Five on Friday--May 29

Happy last weekend in May my friends! I hope this little post finds you enjoying some beautiful weather where you are and that you’re wrapping up this very strange and bizarre school year. Today is our last day—I now have a THIRD grader and a new kindergartner and that just seems insane to me. Today’s 5 on Friday include a few thoughts on grief, a Netflix series I binged in one week (staying up WAY too late some nights!), the books I read this week, places in life where I’m finally embracing the concept of quality over quantity, and the new house project that’s taken up our time this past week.

ONE

It seems well, not the most uplifting to begin a weekend post with the topic of grief, but it’s one that’s been bouncing around in my head for awhile now, and from conversations with others I know I’m not the only one experiencing this. For awhile I have been trying to tell myself I wasn’t really “allowed” to feel sad about things we’ve missed out on this spring or how our summer is going to be different because in the grand scheme of life our family has SO much to be thankful for. My husband’s job is stable, I was already a full time parent at home so to take on the task of schooling and full-time childcare wasn’t that much of a shift for us. Our extended family members are healthy and financially stable in this uncertain economic time. We have a safe home, a backyard, and plenty of access to technology and food. So when feelings would creep up of sadness over things we WERE missing out on I would do what I could to stuff them away and scoff at myself. “How could you possibly be grieving the cancellation of a show or a trip or the lack of closure at the end of your child’s preschool years when people are literally dying?! That’s so selfish!” However lately I’ve heard more and more voices I listen to regularly remind their audiences that loss is loss. We don’t need to play the “I lost more than you” game, loss is loss and loss leads to grief whether that is loss of a job or loss of the end of a school year. It’s okay to be sad right now about certain things. I know it sounds silly, but I really am grieving the end of my child’s preschool years, how Asher won’t get a preschool graduation like his brother did, he won’t get the cute cap and gown photos or the fun end of year concert experience his school does. (His amazing school did make the preschool graduation video and sent it out. Lets just say I was a bawling basketcase by the time I got to his picture. Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t have to experience this in person?) I’m grieving the cancellation of our family summer vacation to the San Juan Islands—to be back in my very favorite spot with friends I adore and miss dearly. We’re planning on next summer now, but that’s a long way away. We had tickets to Hamilton here in Jacksonville the weekend things shut down and missed it by about 4 days. It sounds so silly but I’ve been looking forward to finally seeing it for 5 years now—memorizing lyrics, listening to the soundtrack on repeat, watching more You Tube videos of the creation of the show, following cast members on Instagram to get behind the scenes looks, and to be 4 days from that small dream of mine coming true and having it cancelled is a loss. To try and muscle through without even acknowledging the real feelings that arrive when things we are looking forward to don’t happen only contributes to the stuffing of our emotions so they can come spilling out in more unhealthy ways later on. I’m trying to be more gentle with myself and am trying to help my kids do the same. I’ve been doing a lot of validating my oldest’s feelings as he’s expressed sadness at not getting to play soccer this year or not getting to be in class with his teacher and friends or having Kids Kamp at church cancelled. He knows it’s okay to be sad about those things, those things are losses in his little life and those feelings are real. If we’re helping our kids do this emotional work of acknowledging and naming how they’re feeling, how much more do we need to do the same for us to set that example for them? Loss is loss. Loss leads to grief. And grief is not a competition, you can grieve things large and small and both are important to acknowledge. This article was particularly helpful to me, maybe it will be for you too.

TWO

I don’t know about any one else’s house but there are spaces in mine where I think “why do we have all these ___________?!” Clutter in my own space really bothers me, and I do a pretty good job of keeping the spaces I can see clear of it—kitchen counters, desktops, coffee tables etc. However when you open some of my cupboards or closets, well, I can’t promise you that a bunch of plastic water bottles aren’t going to come crashing down on your head. After all these weeks in the house, I finally got up the energy to tackle a few of these spots in the past two weeks and it’s made a world of difference. One of these spots really was the water bottle cupboard. Why did we have so many?? And they were all crappy plastic ones that either leaked, had broken straws, or sweated condensation all over whatever table you left them on. Forget taking them out anywhere here in the summer, we’d get back in the car after one errand and the kid’s water would be warm. Last weekend I literally got rid of two paper grocery sacks full of plastic water bottles, old coffee travel mugs that leaked or literally were never used, and the giant slushee refillable containers from the water park (that we never once managed to remember to take back to the park for a refill). I kept the two travel coffee mugs my husband uses, the one I use, the one cup I use for iced coffee in the afternoon and I ordered stainless steel, vacuum insulated Simple Modern water bottles for everyone in their favorite color and that’s what we’ve got. I have a 40 oz hydroflask I’ve had for awhile now and use daily but now everyone else has a solid water bottle that keeps ice for almost 24 hours even in the heat. You know what I now have in that cupboard? Space! Even only 5 days in, I’m amazed at what a difference quality makes versus quantity. The kids love their grown up water bottles and I love having so much less clutter.

Another spot I tackled last week was our linen closets—we have two very small ones in the hallway and they were an absolute wreck with things just crammed in there. Finally I took everything out and start sorting through it. Man! We had crib sheets and pack and play sheets and queen bed sheets and we don’t own beds in any of those sizes anymore! We had blankets literally from our college days just sitting in there taking up space. I took an entire trunk full to a donation center this week and now my linen closet has so much space. I kept one extra set of sheets for each bed, the quilts my grandma made, and extra pillows. All the random linens that didn’t make sense for our lives right now went away. I think sometimes we hang onto things thinking “oh but someday we might have a real guest room with a queen sized bed so I should keep these queen sized sheets even though we can’t use them right now!” I definitely get that, but the reality is we are a long ways from that being a reality, so rather than allow those items to clutter up my present home and space I’d rather purchase them again when we are in a season where we do actually need them. What spot in your house is driving you nuts? I promise a good clean out is good for the soul!

THREE

Has anyone watched the somewhat cheesy, albeit delightful show Virgin River on Netflix? I am not a huge TV watcher but this one sucked me in and I went through all 10 episodes in about a week and a half (which is a record for me). I am a huge sucker for small town doctor shows for some reason (any other Hart of Dixie fans out there??) The thing that was most interesting to me however wasn’t just the plot line, although I thought it was charming, but for the first time when watching a show I had an immediate recognition of “oh my word that character is an enneagram two (which is what I am) and man is she acting out of an unhealthy side of her number! Yikes!” It was almost painful to watch because I could see some of the things I’ve done in the past in her character and her actions and was almost embarrassed while watching. Has that ever happened to you watching a TV show—where you recognize some of yourself in a character in such a real way it’s almost uncomfortable to watch? I’d love to hear who if you’re willing to share!

FOUR

This week I finished two books, one fiction and one non-fiction and both were decent so I thought I’d share what they were. I will say I’m still a bit in a book hangover from finishing the incredible novel I shared about last week, The Book of Longings, so neither of these that I read this week hold a candle to that one, but they were both enjoyable reads. (Side note, in my Book of the Month facebook group I definitely wasn’t alone in loving that novel, people are raving about it, many saying it’s bound to be one of the best stories they read this year, so it wasn’t just me that fell in love with this story!). This week I finished Jen Hatmaker’s new book Fierce, Free and Full of Fire. I love Jen and her voice, how she lifts up and honors people of all walks of life as precious in God’s sight. This is probably not my favorite of her books, however. I loved her book For the Love, but this one didn’t land quite as well for me. I will say it probably had a LOT to do with the state of the world while I was reading this. A global pandemic isn’t necessarily when one is in the best mindset to read a book about rising up to embrace fully who you are made to be. So to be fair, it is a very solid book with some incredibly poignant moments (her chapter on learning to love her body had me in tears and her chapter about naming who or what causes you would march for has had me thinking all week about that topic). I think this is one I’d like to revisit when the world simmers down a bit and I have mental energy to give to more personal growth.

The other book I read this week was one I went through in just a couple days, a new hot off the presses novel called Happy and You Know It by Laura Hankin. It was one of my Book of the Month selections this month and I flew through it. It was a totally mindless story of a group of moms in the super upper class of NYC playgroup life and Claire, the young down on her luck musician they hire to provide music for their toddlers at each playgroup. It was funny, ridiculous, and had some twists and turns that kept you guessing as to who the “villain” of the playgroup might actually be and why. The perfect book for mindless escape during the summer. I’m in the middle of 3 other books right now—two novels and one non-fiction and I’ll share about those next week!

FIVE

Many of you saw my instagram or facebook post the other day with the project my husband undertook, but in case you missed it, he’s been building us a new dining room table! We have a space in our home that’s supposed to be a formal dining area, but we’ve just never used it as such. We’ve only ever had the one kitchen table for our whole marriage, a table he built probably 20 years ago. It’s sturdy and has been through a LOT over the years including more than 1 cross country move! It’s just not all that large. It seats 4 comfortably, 6 if you squish. Which means we struggle even having one other family over for dinner. Until recently we’ve used a tiny kid’s table for whatever kids were present, but my 8 year old is now way too big to sit at a tiny table, his legs don’t even fit under ours anymore. Plus with all of us being home for so many weeks now, that table has become the central point of our day—all our meals and snacks but also all our schoolwork and art projects and board games are done in this space. Which means I spend all day clearing it to move on to the next thing. I told Charles awhile ago it would just be really nice to have one other designated surface we could use for guests but also for all this time at home! So this past week he built us a farmhouse style dining room table a little longer and wider than our current one and last night we got it into the house. I love it. We’ve ordered two chairs so far (who knew chairs were so expensive??) and I think he’s going to build us a bench for one side of it. This way we at least can have more people over for a meal, or we can set up a puzzle to leave up or just have another space to use. I am so grateful for the way he’s learned how to build things and work with tools, he’s made both our table, our bed, and Aidan’s loft bed with a slide in the past few years, and I am hopeful that’s a skill he’ll pass on to our boys someday. I have been trying my hand at baking homemade bread—not necessarily sandwich bread but nice round loaves of perfectly crispy crusts and soft insides and it has been so fun! But between my bread making and Charles’ furniture building I’m a little worried the next step on our apparent homestead journey is to get goats for the yard or something…

Have a wonderful week everyone and I’ll see you back here next Friday!