Sloth

June was super amazing. The weather was nice. We were on a great schedule. I was productive. Everyone was happy.  Life was good. Then July hit. We were good until I attended a week-long class for a grant I'm in. That was all it took to get us out of whack. The next week I threw myself into Vacation Bible School preparations (I was the director at our church) and gave myself permission to sleep in. The week after that was VBS week, so I figured, what the heck, sleep in another week, you deserve it. I didn't jog. We went to the garden every few days only to harvest. Housekeeping was nonexistent. I broke my already-loose "no pinning or facebooking when your children are awake" rule. And every morning, I rolled out of bed only when absolutely necessary. Usually a poopy diaper was involved. And the culprit is on a pretty consistent 8:30 B.M. schedule, and waits until the contents of his diaper are no longer completely housed in his diaper, so I was getting to "sleep" almost an extra two hours each morning. (I put "sleep" in quotation marks, because there was a good deal of chasing around the "track" in our house, which goes right through our bedroom. Plus, I had to get up to pour milk and keep an ear out for trouble. But I was in bed and my eyes were closed.)

One morning, I woke up to Max eating mini-wheats in our closet. (?)

It was nice. But it wrecked July. Garden? Total disaster! Benefits of jogging daily for five weeks? Completely erased - and piled on top of by two and a half weeks of sloth (SO not fair, by the way!) Devotions? Maybe once or twice a week. "School at home?" Nope. Productivity? Nil. Mood? Crabby all the time - especially the first hour after getting out of bed. My morning mantra was, "Stop talking so loud! You're hurting my head!"

It wasn't pretty. I knew it, but it was just so hard to drag my butt out of bed, and the days spiraled from there. And then two days ago, I was reading my Bible (for the first time in a week) and came to this verse:

"Do not love sleep, or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare." - Proverbs 20:13

I thought, "Yeah, I probably should stop sleeping in and get back on my schedule...starting next Monday," and went about my lazy business for the day. The next morning, a super-runny nose (mine, btw) work me up before two of my children had even stirred. I stumbled out of bed, grabbed a roll of toilet paper and headed back to hit the two-hour snooze button. And that verse from the day before struck me, so I decided to slog through the morning.

Only, I didn't slog. I jogged. And read the Bible. And made breakfast for my kids instead of hoping they put together something healthy on their own (remember I trained them to be independent?) We started tackling the weed jungle that had taken over the garden. We read books and ate popsicles. And then, I proceeded to have the best, and most productive day in a long time! I played badminton with Reed. I painted six pallets and installed two shelves for a super-huge project I'm excited about! I painted a window for another project I've been meaning to do. Max peed on the potty without fussing every time I suggested it, many times with a dry diaper! I worked on my social studies curriculum for this year. I tried a new recipe from Pinterest. Then let the boys help me test a dessert pin. I showered AND put on make-up so I wouldn't look like a skanky slob when Ryan came home from hunting. And at the end of the day, I felt like I had gained six hours, not two.

Guess God knows what he's talking about, huh?