Busiest Winter Yet

Winter can be a dark, dreary time of year.  We live way up North, so the sun sets quite early, and the short days, along with my aversion to hanging outside in subzero temps makes days dark sometimes.

Our house is south facing, so on sunny days, regardless of the air temperature, we open up the front door and just let the heat from the sun hit the glass and it floods the whole kitchen with bright light.  The sun reflects off of the glittering snow, and I nearly have to squint as I walk through the house it’s so bright.  I love sunny days, with no wind in the winter.  The ski-people in my house get grumbly, but I’m enjoying it.

There’s something about being flooded with light, whether on the snow or on the beach that compels me to take a deep breath, and relax my shoulders a bit.

Yesterday I didn’t even light the wood burning fireplace which heats most of our house until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  I went for a walk on the crunchy icy-gravel driveway, because the air was so…breathable.  You who live here know what I mean.  For very long stretches of time in the winter, breathing outside makes you wonder if you will actually freeze your lungs, and breathing inside becomes this dull, stale, thing.  A walk outside in breathable air was wonderful.

There have been so many decisions to be made lately.  I still have paperwork I’m dealing with for the car accident…a year and a half ago.  I finally bit the bullet and got a YMCA membership for my family.  I agonized a bit too dramatically over that decision.  The fact that I’ll be able to drop off some little kids while David is at Tae Kwon Do, and I can go and hide in the sauna or something might have something to do with it.  Actually, I found a little space in a corner that will be perfect for getting some work done.  Getting a membership meant dropping some other things, though, and that made the decision tough.

I’ve also been running around, preparing for a little weekend getaway coming up with my friend Annalise, whose blog you can find over here.  (She just signed a cookbook deal with a publisher last week, and I cannot wait to hear all the details about that in person!!)  We know each other way back from high school, but like a few of my friends, our friendship really took off after high school.  We’ll be meeting up for a conference in Colorado, and I’m busy trying to make sure my kids and husband survive while I’m gone.  Knut has been trying to get as much skiing and Birkie-training in as he can before I leave him, so we’ve been passing each other for a few days.

Life is going at such a fast pace right now.  Looking at the calendar, I just realized last night that Monday was the only time I would actually be the one to put my kids to bed for the next week.  It’s times like this that I’m so thankful that we homeschool, because at least I have the mornings with the kids this week.

I have been trying so hard to discover this magic formula of “how much is too much?” running around and activity for a family.  I feel like I say no to about 90% of the things we get asked to participate in, and yet I still find myself saying things like: “No, we can’t do anything that night, because that’s the only night we are all at home, and we get to all be home together at least one night a week!!”

But really, I said “no” to almost everything in December.  I try to leave that wide open so that the stress of Christmas doesn’t swallow me whole.  We’re just starting to get into our new normal.  I’ve been dreading it, but so far it’s been working.  So far my kids have been excited about our new schedule, and new outings.  Except for the few sunny days, winter can be a tough season to get through.

I’m discovering more and more that there is no magic formula.  As my friend Sally says, “we live by faith, not formulas.”  The more I pray about this new stage of activities we are in, and worry that I will do it totally wrong, I continually reminded that I can only fix my eyes on Jesus through each step.  That’s the only formula I know that works.