It's Advent and I'm Trying not to Stress

Every year personal and spiritual growth during Advent means letting go of preconceived ideas for a perfect Christmas.  This seems especially true for me this year.  My husband is winding down his months of working mandatory overtime and I have been playing in the symphony for a rehearsal or a concert every Sunday this Advent except for the last one.  So it seems there is even less time to "get it all done" than in previous years and it has been very difficult to get day to day tasks done around the house: laundry, cleaning, having supper on the table every night and it seems like a lot to think about getting ready for Christmas on top of all this.

Given the fact that it's so easy to feel overwhelmed, I'm really trying to let God guide me toward what he thinks is important for me to do realizing that we are his children and it should really be up to him to decide what kind of Christmas we have.  This means focusing on love. My focus should be on finding ways to better love God and my family.  If I focus on love and what is truly important than I think I may be less likely to feel anxious and overwhelmed which causes me to not be very loving. 

This may mean playing with my children instead of focusing so much on housework or just trying to keep my cool during tantrums and--what I find the most stressful part of the day--getting supper on the table.  I will need help from Jesus and Mary, of course.  It's difficult to not want to blame your husband for the house being a mess or the fact that  you haven't had time to do any planning for Christmas.  This is when it is important to trust God.  Don't sweat it.  Do your little part and it will all turn out o.k. even if it is not exactly what you wanted.

Practically speaking it helps to have manageable, realistic goals for each day with something I want to accomplish in the various categories of housework, child rearing, prayer, and Christmas planning as this helps to stay focused and I feel better when you know what you want to do and then accomplish at least some of it.

I think that working toward the material things that help in celebrating Christmas such as good food, special treats, presents can also help to prepare us spiritually for Christmas if we do it with a spirit of love and joy keeping in mind the celebration that we are fortunate enough to share with our family and the reason we are celebrating.  It's a matter of balance which begins with trusting God and keeping anxiety at bay.

Any suggestions about keeping things in perspective are appreciated.

Bread and Yogurt

Fall is in the air.  I've been making plans for beginning to make a few more things from scratch as I have done in the past.  Inspired by a friend who was making bread in her bread machine when I visited her last week I have started baking bread again.  I don't remember exactly when I stopped; but I think it was around last summer before or after my son was born in July.  I don't have a bread machine but I am seriously considering it for the first time.  Any suggestions?  I always see them at Good Will but I will have to look at them more closely next time I go.

I started making kefir a few years a go when my now almost three year old was a baby but probably haven't made it in at least two years.  It's nice because you can just make it at room temperature unlike yogurt where you need the right amount of heat and possibly a yogurt maker. I would like to try making yogurt however, as we would probably eat it more readily than kefir.   Here and here are a couple of posts with ideas for making it without a yogurt maker.   This article has some helpful information and kind of combines the two ways mentioned in the last two links.  They pour water of the right temperature into a small cooler and have canning jars full of the yogurt sit in that for the designated time.  It would really be a lot cheaper to make our own yogurt as milk from the store is much cheaper than buying yogurt from the store.

Doing Without my Dryer Revisited

Last month on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception I found that my dryer was broken and wrote about it here. I had decided to hang up my clothes to air dry until the dryer was fixed and indicated that maybe I would even continue to do so after the dryer was fixed. Well I told myself that, in an effort to save on utilities and to use less of the worlds resources, I would hang up at least one load of laundry each week to air dry.

Did I follow through?

Well... I did this exactly once since I got the dryer fixed. I hung up dish towels and other whites on my drying rack. There are three things I told myself as to why I was just going to go back to using my dryer for now:

1. My pesky cat insisted on sitting underneath the drying rack and that left me with cat hair on my dish towels, which would leave me with cat hair on my dishes if I used these towels in the way they were meant to be used. That is undesireable I'm sure even for the most ardent cat lover.

2. Even with my newly purchased drying rack, it is still difficult to find a place to hang everything and we end up with laundry hanging up all over the house.

3. I'll just wait until warmer weather and hang it outside then.

Next Day--Another Try--Another Perspective
I wrote the above yesterday. Last night, however, I did , once again, hang up my laundry to dry and it seemed so easy.  I moved my drying rack to the bedroom where my cat would be less likely to get it and I also hung up a lot of laundry on hangers on the shower rod. 

I have come to the conclusion that , once you work out the logistics, hanging up clothes to dry doesn't add any more work than using the dryer because, in the act of hanging up your clothes to dry you are also taking care of most of the work of sorting and folding.  Dare I say that taking the time to put clothes in the dryer is just an extra step that adds more work? 

For more on the subject of air drying your clothes here is an article and a web site on the very topic.  Isn't that a hoot?  There is a web site about this. 

Dryer Isn't Working and That's O.K.

Yesterday for the feast of the Immaculate Conception I made Blueberry Muffins from this receipe at Catholic Cuisine. They were very good and rather decadent with the crumble on top even though I made the muffins with half whole wheat flour. I may leave the crumble off next time and see how that works for a somewhat healthier version as they seemed plenty sweet enough. I know--I'm no fun.

We had a busy day after mass and muffins. I went shopping for boots for the kids and bought some pants for my husband. I wanted to get this done before it got snowing too hard.

In the evening I found that my dryer wasn't working. When the towels didn't get dry the first time I thought my husband forgot to turn on the dryer; when they didn't get done the second time I knew something was up. The dryer was spinning but there was no heat.

At first I was a little bit distraught by this as I had a fair amount of laundry, but then I rememered a post I read by Heather at A Quiet Place of Rest where she talked about hanging up her laundry inside because the weather was overcast that day and how this also helpped with the dry air inside. So... I have been doing laundry and hanging things up to dry whereever I can find a place to hang them. I hung diapers last night and I couldn't believe how quickly they dried. It is the dry air I am sure. I love the fact that we are getting by (for now) without our dryer.

This seems like such a small thing to get excited about; but my excitement may be due in large part that doing without a dryer (even temporarily) can be counted as one of the many small steps that are leading us to live a more homemade, do-it-yourself, thrifty kind of life. I may try to find a place to hang a clothesline and try to do this on a more permanent basis. We'll see.

On another note...
Here are pictures my husband took of our back yard this morning. Yes, it snowed, and I think many people will have similar pictures on their blogs today.

Nap Time

It has been two days in a row and baby has taken his nap along with his two year old sister. It is so great to have the time freeed up. I will enjoy it while it lasts. I think this is due to the fact that I have been waking baby up in the morning. He has been sleeping from his feeding at 7 AM until about ten o'clock. But today and yesterday I woke him up before 9:00. This also makes for a better morning nap for baby. So what did I do with the time? Well... I am able to spend a little time online, I dusted, and made bread among other things. Not bad huh?