February Post, for May

I discovered this in my drafts...

Recently, Elizabeth Foss posted:

Did January get away from you? Did all your resolve kind of melt away as you recovered from the holidays and tried to get ahead of the business-as-usual January? Me, too. Can we call this beginning of February a new beginning and put to paper five things which will strengthen us? Just five things that we can resolve to do to better equip us to journey in faith. Make a real list. 

January?  Get away from me?

Oy.

My Mom arrived at our house on Christmas Eve with a terrible "cold".  She had a sore throat and her ears were plugged.  My brother-in-law stayed home that night with some "sickness" which included oozing eyes. (Ew).  On December 27th, we stayed home from our 14th Anniversary night-out since Bilbo had a fever.  One by one, we ALL caught some form of this "cold"/flu/virus-from-hades.  Fevers,  sore throats (strep?), oozing eyes.  We felt awful--AWFUL--for three weeks. Some of the symptoms were quite painful.  Some nights we had to take Advil for the throat pain.  It was so crazy weird, bad.

February began with a beautiful snow fall, and…the stomach flu.  I don't even care about the stomach flu. It's over.  It was fast and furious.  I'm out to reclaim this new year.  I'd love to call February a new beginning and find five things to help me keep that resolve.

 Elizabeth said to find 5 things that will strengthen us.

I found my journal entry from February and it said:

1) healthy diet (I had specifics written down which is actually humorous for me to read now).

2) lift weights.  This is a new concept for me. I also have failed to lift consistently (or at all recently), but I do think that lifting heavier weights (and my maximum is about 20 pounds, both hands together) has big effects on both muscle and mood. More effect more quickly.

3) Divine Mercy chaplet.  I haven't ever had this as a consistent daily habit.

4) keep kitchen clean. because clean kitchen = some sense of order in the home

5) more time with my husband--dates, mini-dates (getting coffee or running an errand together), etc.


I think my list would look different now, but I'm glad to be reminded of what I wrote.  Thanks to my very diligent husband I can say that we're getting close to having a Divine Mercy chaplet habit formed this year.  It is so powerful and takes such little time!

Since my oldest is now rounding the bend on 14 years old, our "date nights" have been more frequent than they ever had been before...but we usually still have the youngest two with us, so, its only so glamorous.  I'd like to work on that.

I'm going to ponder all of this again and hope to revisit the "list" with you soon.  Feel free to share yours with me (or any ideas) if you care to!  I think it's important to be intentional about self-care. I'm learning hard lessons on that these days.  I'll share about that soon too.  But we are mothers, and we need to be strong for so many others to lean on us.  We do need to strengthen ourselves so we can be all we need to be for everyone else.