Not ALL Who Wander Are Lost (But I Might Be)

Sometimes I feel like I’m just wandering…not entirely sure where life is going- not even sure I know where I want it to go.  I get to the end of a good, full weekend- and I suddenly stare ahead to a week that I forgot to plan ahead for.  And a list of things to do that I’m just not sure how to prioritize.

In the kitchen- not only do I have regular dishes piled up, I’ve a pretty good intuition that it is time to clean out old fridge containers too.  (Everyone knows if you pull food out of the fridge and you aren’t sure if it has gone bad, you do not throw it away-  you put it back in the fridge until you are definitely sure it has gone bad, then you throw it away.) Well I’ve got a lot of dishes with food that defffiniitely needs to be thrown away.  I’ll start by making sure enough things are clean for me to have my morning coffee.  (Which I will spend half the day setting down and searching for.)  

In the bathroom: my toilet lid has broken right off the toilet.  Maybe I’ll THINK about fixing that tomorrow, while pondering why my children have laid out six partially-used-travel-sized toothpaste tubes on the counter.  We aren’t hosting a tooth-paste tasting, offspring of mine.  I’m also fairly confident we need a second bathroom- with four actual potty users now, I’m not sure the supplementary toddler potties are sufficient- or highly sanitary-anymore.

In the kids rooms, I will not know where to start cleaning or if I should even clean since it is their responsibility.  (But I can only leave things half cleaned for so long before I have to intervene.)  Which bring me to my Christmas conundrum.  Because I quite seriously have the urge multiple times a week to weed through all their toys and give half away.  But the next minute I’m shopping to buy them the next toy that will end up in that giveaway pile.  blerg.

And then there is the holiday stuff and the groceries that don’t seem to restock themselves yet, and the kids are pretty set on eating everyday so I have to think of meals, and honestly a lot of my problem is really just that I don’t plan things out very well.

But I think lately I’m more concerned that I’m not understanding and planning me out very well.  I can look around at the mess of me and see things that I want to improve, to change, to grow in.  But I don’t know where to start, and perhaps more problematic, I haven’t clarified where I want to end up.  I don’t want to live my life haphazardly though…I want to be intentional, with my goals, my dreams, my kids, my spouse, my friends.  And I know for me that really needs to start with giving all that to God…to let Him shape it all and place His priorities in my life.

But just when I start out, I get completely bogged down in the day to day of it all- the chores I mentioned before, or the errands.  Or how I’m supposed to “train up” kids when some days I feel like it takes all my energy just to get them to put their clothes on in the morning.  Or how to show my husband I love him without letting selfishness in.  And so lately I feel like I’m playing catch-up instead of feeling prepared- I feel like I’m living and parenting reactively* instead of proactively.  I feel like I’m just experimenting with life, but I’m not sure I’ve figured anything out, and I’m feeling just a little tired.

So does anyone have any thoughts on how to work with this?  Any ideas for how to live life to the full in the midst of the day to day?  Or how to live in a more proactive, less reactive way?  I’m all about some baby steps here.

*spell check insists this isn’t a word…but I would defy it to give me a more appropriate real word.