Perceptions

What is your perception of yourself?

As a child, my father loved to recite poetry to us.  I often remember my father quoting the Robert Burns poem To A Louse and I have wondered over the years just what others might think of when they are observing me.  "O would some Power the good Lord give us, To see ourselves as others see us!"

I find myself sitting quietly on the couch this morning and I thought, "Oh how lazy you are, just sitting there on the computer doing nothing."  I have said before to others that I should really not be so lazy and that I should be doing more.  Most of my friends are amazed to hear me say that I feel like I am not doing enough and they assure me that I am crazy busy and actually need to slow down a little more often.  I guess I need to stop every once in a while and try to see what others see.

So today I have been taking inventory of my life and schedule, not for anyone but myself really, just to justify I guess that it's ok to just sit down and breathe.  The name of my blog is Keep Breathing after all.

In the last two and a half weeks I have spent my time doing the following:

• Mom to 6 kids - I have to remind myself that this is huge in itself... the laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, emotional support, homework, etc....
• Primary President to 145 wonderful children and 30 or so amazing teachers and leaders.
• Melissa came home from college and we organized/cleaned/decorated her room and caught up emotionally on everything.
• Jonathon competed in Robotics Competition.
• I went to Parker's National History Day competition.
• I went to Parker's choir festival.
• I hemmed/altered 11 choir dresses (many of them twice) over the course of 3 days.  This meant several trips to the school to measure and fit the girls.
• I went to Jonathon and Nathan's choir concert and spent the hour and a half before pinning dresses on girls who missed class for the fittings earlier.
• I hemmed/altered another 5 choir dresses over the weekend, which meant another day at the school on Friday to fix more dresses and included making a size 20 dress into a size 8 without cutting any fabric.
• I hemmed a Prom dress for one of the girls in choir.
• I went to Jonathon and Nathan's choir festival.
• I hemmed another Prom dress for another girl in choir.
• I deep cleaned the house so that Prom dinner for Jonathon and his group could be at our home.
• I prepared and cooked most of the Prom dinner.  Melissa finished up and served while I went to Stake Conference.
• I made 2 corsages and 2 boutineers for Jonathon's Prom group.
• I led the Stake Choir for Stake Conference.  I also had rehearsals for them for two weeks prior.
• I babysat Asher 10 out of those 17 days, for a total of approx. 64 hours.
• I visited every thrift store in town multiple times on multiple days looking for Cowboy boots for the musical.
• I've had rehearsal for the musical for Kim, Jonathon, Nathan, and myself for 9 out of those 17 nights.

So with all this stuff in my crazy normal life, I still find it hard to justify a morning sitting on the couch.  Somehow I need to allow myself to just Keep Breathing.

 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

Mosiah 4:27