundaries.

For too much of my life boundaries felt like the walls to push up against purposefully.

I’ve realized with time, boundaries are a gift I can give myself, so I can be where I am, living in my purpose, being able to breathe a sigh of relief because I know I’m in the right place, doing the things I’m accountable for at the present moment.

There’s a time and place for each of the things life requires of me.

It doesn’t get divided up evenly each day, but over the course of a week, when I live within the proper boundaries, the important tasks get done and can be done without fluster and frustration.

Late spring, early summer after Emerson was born I transformed into a mad woman. Like: couldn’t stop pacing, sweating, writing things down, talking about, working towards, and sweating over a large business goal. I had a newborn that literally didn’t stop crying for 4 months straight,

leaky boobs, an adventurous one year old, and somehow I decided setting a preposterous goal in my business was appropriate. I was barely managing our household and my nerves, but hey, why not heap a lot of pressure on myself?

I don’t guilt myself for wanting to chase my big dreams, but if I could go back one year ago today I would be a gentle and kind voice, a friend to myself, a little hug, a little tough love, and I would set real boundaries.

Because within the walls of my boundaries there is actual freedom. Freedom to work my business, when it’s appropriate. Freedom to just be mama, and not feel like that isn’t enough. Freedom to do the household chores without feeling like I’m missing out on other things.

Within the boundaries of my life, I can live and drink deeply of the life giving water— the purpose God set before me, and only me, in that special way He does for each of us.

With intentional lines drawn in the sand of my life, I find peace.

Many times we just think if we had more time, we’d do the things we wanted. If there were more hours, we’d make time for that book, in our favorite chair near the window. But it tends to be the more time we have the more those “important” tasks seem to pop up and add themselves to our calendar.

I’ve never lived without, but sometimes I imagine what it would’ve been like, not owning a washer. Either of the clothes or dishes variety. The electric washers exist to save humans so many hours a week. I am imagine what it would’ve been like being a woman dreaming of the day I’d be free of the chore, wondering what I could do with all the freedom, what I’d tell my husband I could do with all the time waiting for me on the other side of just owning those tools. Thinking somehow if I just had that… things would really work out.

It’s a funny thought isn’t it. Where has that time gone? Is the saved time not hand washing clothes and dishes spent reading to children or enjoying the sunshine, taking a walk or learning to bake something new? It seems like the gift of more hours in a week has just disappeared. Like the hours never existed at all.

That’s what happens when to time though. Like money, if it isn’t given a purpose, it just seems to leave of it’s own accord.

There is no pretty bow or beautiful thought to end all of this with. It’s just what I was thinking this morning and it felt important to write it down. So I’m doing more of that, more quiet so I can have these thoughts, more space for pen and paper.

But when I do it right, it’s like I can taste…

April 27th, 2022

It’s hard to break old habits. I have a handle on who I want to be and the decisions I need to make to be that person.

But it’s really easy to fall back into waking up in a flurry of what feels like purpose but is more a toxic cocktail of screen time, rushing out the door,

ticking things off my to do list, and not even slowing down enough to hear the still small voice.

What feels like opportunity to have a full life is often just a distraction from the little things that actually make up a fulfilled life.

Reading under the shade of a tree, making a meal with the intention of sitting down and sharing it with my children undistracted, making room for silence and space to listen. Listen to the birds. Listen to the wind. Listen to my children playing.

Listen to God’s whispers. I want margin. I want to create a life with room for life to create.

I’ve spent too many years filling the calendar knowing it would give me a sense of propose but I didn’t know that that purpose was one dimensional and when I finally tapped into living slower and with more intention I found new dimensions altogether. It’s like before I could only touch. But when I do this right, when I live right,

I can taste, touch, smell, and hear. It’s meaning.

Someone asked me recently. How are you? Busy? It came out kind of awkwardly because I’ve idolized busy culture for most of my life, but I said

“No, we’re not busy, but we’re living well.” It’s not that my days aren’t as full of as many tasks as every other wife and mother but I refuse to pin on the tag, busy. I refuse to wear it like a badge of honor when now I know it was a thinly veiled lie,

a way to be distracted from life in the littler things.

I’m spending my time the way I want and paying attention to what adds joy to our life. I’m opting out of grocery pickup and taking time to stroll the aisles of our grocery store with my boys in the cart because it’s special to me. When Eliot was 11 months old and I was just about due with Emerson I I remember telling a friend how much those moments in our HEB meant to me, having Eliot face to face with me, without the discomfort of holding him while so pregnant. It’s so small, but so not. It’s what I call the big little.

And I’m not ignoring in my life anymore. I am looking for, listening for, paying attention to the big little things.

This morning it was making sure I didn’t leave the house without watering the garden. It would’ve been fine without because we finally got some rain, but it’s not just about the garden. It’s about what happens when I go out there. When I take the boys in the wagon and show them with my actions what we’re choosing to prioritize as a family. Responsibility, cultivation, sunshine, togetherness.

I love this life and I’m going to teach them how to love it too.

A crisis / Callan lives ❤️

April 25th, 2022

I don’t remember a lot of crisis in my childhood. We went through our own family crisis times, certainly, those I remember clearly, because of how they shaped me. But I wasn’t privy to the all the crisis times happening in other families as they so often do.

My parents protected my gentle & easily bruised heart often from the weight of broken promises, broken families, the fallen world with its sickness, hardship, and death. Though it’s not that we didn’t see it at all when they wanted us to.

I could tell you the stories I remember of hurting people, because when I was allowed into that world my parents wanted to teach me, or let me watch, how to be a friend, sister, a prayer support, a person who was there.

I saw them bring meals after friends lost babies, they let us kids get our hands dirty helping weed & keep clean a local widows lawn, and when a friend in chemo - who was also living in a difficult marriage - needed friends to talk to, our home was open and my parents welcoming.

I remember when she died. It felt impossible because she was so young and beautiful.

So, yes, there was crisis, and yes, I remember it. But it wasn’t a part of my daily life. They’re not beyond what I could recount to you with detail.

In adulthood I am more tuned in to crisis and how often it touches communities. It’s everywhere, it’s in every family, church, neighborhood. And it’s every day. Someone, somewhere today feels like the world has stopped, or should, because their has in some breathless, heart-skipping-beats way.

The continual access to heartbreak and tragedy online, at the tip of my fingertips is overwhelming. I have to tune the noise out at times, not because I don’t care, but because I care too much and it feels like I will break under the weight.

This has taught me to look carefully, paying attention to our real life circle of friends and community though. I can’t bear the weight of every hurting person, but what about one friend, today? That’s possible.

Earlier this year a dear friend was bathing her baby boys and just for a minute, maybe two short minutes, stepped out of the room. Not because she was distracted or selfish or a careless mother, quite the opposite. She’s an attentive mother and there was mess in the kitchen, the mess that made the bath a morning requirement this Saturday,

she was just going to quickly clean it so their bath time wasn’t rendered useless as soon as they got out.

But it’s just like that, isn’t it. One moment your life is normal, it’s Saturday and you’re giving the boys a bath and then all of a sudden, everything is wrong. The story has gone all wrong.

Callan’s under water when she returns, he’s only 6 months and she’s giving CPR and calling 911.

We’re at brunch when we get the text. They’re at Texas Children’s hospital, he’s alive, not awake, they’re in the hospital and they have immediate needs for their 3 year old, Levi.

A group chat message gets sent out, Sydnie’s picking up Levi, my sisters and mom & I are going to Cassie’s to clean up.

The bathtub is still full when I get there, and there’s water, a lot of water, in the bathroom. It’s why I wanted to go. I didn’t want her to come home and have to look horror, death, or near-death, right in the face, to relive those forever minutes of waiting for help while she tried to revive her baby on the bathroom floor.

The least we could do is give them a clean, safe home to come home to.

I was doing dishes when a woman from her church arrived, the Bluetooth speaker played worship music as we thanked God for the goodness of sparing Callan’s life.

More women arrived, more serving hearts, we prayed together, worked together, bonded in the weird way you do in crisis.

New sheets and a new comforter on the master bed. All of their laundry was bagged and delivered to the laundry fairy — a miracle worker who washes, dries, and folds clothes quickly as her very business. What a concept. We cleaned out the fridge & pantry, got food and baby formula, flowers for around the house.

That very evening Cassie and her husband Josh got to bring home a healthy baby and we got to be there to hug them, cry with them, praise with them, and then leave them in place they wanted to be as a family.

You know how we all have the place we’d probably never want a friend to see in our home? I have that shame. Like please, please, don’t look under my bed because I definitely haven’t cleaned under it since we moved in, and even with my love of minimalism my closet is still a disaster.

We’ll I’ve seen inside, cleaned even, under the sink in Cassie’s apartment. Any dark place she my have hidden previously was not a thought this day. I’ve picked up her dirty laundry, literally, and you know what? I love her all the more for it. Her crisis was an opportunity to see her, truly, and that makes me feel close to her.

Crisis bonds in a way good days can’t.

As much as I can, I’m going to protect the childhood innocence of my children, they won’t be bombarded with the grief of the outside world daily, but when there is crisis in someone’s life nearby and we can do something to help,

I want to give them the opportunity to serve alongside us and learn what it means to be the Church.

Special thanks to the women of Restoration Church for all the kindness extended to the LaDuke family.

Saturdaze

Right after we took these I said “ew, I feel weird” and within 20 minutes was wiped out by a fever.

Can you tell which photo isn’t iPhone? Hint: they actually aren’t my favorite + there are possibly two of them 😜🤗🤷✨

it’s not quite music yet

Eliot started talking about xylophones months before Christmas. Not asking for one, really, just seeing them everywhere (puzzles! books! out playing!) and always mentioning them to us. In October we decided we were going to get him one for Christmas and the wait for him to finally get one was likely harder on me than him!

I talked about it all the time. “You’re getting a xylophone!! Yay!” There was no surprise factor. 😂 (He was so thrilled and a little confused on the wait.)

The anticipation & having to practice patience was good for me, I don’t find myself complaining about the noise (because… it’s just noise… not music... yet😂). I’m just happy to see him so happy!

I want to write

April 20th, 2022

I want to write more. Writing is just thinking, basically. It’s a little more challenging and probably a little more important to me right now because it requires organizing my thoughts instead of stringing them together in my head with the word “like.”

I want to be intentional with my thoughts and words. I know what I think about shapes my worldview and has a profound affect on my daily life. My thoughts are the difference between a train-wreck of a Tuesday between the dirty diapers, load of dishes, and ever piling laundry. Like seriously, what is with the laundry? or a sweet day of joy because I have the privilege of loving the babies God gave me, I have the opportunity to stay home and be the person feeding them, reading to them, doing the ordinary things that make up a life. I love - have learned to love - those things.

I wondered often as a teenager when my life would begin. I kept thinking it was just around the corner, just beyond that next big thing that would happen to me. You know how the movies we all watched growing up have the moment, then it ends with dramatic music and a beautiful montage of the person living their dream… ahhh, everything’s right, real life, the good life happened to them. No more ordinary, just magic.

Do you hear it? I hear it now. The lie I was believing that the magic wouldn’t be in, couldn’t be in, the ordinary, now.

But life isn’t really like that. In fact, it’s so obvious to me now that the magic that I thought was someday, has always been here, I just was looking over my shoulder or too far into the future to notice what was happening in front of my eyes.

The person I’m becoming is just the person I am today plus the decisions I make between now and tomorrow.  The many many times I’ve fallen into the someday trap, I’ve done things like putting off tasks, decisions, life til tomorrow. Because I could. Because my moment hadn’t happened. Because there wasn’t magic or a reason to do the right things, right now. This wasn’t really my life, not yet.

Thankfully through mentors, mostly writers, people I’ve never met, will probably never meet, I was nudged, woken up. Here, now, it’s happening, it’s beautiful, if you’ll pay attention, be present. This is your life. It’s not going to happen, it IS happening.

So how do I want to feel about it? I want to feel joy, I want to feel peace, I want to be the wife that dances in the kitchen, the mom that plays imaginative games with her toddlers, the woman who takes time to clean the house on Sunday’s because it makes all of our weeks better when we start off fresh.

I want to live now. For years I’ve thought about the garden I wanted to start. It felt like the thing the next version of me would do, it took me so long to finally decide I am that person, now. I feel a bit silly even writing about it, I’m probably 6 weeks into my journey and have grown exactly zero things.

My flowers are still seedlings, my vegetables were just planted, most of them still doing their work under the surface of the soil. But I can’t help but talk about it makes me feel. Because beginning this work has made me have to cultivate new things in my heart.

Gardening, here, for me, is growing more than food and flowers. I’m growing presence and patience, willingness to do work that doesn’t yield quick results. I’ve had to pay attention and tune into the weather, learn about and tend to soil, get my hands dirty, literally.

All things I’ve always wanted for myself, but for some reason I thought I had to become that person, to be… that person. Well, I’m realizing right now that might not make sense, so so much for using writing to clarify thought.

What I’m saying is, I thought someday I’d be that person, then I’d start. But instead, I had to start. And now I’m growing those things in myself.

Cheers to living now. I hope you go out today and do that. Show up in your ordinary. Begin the thing you’ve always imagined would be someday.

Our mornings

At the end of December I began a journey to read the Bible through in a year. I can’t believe I waited until 28 to do this for the first time, but here we are.

I rearranged our living room again around that same time— right after we pulled down our Christmas tree, in the week before the new year. I pulled my favorite chair into the best morning-time winter light in our house.

(Here you can see the light that makes my heart sing)

It seems silly that something as simple as changing the arrangement of our furniture would make my days so happy, but the arrangement has given me extra space (on the windowsill behind me) for the books I’m reading, my letter writing box, and that leaves room on my side table for a coffee, water, and whatever the boys want to show me. (I love that this gives my Bible a home— I don’t ever have try to remember where I had it last. Less thinking, more reading.)

The configuration has worked so well that I find myself going to bed excited to wake up the next morning and enjoy coffee in my spot.

Our post-breakfast routine that’s working well recently:

Eliot opens our morning time with prayer and then I follow. I love when he prays, I like to follow so he continues to hear how to pray. (Right now his prayers are only giving God updates on what’s going on.)

Eliot picked out this book from our church bookshop for his birthday and we started reading it together several days ago. It’s a small chapter book and I wish I could give a copy to all my friends with kids! The elevens chapters are only about two pages long each with beautiful illustrations and discussion questions to guide conversation and engage the children at the end of each chapter.

After we read, we practice our scripture recitation. Currently:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly!

(With big hand motions, of course! Because, fun!)

And then we practice our catechisms. It wasn’t on purpose, really, but we have learned a little of the Westminster shorter catechisms and some of the New City catechisms. I love that both are on Spotify to listen to & sing along with!

I have a copy of the (tiny kids version) New City Catechisms book we’re working through front to back so we have order to what we’re learning. (And I just found out: they have a free app!)

I feel like typing it out makes it sound more formal and lengthy than it all is. Our morning time is casual, upbeat, fun, and short! Probably 10-15 minutes!? We finish it before the boys can become tired of it. (They’re still only 3 months, 1, and 3! 😂)

That’s all for our morning rhythm right now✨ Then it’s back to play for the boys while I do my Bible time! We replaced our coffee table with a train table so they play in front of me while I listen to & read the Bible.

I know the details will always be changing, but I pray we continue to have a morning time of worship together until these little boys become men and leave our home.

Feverish

A sick day for Emerson. He’s as snuggly as Auden! (A rare treat for me, he’s usually a daddy’s boy when he wants snuggles.)

Being sick stinks, but I hope he always remembers the extra head rubs and care and sleeping with mommy & daddy and chicken noodle soup and rocking in the afternoon sun together

☕️

sharing a two o’clock promised land tea (being mostly milk & honey, it’s aptly named)

Making a home

This isn’t where we thought we’d be in 2023; we were supposed to have our house on our two acres completed in the Spring of 2022. But we’re here, finding joy in the making of the coziest, dreamiest home in our “treehouse” or “loft”

Winter brings out the best in this place, I think. The way the light filters through the windows, the comfort in a mess of blankets & pillows on the floor in front of the fire.

I am finding gratitude for the littlest things that make a house a home.

Birthday boy & breakfast

Celebrated with donuts & sharing the things we love about Eliot! The birthday breakfast tradition holds strong. ❣️

Eliot is THREE! 🥰

I want to value more than “tidy”

I love the idea of teaching my boys to enjoy an intentionally creative life. I want a home that encourages experiments, failures, art, any pursuits that my boys want. I want that for myself too.

But…to be totally honest… the messiness of it all keeps me from a lot of those adventures. Creativity is not a tidy event. (Is anything worth doing actually a tidy event?😂) I allow myself to get so stressed in the middle of the journey, in the middle of the mess.

I don’t like being inside a mess. 😅

(Oh, and I hate the idea of somebody dropping over while I’m in the middle of a literal one.)

So while I love the idea of an intentional creative life, I find that I live out that I value cleanliness over creative pursuit. And now that I’ve recognized that in myself, I hate it.

I don’t want to choose a clean dining room table over one full of stories and memories of trying and failing, learning and growing, making, together. I don’t want to choose a clean home over my boys outrageous imaginations and a world of possibilities. I’m working on that this year. Letting the mess happen, knowing I value other things more than just tidy.

Ps. Someone tell me why I paid $50 for Emerson to look like Tipo from Emperor’s New Groove. I should’ve cut his hair myself.

Tracking our Outdoor time…🌲

We’re tracking our outdoor time right now with the app: 1000 hours outside. Since Eliot & Emerson are often out with Kate or Matthias, I won’t have all of their outdoor time recorded, but I figure I can record when we’re together at least!

I started tracking at the end of November to try to get in the habit for the new year. I fell off recording during the holidays but it’s a start!

The app costs about the same as a cup of coffee and it’s such an encouragement & reminder to go OUTSIDE to play! I’m motivated when I can track things, if you are too, you’ll love it as much as I do.