Wish I could go back
And change these years
I’m going through changes
I’m going through changes

-Ozzy Osbourne “Changes”

Yes, folks.  I have been known to like some Ozzy once in a while.  I’m a rebel at heart. 😉  This is a love song, and I’m not writing about losing the best woman I ever had in this post.  I’m writing about going through changes.  Anytime we lose something we have to make changes to get our lives back in an order we can work with.  I lost a sense of balance between my mothering and my personal goals.  I was frustrated, and not succeeding at either.  The changes I made last week weren’t perfect, but they got me started.

This week has started off much looser than last week.  I have our menu planned through Thursday rather than the whole week.  I don’t have a new rhythm/schedule made out because I have decided that a rhythm is not a schedule of set times to do certain things.  I know, this sounds like I’m going back to a slack concept where I’ll get nothing done due to getting side tracked or procrastination.  No, I have certain attainable goals set for each day.  I took our former Waldorf Parent/Child teacher’s comment to heart.

Remember, rhythm is a breathing….times of play interspersed with times of work, inside/outside, rest/active…you get the picture. Whatever helps you breathe.

-Miss Angie

I am going to flow with the rhythm my girls set.  That is the only way I will accomplish anything for them or myself with any level of sanity or a sense of peace.  I don’t want to be fighting our needs from day to day, as they are ever changing, to stick to some schedule of how I think things should go.

For example, today is Monday.  On my old “schedule” I had this down for living room/laundry as my goal for housekeeping.  Instead of setting a certain time to do that, I did it as soon as I could after breakfast, when the girls were happily playing on their own.  It will probably fall around the time  as I had it in the old “schedule”, but it didn’t today.  We ended up with company in the form of musician Brett Ratliff who stayed to eat some yummy wild turkey my brother killed for us on Saturday.  I hate straightening up around company.  I think it is a bit rude, so I saved the bulk of my work until he left.  It worked out fine.

As far as keeping up with a time of day, I have distinct markers.  Mealtimes and preparing our meals will be a major factor in when and the order in which we complete the tasks of the day. Our mealtimes are pretty regular, though we vary whether our biggest meal is lunch or supper.  I am keeping a set bedtime for the girls.  Right now. we are experimenting as I believe both of my girls might not be getting enough sleep.  Tonight, they were in bed by 8pm.  The routine I had for bedtime will remain the same and baths will be every other day.  I will continue to get up earlier than everyone else on most days to insure I get writing and/or exercise time.  That is one thing that worked out really well.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, and I plan to be out in the garden.  We are going to look at chickens and maybe acquire a few.  Then, I’m off to the first meeting of a new writer’s group.  Action packed, but I think I can do all of that, get some writing done, exercise and do some more housekeeping all within a rhythm based on the needs of the day.  Changes aren’t all bad.  Really, I think most change is good.  I don’t want to look back to the formative years of my girls lives and see them as wasted in life’s chaos.  I want them to be memorable, nuturing times.  I’ll keep you posted as to whether this change is accomplishing the peace in our lives that I hope it will.