Finger in a Book

You know when you are reading a good book, and then you hear, "Mommy? momma? Mom...mom...mom... MOOOOMMM!" so you sigh dramatically, close the book with your finger carefully marking your place, and go see what the emergency is that you can't have 'one damn minute to yourself!' ? Invariably, the emergency is something that needs two hands so a hasty bookmark is found in whatever napkin, receipt or popsicle stick is laying around and the book is regretfully put down. And suddenly it's hours, or sometimes days, before you can grab another minute to spare and get back to what you were doing.

This is my life. Not in a whiny 'I just want to do what I want to do so everyone go away and leave me the frack alone!' kind of way (not entirely anyway), but in a 'my life is on hold kind of way'. And so to help me think about it, and to let you know I'm still here somewhere, this post will be about detailing how my finger is in the book, holding my spot, as I try to do all the other things that need doing.

Stuff that's distracting (good and bad and in no particular order):

• Micheal has been sick. He has this 'stomach thing' (this is what we've called it for years) that periodically makes him sick over the last 15-ish years. He'll be fine for a while and then will start feeling nauseous after every meal, needing to lay down, often throwing up. He had one of those 'super fun check out your innards medical tests' where they ask if you want a copy of the video tape (um, NO!) about 10 years ago and the result was, 'Yep, there is something wrong there, we don't know what it is so we call it irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), eat lots of fiber, go forth and prosper.' It's gotten pretty bad again. Lots of pain & nausea with fatigue. So today he has a CT scan, needs to drink a barium solution and get an IV of something so the doctor can see what's going on. Possible diverticulitis? We'll see. He's nervous, I'm nervous for him... He goes back for results on Tuesday next.
• Speaking of me picking up on Micheal's mood, he recently pointed this out: You know how females living in the same house strangely start menstruating at the time? Well Grace, who is 5, is definitely, obviously picking up on my mood swings. How weird. And like we need one more emotional female in the house. I should write a grant proposal, pitch it to someone and spend the resulting $3.7 million studying this.
• I have no time. And so I really want to read books about how to manage my time. But I have no time to read them. And besides, the authors make really good points about how important it is to do really hard stuff and I don't want to do really hard stuff. I just want to have time.
• I need to stop reading for pleasure. This is an example of a good thing becoming a bad thing. I want to read things, particularly fiction where the main character has a big problem to solve (a murder, the boy she loves is a vampire, He-who-must-not-be-named needs to die...) and get sucked into their world and not do anything else, just read. No cooking, no cleaning, no working. Nothing wrong with that, right?
• I need to read more for edification. Stuff like the (gasp!) Bible. And other stuff that will... edify. But I need to stop just buying books because I need to know what they say but never finish them completely or never read them at all...  But have you seen these: Living with Less so Your Family Has More, Growing Grateful Kids, Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes Our Souls, or Sacred Marriage ? But I also have Celebration of Discipline which I haven't even cracked it open yet - because it sounds hard. Doesn't it sound hard? 
• Small group stuff. The small group I lead is taking a lot of my thought life. The problem is, I spend most of this time in my head thinking about what I should do instead of doing it. On Saturday we cleaned the house and Grace really, really wanted to stop everything and make a list of the stuff we were going to do just so she could cross it off the list. Counter productive. I'm like that.
• Parenting; see above point. Lots of time spend thinking about what might work, not enough time spent trying it, or spending good quality time with the kids. Must stop. And this week, some of the areas here have improved.
• I need to not focus on how I am not like this blogger who sees God in a way that I covet, or this blogger whose children are always pretending Bible stories in very sweet ways, and many others because it is paralyzing. 
• I need to get to the gym and get my body under control. I got out of the habit because I needed new shoes, shin splits were killing me, but until I could get to the store to get new shoes (no time!) I missed a few days and now am out of the habit. Oh, and I had the 24 hr flu, too, that didn't help. So since I'm not doing so well getting to the gym I thought I'd spend $200 on P90X. Which might be laughable. It shipped today so we'll see. I have a couple day reprieve...

Obviously I could go on and on and on... I just want to get back to what I was doing, and I want what I was doing to be trying to know God better, see Jesus clearer, hear the Holy Spirit louder, love Micheal more in a way that makes sense to him, parent well... I know God is probably using all this stuff and more to work on these things in my life, but I feel like it's on hold.

I'm just trying to keep my finger in the book and keep my place.