Life As A Fire Wife

This morning I woke up with a blog on my heart, which hasn’t happened in quite some time now. I have actually spent a fair amount of time lately wondering where this blog fits in to my life? Life has just been so busy and  I often feel that I don’t have anything of real importance to say. But it really doesn’t matter if anyone reads this or not, or if my words resonate with anyone, as long as I’m doing what I love, and that for me is writing. I guess it’s like that old saying, if a tree falls in the woods, would it make any noise if no one was there to hear it?

A lot has happened around here in the past few months. Summer came and went. Our basement has been under construction for months and it is so very close to being a finished basement. My dad visited us for a month. We had a mouse problem, which is a blog entirely of itself. But now we have 2 adorable kitties, Rocky and Summer, or more affectionately Rocky Doodle and Summie. We no longer have mice since the visit from the exterminator(which I deemed 100% necessary after watching mice run every which way in broad day light-bold mice), but if we ever get them again I have full confidence in Rocky and Sum Sum, mostly Sum Sum to take care of the problem. We also took our first family vacation to Orlando where we got to go to Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. We had a magical time of relaxation and fun. Oh how we needed a vacation, and we didn’t even know it.

I think that is where I’ll park for the rest of this post. Because since we have been back people have asked what my favorite part of vacation was. Well my favorite park was Hollywood Studios but my favorite part of vacation was being on vacation. This truth hit me so hard as the end of our week away was drawing near, that I realized that I must be doing something wrong at home. On a daily basis I have the hardest time relaxing, I find it hard to just plop down on my beach chair on a summer day and not think about the laundry, the dishes, the appointments, the meal prep. And during the school year while me kids are at school, I’m just as busy, there is always something to be done. Vacation changed my perspective on all of this. I truly wanted to bottle up the vacation mentality and take it home with me. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t stressed on vacation. I had no anxiety on vacation. It was amazing! I was able to keep this perspective up for about the first week that we were home and then we got right back into busy. There has been 72 hours shifts at the station, there has been overtime, there has been sickness and accidents involving swivel chairs(this is another story as well). There has been rude attitudes, discontentment, bickering, and name calling. And over the last few weeks I have felt the stress and the anxiety start to rise to the surface again which has left me yearning for another vacation, but that is not practical. We cannot only enjoy life while we are on vacation. Did you catch that last sentence, I’m speaking to myself here, it’s my daily pep talk, but today it’s just not private. We cannot only enjoy life while we are on vacation. Everything that causes me stress and anxiety, none of it came on vacation with me. It’s funny because I still had to do mommy stuff; give everyone breakfast, pack lunches and snacks the night before the parks, do laundry, wash dishes(we had a dishwasher in our suite, it was amazing!) But I didn’t find it stressful, if anything I found it relaxing. But now we are home and all that same stuff has become stressful again.

When my eyes popped open this morning, my heart was already racing and I was already in fight or flight mode-I still need to get that cortisol under control. I was thinking about my day and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit thrust 2 words upon my brain–burdens & blessings. Which left me wondering, am I feeling burdened by my blessings? Sounds awful right. But legit, the work never ends. So then I began to wonder, do I behave towards my blessings as though they are burdens. Deep, heavy sigh, yes, yes I do. Not all the time. But often enough. Enough is enough.

Where do I go from here? First I laid back down and did some deep breathing(good for cortisol), then I read my devotions and spent some time in thanksgiving and prayer. Then I made a priority list for today. There are 5 things on my list; Kenny, kids, bible study/time with God, exercise, write. Guess what? Laundry needs to be done, meals need to be made, dishes need to be washed, clothes need to be folded, etc. But the to do list is not my number one priority today, and I will not let it continue to run my life. My people and my presence in their lives are far more important than the laundry. My people and the conditions of their hearts and our family relationships are far more important than the dishes. The chores will all get done, they aren’t going away, but one day I will blink and my kids will be grown, and I will never wish I spent more time on the chores.

So today I am implementing this new way of life, and it will take time and it will take practice, but I’m going to go hang up my priority list, to remind me every day, when the dishes are piling up and there are no clean socks to be found, that I am no longer a slave to my to do list. I’m far to blessed to be stressed.