There is a book out there written by a couple of young men, Alex and Brett Harris, called Do Hard Things. It is a book we generally give to friends of ours who are coming of age to spur them on to not be "regular", but to encourage them to push themselves to do things for God while they are young, while they have the energy, strength, resources, instead of wasting their time on things that won't benefit them. It is a good book for anyone to read, not just a young person.
I kind of took the challenge on during this fast and kicked it up a notch. I'm not starting an orphanage or anything like that, but somewhere along the line in the last few weeks, I've said to myself, "You must do one hard thing a day....at least." What has that looked like? Very interesting. In fact, it has shown me just how much I procrastinate because all the hard things I've been doing are things I should have done a loooooong time ago. Again, these are just basic things, but in my mind, they were huge, overwhelming, or just plain awful.
An example would be cleaning up the closet in the homeschool room - I'd been dreading that forever, but I did it. Our basement was a swamp pit this past winter as the pipes froze, so all our laundry water started accumulating up to 6 inches or more down there. It was awful. I cleaned it all up a couple weeks ago. Our van gets unbelievably messy on a fairly regular basis. I usually get the kids to do it, but yesterday, an entire bottle of sub sauce got spilled in it, so this time, I didn't even call anyone out, I just cleaned it up and then kept going, picking up garbage I know has been there for months! Another example has to be my white bathroom. Who picks white? I do. Not smart, but I love the colour so much that I was willing to pay the price, or so I thought. I generally keep it clean, with the kids help, but upon closer inspection, particularly around the ceiling and every nook and cranny in the room, you would have found (at least a week ago anyway!) a spider, a spider web, a spider dinner, a cobweb......it was honestly taking over the bathroom, but I couldn't do it. It was too big a task in my mind. Not to mentiont the dust on the light fixtures or under the cabinets, where I found a host of lost socks, pony tail elastics, toothpaste lids.....a treasure of things gone missing! But, my new silly challenge made me clean it up last week - and did I ever. I even took down the unfortunately, but beautiful, white shower curtain, and while it soaked, I got a chair and washed ceilings, walls, light fixtures, under the cabinets. My toilet was so clean that week I could have washed veggies in it for salad! Now, it doesn't last looking spotless for long, but at least now you can walk in and not be afraid that a spider will land on you!
Doing these little challenges has helped me so much as my list of things to do has gotten shorter and shorter and the feeling of accomplishment is great. My hard things generally have to do with cleaning as it just isn't my strength, which is why I put them off. I've been sharing with my kids what I've been up to as, unfortunately, they are notorious for putting things off, too, and shockingly, they don't seem to be noticing all that I'm accomplishing!!!!! So I had to tell them, but that's ok. I think it will be our theme for school this year as the older ones are going to be hit by the reality, especially the boys, that they will be providing for real-life families one day, not just playing anymore. They are all going to have to get super serious about their school work now as it is more than just busy work, it is going to provide them with a potential career! It's all a little overwhelming, but exciting at the same time. Renaissance Man and I hope to live like this all the time. It goes back to living like an ant - no supervisor, but just getting stuff done because it has to get done.
This will be an interesting day ahead for our family. We're off to pick out a couple horses that we're "horse sitting" over the winter. Most horse camps don't keep their horses all winter. They house them elsewhere and then they come back for the summer. This great idea occurred to my husband, "Why don't we horse sit some perfectly trained riding horses that are great with kids?????" So, after a quick call to the camp, they jumped at the opportunity and the next thing you know we go pick the ones we want today! How fun! So we'll be riding, I hope, all fall/winter, and then gaining some experience to maybe one day have our own again. This is a lot cheaper as we don't buy them, we just supply some hay. Our kids are super excited.
Is that a hard thing? Picking horses? No really, but it sure determines how our kids will be spending their time once the horses arrive! It should keep them off the streets for a bit! After the 40 day fast, I'm definitely going to do more hard things and keep that challenge going all year. We'll see if the kids buy into it.......me and my crazy ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment