Ryley started 4th grade this past week:
And would you believe it? We’ve been on time every. single. day. We’re starting the year off right.We actually have breakfast at the table (rather than a pop-tart in the van), and we’ve even been finding time to blow-dry her hair rather than air-dry. I’m trying to be a real mom, apparently. :-)
The week before school started, Ryley hung out at my work, since her daycare lady had started a new job:
She pretty much read the entire time. Something like 900 pages in four days. So now, during the school year, part of her homework is to read for 15 minutes every night. She likes to use that as an excuse when she should be doing other homework, like math:
Ryan: “Ryley, it’s time to do your homework.”
Ryley: “I am doing my homework. I’m reading.”
Ryan: “Ryley, you read enough this summer to cover your daily ‘15 minutes of reading’ all the way through 4th grade and 5th grade. Do your real homework please.”
Of course, we let her read for 15 minutes. The problem is when the reading turns into one or two hours, and the math still isn’t done. :-)
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Fourth grade seems good so far. Ryley has expressed some concern that she feels like she annoys her teachers with her questions. She said that they kind of sigh when they answer, and sometimes they act like it was a stupid question. I would like to be mad at her teachers for making her feel that way, but the thing is, I know my daughter, and I know first-hand that her inquisitiveness can be overbearing at times.
We don’t ever want her to think that asking questions is a bad thing. We love that she likes to learn. But we are encouraging her to think twice before asking…to decide first if the question is something she already knows or can easily figure out on her own.
“So I should ‘take it back a notch’?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s a good way to put it,” I answered.
She’s so different from Ryan and me in that way; neither of us are ones to speak up in a large group setting. We’d either ask after class or go research it later on our own. But as we have learned over the past nine years, Ryley is her own person. ;-)
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“You aren’t voting for Mitt Romney, are you?” Ryley asked while watching Hulu on my laptop at my work.
“Why?”
“He’s raising taxes on the middle class!”
Then, oh so dramatically, she rewound the commercial and played it back for me with a look on her face that said, “Wait ’til you hear this.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” I whispered.
“But is it true? He’s raising taxes on the middle class?”
“You can’t believe everything they say on those commercials. We will talk about it later.”
Later, when I had Ryan available as back-up, we did talk about it, and we explained the injustices of political campaigning.
“I think that should be against the law!” she said, indignantly.
“What? Raising taxes? I agree.” Ryan laughed.
“No. How can they tell lies about people on TV?” She was horrified. “It’s just not fair.”
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Not to beat a dead horse, but I have experienced a lot of trouble with coping with my job this past week. Every morning I go in to the office bravely, with a good attitude, cheerful, etc. And then, little by little, the darkness begins creeping in, sucking the life from me, and in one quick moment (after receiving 37 condescending e-mails in the course of 45 minutes; I am not exaggerating), I snap with anger, and the day goes downhill fast, spiraling out of control. There isn’t time in the day to get everything done (that’s why I’m working tomorrow, on Labor Day), and I don’t possess the physical or mental capacity to deal with the people, the personalities, the problems, or the pressures. I just don’t have it in me.
There are so many times that something happens, and I feel sick to my stomach at the thought that I have to deal with it…somehow, someway, I have to walk myself through this situation and take care of it. There’s no shoving it under the rug. There’s no walking away. There’s nobody else to shoulder the burden. It has to be dealt with, and I am the one who has to do it. I have to figure it out. This icky feeling happens three to four times each day.
All I want is a day where I don’t crumble into tears…where my emotions don’t get the better of me. I want to be solid and stable. I’m tired of being so vulnerable to every pressure; I’m tired of my mind being so raw with emotion.
I know it sounds like I’m whiny here, and I just want to say that I don’t really have the words or the freedom to fully express the details. :-)
So after an especially bad Tuesday, I discovered this at our grocery store:
Have you seen anything more beautiful? I put down “Moose Tracks” and “Extreme Moose Tracks” the moment I saw “Extreme Maximum Moose Tracks.” Mmmmm. I love whichever marketing team came up with that name. I think we could be friends.
The problem is that a carb overload is the last thing my body needs when I’m already under stress.
So, knowing that I needed to get my spiritual life in order, I turned to my Bible and also to a dusty little book on our bookshelf, much-loved with highlights from my college years: “Keep a Quiet Heart.”
“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.” – Elisabeth Elliott
Oh, how many times has it taken everything within me to keep my bottom planted in my office chair and not just, immaturely, get up and walk out. Yes, I do pray that God provides something else for me soon. But until He does, I need to continue to do my work as unto the Lord, to tap into His unexplainable peace to carry me through each day, and let His light shine through me into the darkness.
This song has become the song of my heart:
I play it on a quiet loop in my office, throughout the day. Yes, my co-workers do get tired of my worship music; but I kind of don’t care anymore. It makes all the difference for me. God inhabits the praises of His people, and I’ve learned that worship music creates an atmosphere where God is present--with me all day long.
Wednesday through Friday went much better. I had the prayers of Ryan and my parents sustaining me, and God ordered my steps throughout each day. Every task I completed seemed to open right into the next task; I felt like I glided through the day, and even when crap happened, I somehow remained calm and peaceful. My heart was quiet in the midst of chaos.
The secret is Christ in me.
Thank You, Jesus.
I struggle with fear of the future. Sure, God was good last week, and I got through it. But I feel sick when I think that there will be hard issues this week and next week and the week after that that I will have to deal with. Even with God’s help, I will still have to walk through it. The chaos will still be there.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Such powerful words for me right now. It’s amazing that you can read/hear/memorize a scripture, and then one day it just applies to your life, and you get it.
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Here are my Broncos fans a couple of weeks ago, before a pre-season game. I’ve chosen to stay home during the first few games to get some freelance writing done. Plus, Ryley likes being with her daddy. :-)
I’ve actually been daydreaming about snow days recently…of the chilly days ahead where we can finally make the soup again and build fires in the fireplace. We can boil cinnamon sticks on the stove and light the new fall candles I bought at IKEA.
Temps were in the 90s last week, but we’re looking at 80s in the coming days. Autumn is slowly descending upon us, at last.
Happy Labor Day!
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