anything not everything

Quite regularly we chat about what they want to be when they grow up.  What they don't know is how often that same question, "What do I want to be?" rolls around in my own brain.  So many interests to pursue and so little time.  So many good things out there and yet again, not enough time.  

What if I were to change my perspective, though?  I have the same amount of time as any other person, right?  A better perspective would be one of, "I have enough time to do everything that I need to do."  As do most complex thoughts, it looks much more crisp when captured by pixels instead of lived out by flesh.  

Many a time I find myself looking at an opportunity and thinking, "Wow, that looks like fun."  Just this week I paused, my fingers poised over a touch-screen keyboard preparing to tap-tap-tap my way into another group.  This group is fabulous and it was exploring an area that I have been quite hesitant to delve into because I.have.no.clue.what.I.am.doing.  I hemmed and hawed and by golly I closed the tab before I could fill out the form.  

I suffer from the want-to-do-everything-itis and the only people who suffer from this are me and those I love.  You know how when you go to an interview and your would-be boss asks you, "What's your weakness," and you fumble about trying to come up with a legitimate sounding answer?  My answer is that I consistently spread myself too thinly.  I allow myself to be pulled in so many directions that I burn out and a burnt out Kristina means a crabby Kristina which you can read as No Fun For AnyOne Kristina.  

That's where this fab little quote comes in.  I am more than capable of doing anything I want and chances are, you are too.  I am not, however capable of doing everything.  I can't be all things to all people even most of the time, nevertheless all the time. 

No, I must pick and choose.  

One of my favorite authors once said that for every "Yes!" she gave it meant she had to say "No" to at least five other things.  It taught her to be quite careful that her one adamant "Yes" was worth enough to say "No" to five other things.  

So here I am, making sure all my heck yes' are worth five times of "no way".

And here's to doing anything, but not everything.

what I'm into (february awesomeness)

In case you had yet to notice, it's MARCH.  March, y'all!  I can hardly believe it, but since it means we are that much closer to June, July, and all the awesome of August, I'll take it.  Things have been busy around these parts...not the blog (obvs), but I've been busy doing everything that keeps me from blogging.  You know, the cleaning toilets, raising children, going to work stuff. Even so I've managed to have quite an enjoyable February...

my raindrops (on roses)

1. my monthly prayer journal from ValMarie papers *love it*

2.  Grape Ice Cubes - my favorite gum this month and I've even managed to keep

it hidden from the littles (score!)  Also, something about grape gum makes me feel twelve again--in a good way, not in the "i can't wait to be an adult way"

3. Tazo Zen tea - I got to fire up a Keurig for the first time and this was what I chose.  Wowzas!  The Keurig. The Tea. The everythings.

4. Burt's Bees Grapefruit Lip Balm - I'm a huge BB fan, but wanted something other than the normal "spicy" flavor.  In walks the love of my life, grapfruit.

5.  Sugar in the Raw - a good friend introduced me to the wonderfulness that is raw sugar

6.  Thieves Essential Oil - Oh my word.  I attribute our health this year to using this.  I love the taste, the smell.  Yum-o.  

This little lady began the month by turning three years old.

I still can't believe it, but I guess it's for real because I got the 

letter from her pediatrician in the mail saying she is due for

her three year checkup.

Zoning Out To:

I actually haven't been zoning out to these shows, but goodness, I've watched enough of them.  Normally I don't watch much TV/iPad at all, but this month I devoured all three seasons of Scandal like they were going out of style.  My best friend gave it to me as bestie homework so we could chat about it when we got together.  I'm forever grateful.  

Of course I also had to take the "Which Scandal Character Are You" internet test and yes, I did get Olivia Pope and yes I did take a screenshot so I could post it there (after sending it to aforementioned bestie and tagging her on it in Facebook so she could take it as well. My source tells me she got Olivia Pope as well.)

Playing: 

I've been trying to be more intentional with time with my littles.  This involves games for us because none of us can sit still.  

Dutch Blitz: I learned this game when I was young and recently started playing it again.  Love it.  

Bananagrams: Such a word nerd game.  I spent half the game the other day praying I'd pull an "r" because gosh darn it I wanted to spell the word "suffrage".  

Spot It:  I had no idea there were so many versions of Spot It until just now when I linked to it, but goodness, this is a favorite by far.  BY FAR!  

I had a major peanut butter craving and made this delectable cheesecake.  

At the beginning of the year I told myself I wouldn't buy another book until I had read ten.  Well, by golly, I finally finished book number three this month.

I think of this shirt on a daily basis.

This book looks intriguing and I can't wait to dive in.  No, I'm not buying it, I'm borrowing it.  The book challenge only applied to buying books.  I didn't restrict myself from library loans.  

Lastly, Leigh has been doing this Enneagram study-ish series and I finally took one of the test she recommended and found out that I'm a 1-9.  Go figure.  You?

As usual I'm linking up with Leigh over at LeighKramer.com.  You should definitely stop in and check out all the other wonderful "what I'm into" posts. 

when Bible study is out of the question

My entryway is rarely clear.  It is a conglomeration of jackets, boots, backpacks, papers and mail.  In the summer it is bad and in the winter even worse.  The previous owners crafted ingenious wooden covers for the radiators that spread heat throughout my abode.  What an eyesore, those radiators.  It is on one of these ingenious covers, the one to the right of the door, amidst my new insurance quote and the mismatched mittens that I found my Bible this morning...just where I left it last week.  In that same spot has it lingered, unopened and untouched.

"Make time.  There's ALWAYS time." I used to say.  But friend, I understand when there is no time and you are running and running and there are never enough hours at night and naptime is never long enough.  I get it, and yet my soul screams out from being like an infant left too long between feedings that it needs food.  It is starving and oh, but for a morsel, a scrap, a tidbit and it must feed, but by George there is no time and friend, I get it.

A much wiser woman than I once told me about seasons.  She explained how tomorrow will only resemble today and how two months from now will look different than today and just as the leaves turn and fall so will the grass of this life wither and fade, change and bend.  Only for a season will my time be so utterly consumed leaving my begging for a pillow and just a few more minutes in the morning.  It will not always be this way, but oh, my soul may not last that long.

And so each morning I reach.  I reach to my phone, first and foremost.  Not for Facebook or Twitter, not for my morning dose of Instagram, though I will confess to checking the weather reports, but for a few morsels, a smattering of delectable truth to begin my day and start it right.  You know what they say about breakfast, right?  Most important meal of the day and so I touch the screen and read.  Sure it's only five minutes, but it's an imperative five minutes, a necessary five minutes, a can't go without it five minutes and at the end I'm Oliver holding my bowl up asking, "Please, sir, can I have s'more?"

*****

Here are some of my favorite resources to keep my soul fed even when 

I'm being run ragged by life....

YouVersion Bible App

Jesus Calling

Jesus Today

*this post does include affiliate links which means that if you purchase one of the items from the links, a portion of the proceeds will help support the wordsmithery here at kjtanner at no extra cost to you*

The Spotlight I Don't Have

Many an evening I find myself in the driver's seat of my van, greige (the weird color between grey and brown that is the inside of my vehicle) seat belt taut against my legs and chest, driving.  Often I'm returning from, many a time I'm driving to a destination about which I only know the basics.  "So and so is in the ER.  Text us once you get there and let us know what's going on."  Rarely I'll be told, "Go to such and such ER as soon as possible.  Text once you get there to let us know if and when you need a replacement."  Specifics are missing most often in my line of work.  It's enough to drive a type-A control spaz like me crazy.

I've driven in weather conditions that have proven the existence of angels and luck and all other manner of superstition. (I only write that half-jokingly.)  Low visibility, whether caused by a blanketing fog or a thickening snowstorm, is my least favorite condition in which to drive.  I hate only being able to see what's right in front of me.  I'll drive along my eyes glued to the car in front of me or the white and yellow lines (when I can see them) sputtering and mumbling, annoyed that I can't see further ahead.  My shoulders hunch and my muscles tense as I focus on just.getting.there. wherever there may be.

My dad had a spotlight when I was growing up.  With the flick of a switch its bright beam would burst across the darkness splitting it into pieces as it honed in on a specific point meters away illuminating it as if it were day.  So powerful was the beam that when I held my hand in front of the flashlight I could feel the intense warmth radiating from it.  My brother and I would bring it out when we were camping and explore the inky depths of the lake by pointing it downward off the dock.

I really liked that spotlight.  I want to pocket it and turn it into my magical spotlight that is both light and prophet.  You'd think that after ten years at the same job I'd be used to the inherent "I don't know's" and inability to make concrete plans, however I'm not.  Between work, kids, and childcare my life is a trifecta of "I don't know."

Every day I have to diligently remind myself that while my battle cry is "I don't know" there is a morning reveille that rings out, trumpeting truth that sustains, "I know" the voice rings out, reverberating to my very bones.  "My Word is a lamp unto your feet."  I am reminded, the beacon of truth illuminating the uncertainty that shadows my world.

My heart catches, skips a wee beat as I see that word, lamp.  Much to my chagrin, God doesn't spotlight my life and my future.  No, He is my lamp and we're not talking a modern fluorescent beam or a fluorescent bulb causing my path to glow for miles in front of me...no, a lamp.  An oil burning lamp, it's beam more wick-like inflamed by fire, its reach only the necessary next movement.  He tells me where to move next.  Where to put my foot next.  The path is clearly marked, I just can't see the markers until I'm right next to them.  That's where I must surrender to what I do know.

I have a lamp.

I must use it.

It will light my way.

an ongoing affair

The sun has yet to shed its rosy rays across the black canvas that hovers suspended over my home and yet I’m perched in my bed, eyes spread wide in the dark trying to coax sleep away from its impending exit--permanent until later this evening when the bustle will die down.  

It’s pointless; sleep evades and escapes slipping through the crevice under my door, winding her way down the hall and finally exiting soundlessly out the front door.  Or perhaps she jumped out the window; that would have been much more efficacious. And as we all know, if there’s one thing with which sleep is concerned it is efficacy.  

The ‘should have been done by now’ list snakes its way down the paper and I’m here, in the dark with a choice. Do I tackle the list or do I write?  I want to write the way someone wants to vomit.  That dead weight in your stomach when your food refuses to digest and you know it’s just a matter of time before the contents are regurgitated?  That’s how my need to write feels.  My only hope is that this ends up somewhere useful as opposed to being flushed down the toilet into the oblivion.  We shall see.

Mayhaps you struggle with the same problem--the compulsion to write amidst the marriage to your list of the necessary? If my relationship to my to-do list is a marriage then my courtship with writing is my paramour, courted on the side, all affection stolen and misplaced, my attention robbed from whence it is deserved.  

The tension mounts as my suitor demands more of my time, slowly and sometimes more quickly encroaching on my reality.  Something has to happen soon, but today’s not that day.  

Today I’ll press my pen to the page once more, ink blossoming onto the page leaving an indelible mark promising that try as I might to table this obsession, I’ll be back later to languish just a wee bit longer.

A Necessary Confession

He pulled the thick volume off the shelf and handed it to me. Baffled at why he would had me such an old book I turned it over in my hands and questioningly looked at him. "Open it," he said. I cracked the cover and I brushed my fingers over the paper--a more classical weight than the insides of the books published now.  I might have even lifted the book to my nose inhaling the scent of wizened cellulose and years of shelf-sitting.


As with many books, there was more to be discovered.  He carefully lifted the folded map out of the back cover and laid it across the desk.  My father, the stickler for correct map-folding technique unfolded the cartograph and laid it out.  I stared with eyes wide and mouth slightly parted at the amazement of it all. First editions of "In Darkest Africa" by Henry Morton Stanley of "Dr. Livingston, may I presume..." fame stared back at me.

At eight years old I didn't fully comprehend the weight of what my dad was showing me and most people would say, "Oh, it's just another book," but to me it was the passing of a torch, a tradition of respect and wonder at the written word.  It's the reason why I pre-ordered every Harry Potter book on Amazon when they were released years ago.  His influence is why I repeatedly review how to treat a book with my children.  (Never ever opened face down. Ever. Make that never ever.)

And it's also the reason why today I have to come clean and admit my sins.

I write in books. With ink.

There, I said it. (Hold on a minute while I answer my phone.  Oh, it's just my dad disowning me.)

Now not every book and most definitely not library books, but non-fiction books that feel more like talking with a kindred spirit over a mocha?  Yes, those I write in.  Then there is the conundrum of reading a book so well-written that you want to both savor it and read it as fast as you can all at once.  (If you'd like to add to my #booknerd therapy fund you can do so here. what?  it links you to my amazon wish list.  Oops.  My bad.)  Those are the books I mark up and write in.

Presently i'm marking up The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language by Natalie Goldberg.  Freakin' fantabulous. Have you read it? There will most definitely be a post about it forthcoming as soon as I decide whether to read it all in one day or digest it slowly.  Gah! Decisions decisions.

What book have you read that you can't seem to decide between devouring and savoring?  There must be at least one...leave it in the comments?

for when you don't feel like writing

A week or so ago, a friend asked me if I had been following the activity surrounding a post I had written a while back.  As usual I hadn't.  Honestly, I don't even know how to check for "pin" activity which I'm sure drives this lovely friend absolutely batty.  I checked out the pin and indeed it has had quite a bit of activity attributed to it, however it is linked to a post written on a blog that I haven't posted on in over a year.  I joked with her how it would be wonderful if I could just find a writing home and actually stay put there for more than a few months.

Any of you who read here regularly know I don't follow a set posting schedule.  Heck, I rarely post. If you had told me back in 2009-2010 that in a few short years I would have a blog and wouldn't post there for months I would have called you crazy, but here I am and there it is.

At my wee Christian school one required course was our Christian Worldview course.  it was taught by the pastor of the church that backed our school and he also taught a family living class. He said many a wise and wonderful thing through my two years in his classroom, two of which remain,

"Your children are not bad.  Their decisions may be bad, but they themselves are not bad.  Discipline the behavior and not the child himself."

The other thing that sticks out in my brain is this, "What is the opposite of love?  Apathy.  With hatred there is still emotion.  The opposite is the complete and utter absence of emotion or care."

My blog has been quiet, the empty page bearing witness to only old posts--nothing new or noteworthy shining on the front page.  I've been wrestling with this space, this place to which I feel called and yet I have loathed it for the past few months.  I've thought about blogging quite a bit--then the sun sets, the children sleep and all I can do is muster the energy to feed the babe again and tuck myself away until dawn (or at least the next feeding).

The idea of quitting entirely has tickled the edges of my mind, dancing as a wood nymph, mythical wings skittering across the surface.  I've even gone so far as to invite the idea down and dance a wee jig. Not to be forgotten is also the night when my finger hovered over the left click, toying with deleting it all and walking away.  And yet, when all is said and done I couldn't do it.

Oh how I detested the writing template.  I'd log in to my account and convince myself that a new header or a new "welcome" picture would be the cure-all for my discontent, but no, each time I would change it and yet my unhappiness would persist, reluctant to leave.

And this time, this instance was not in regards to numbers. Schemes to gain followers or grow my ranks fell flat as I just could not bring myself to mutter another unkempt sentence or edit a post.  I'd tiptoe to the abyss of walking away from it all and there would be the still voice, the one that told me, "It's not time, yet.

And for what was it not yet time?  It was not yet time to give up, neither was it time to sit once again at the keyboard.  It was time to just ponder. To take an idea, think it through, come to a conclusion (or not) and not tell the world my opinion on it was a task of great willpower.  It was still important even if no one else knew how important it was.

Recently I was reading a lovely book by one of my book mentors.  (I've never met her, but Ms. Goldberg is by far one of my truest mentors and so I've decided to call her that.) She wrote of a friend who practiced something for fifteen years.  Finally she had practiced so much that one day the idea of practicing made her sick.  She had burned herself out.  Then after about ten years of experiencing this burnout she moved into a new house and picked up her practice once more; just a little, dipping her toe into the calm pond of her practice.

Ms. Goldberg wrote of that instance, "Maybe, because there was still heat--she disliked it so much.  She was still conneccted, distrubed.  Energy was alive.  ot comforatble, but below the surface something was working.  When you use drugs, alcohol--anything that numbs your consternation, your grappling, --then you can really get lost, cut off from your true desire.  But in the struggle, in the "shoulds," "the list,"  there is an indication, a direction.  you want something."  (Goldberg, Natalie. The True Secret of Writing. p.38)

No matter how much I hated this little place, no matter how deep my disdain and my desire to just give up there was below it a certainty that I could not walk away.  A breather, sure.  An extended breather, even better.  But a total turn my back and run?   Not even.