Stepping with Purpose

A few months back, I stopped by HEB to do a little grocery shopping. When I came out of the store about 45 minutes later, it was pouring down rain. I had not brought my umbrella with me, so I stood there a few minutes contemplating what my next move would be.

After thinking it through, I realized that I was just going home and it didn't really matter if I got soaked or not. So I held on tight to the cart and took off across the parking lot. As I was walking quickly to my car, another car honked at another car for some reason. When he did that, it startled me and my foot slipped. I didn't fall, but my foot kinda turned underneath itself and it hurt! My entire leg all the way up to my hip hurt every day for about a month. I'm too young to be hurting like that!

So, as you can imagine, I've become a little skittish when it comes to walking outside in the rain. Yesterday, I was about to walk out of my building and it had started to rain. I had on the exact same shoes that I was wearing at HEB that day that I slipped. So, as I started to take that first step, I was a little leery! I put my foot down very deliberately and slowly. Then took the next step and then the next. Until finally I made it to my car without slipping.

It made me think of real life. How, so many times we are "walking" and doing our own thing, and we slip up. We do or say things that have negative consequences. We get hurt or we even hurt others.  Sometimes, we may not want to get back out there and try again; we are afraid of slipping up again. But the cool thing is that if we learn from the things that made us slip in the past, we are less likely to make those same mistakes again. If we take time to think about our actions, take our steps deliberately and with purpose....the rest will come easily.

Don't be afraid of past mistakes. Learn from them. Be a better person because of them. Live life by putting one foot in front of the other and walk with purpose!

I Just Stay Home........

Several years back, I can remember some people asking me, "what do you do?"...My reply was always..."I just stay at home with my kids." I really didn't feel like I "did" anything that was worthy to be noted.  It didn't take long for me to change my mind.  If any of you have ever stayed home with your kids, you know that doing "nothing" is far far from the truth!

When the kids were younger, I would arrange playdates, trips to the children's museum and fun snack times throughout the day. Now this only occurs during the summer, due to school.  Today, my day starts off at 5:30a.m. to get things done for myself like working out, quiet time with God and playing around on facebook :)  Then, lunches get made, children wake up, breakfast gets made and clothes get picked out for the day.

After I drop the kids off at school, I come back home and get things started around here.  A typical day begins with a load of laundry. While that is going, the clothes that are lying around in different rooms on different floors need to be picked up.  Dishwasher gets emptied and another load of dishes goes in. Then it's time to check emails and balance the checkbook. Making sure that all of the bills are up to date and nothing is being overlooked! Need to lay something out for dinner so that it will be ready to go when I'm ready for it.

Appointments need to be made and an errand list needs to be made for the day. Sometime in between all of this, bathrooms need to be spruced up and floors need to be swept.  About the time all of this gets finished, it's about time to pick up the kids and get dinner going. After dinner, homework gets done, baths, and nighttime books and off to bed we go.  Resting up to get ready to do it all over again the next day.

Keeping a home running smoothly is not as easy as it may look. I have learned not to downplay what I do. I have an important job and I take pride in doing it. I'm not "just a wife and mom"....I am "a woman" and that includes a whole lot of things......leave the "just" out please!