You don't always get what you want...

...and that's a good thing.
I have spent the better part of the summer trying to pare down on outside activities and evening commitments, in order to be more present to my family in the evening hours and to lower my own stress level, so that I can be more attentive.
I had such a busy school year last year, and I know that most of my stress was caused by feeling torn between my family and the rest of the world.
These feelings came from inside me. Tim has never said a word about where I am, what I am doing and how stretched I am becoming, even when the fallout lands mostly on his shoulders. He is home at night with the boys, he and I don't get to spend any time together, and I feel like I am always running out on my best friend. Like I am always saying "Sorry".
There is a difference between spending the evenings running to rehearsals for Paul, or taking the boys to activities. These are things we share and enjoy as parents.
I just get too much on my plate, from the outside, and then the things that the boys need start to feel like they are secondary to the "important" meetings, details, etc.

What I wanted was to be able to serve outside of my own four walls. What I have gotten is a lesson in where the service needs to lie first, within them.

I know some women carry it off just fine. They just get all the jobs done and they can still be moms and wives, and everyone is happy.

I am a person that needs to develop a system. I need to have a place and time for the things that I put on the top of the list.
God comes first, of course, but He has also put my life into this order, and has asked me to Love, honor and serve Him within this context. I actually feel closer to Him when I am praying with my family, or I am having a special moment with my husband, or just praying at Mass, than when I am sitting alone trying to force myself to hear Him. I just don't meditate that well, but I do experience God and find Him deep within others.
This is my time and place.
So when I take myself out of this time and place too often, I lose touch with the line of communication that God has set up between us.

All of the things that take me away from home are worthy pursuits. It's just that they are worthy for different reasons, and most of them don't contribute to the well being of my family in a meaningful way.
They are all good things, they just aren't good for us.

I probably sound like a nut to a society where women are so blest to have all the freedoms that we have. I am grateful for the the freedom and opportunity that women in our country enjoy. I have tasted all of it and I am so glad that it is there. I can't imagine having to worry about being beaten for wearing the wrong clothing. It would be so awful to have a hunger for information and to be kept in ignorance because I am female. It would be so terrible to have to be afraid to speak my mind for fear of shaming the men in my family.

I love the world that God has given me, but there is only so much of me and the focus of my heart is my home. It is a joy to experience that world with my children and Tim. Teaching them has been the greatest blessing of my life. Learning with them and learning from them, the girls andnow the boys.

When I am old, I want to look at my kids and really know who they are. I want to be able to look at my husband and know that he is still my best friend.

This is the goal.
The compass is set and God is in the driver's seat.
It's always a heck of a ride, but He never, ever makes a wrong turn.