idontbelieveingrammar

We live in a culture that is always telling us that the answer to everything is more. Get more. Do more. Pray more. Give more. Make more. Work out more. Volunteer more. Buy more. Work more. It is no wonder we are all walking around feeling like we are never enough, trying so hard to be more. Or maybe that is just me. But I doubt it. Or we hear the exact opposite. Less is more. Every January 1st I pledge to Eat less. Spend less. Procrastinate less. Yell less. Drink less. And I rarely live up to those promises. I am no good at being more. Or doing less. But what if the answer, the new goal, was to just try to be enough. To see ourselves as enough. Each other as enough. Our bank accounts and closets and all the things we seem to collect more of. As enough. Our God as big enough for all the things we lay before him and eventually pick back up because maybe we don’t really trust him. Or maybe we aren’t really sure that he is paying attention. Or sometimes occasional...

Last week was spring break which meant I spent the entire week with my own kids, rather than 180 of someone else’s. And I adore spring break even though it is mostly just a tease for summer. Because in Texas you can get a sunburn and if you drive far enough south even see a few bluebonnets. It is a week of not setting the alarm clock, messes and crowded places with lots of other kids.   W here I am always reminded that I am not exactly like the other moms. And I don’t say that in a I am better than you kind of way. Because I’m sure, in many ways these "others" would totally outscore me on a mom test. And I don’t even say it to knock myself. I just say it because it’s true and there is nothing like a crowd to help remind me. Tonight I bought my son who wasn’t tall enough to drive the real gokarts a few rounds in the batting cage as consolation. (don’t worry, I had him wear a helmet). And I got a few stares. Not because he was an all star (although ...

Tess can sniff out a baking mix from a mile a away. On my last trip to the store I picked up a packet of banana nut muffin mix. She had it waiting for me before I could even set my keys down. I sliced up a few bananas while she put paper liners in the muffin pan. She insisted on adding sprinkles and I said why not. We whisked and poured and put them in the oven. I barely got the oven door closed when Tess asked if her brownies were ready yet. Her brother piped up from doing his homework, never missing an opportunity to correct her. "Tess, they are muffins. Not brownies." Tess, " but I want brownies...." Me, "sorry, girl we just made banana muffins. With sprinkles. You like muffins; they will be yummy." Tess, realizing she wasnt going to win this one. " Well, can we just call them brownies?" Me: "Sure. You can call them whatever you want. But they are still going to taste like muffins." I laugh at my daughter's s...

I have a friend with maybe the cutest 4 year old twin girls I have ever seen (except maybe my nieces). And the other day she brought them to lunch. Our very grown up, limited time, wine, appetizers and pasta lunch somewhere near a Tiffanys. (in other words I was underdressed). But they sat there perfectly eating their pasta and playing on the ipads while we talked,  made toasts and got the stink eye from our neighbors for being too loud and inappropriate! (we were too loud, not the preschoolers!). Our lunch went on well into the afternoon. And still they sat. Cutely. And quietly Eventually it was time to move on. Plans were made and these two littles were shuffled back to the other parent. Whose weekend it really was. And they were less than happy about it.But there mom, told them the adusted plan. Asked if it was ok? and then said this… “Is that ok with your heart” ...

Growing up I used to hate "cleaning day", because my mom would tell me to pick up my room, that the housekeeper was coming. Which I thought was pure irony. W asn't it the housekeeper's job to clean. Why should I clean for her to come and do the same thing? B ut apparenly there has to be some portion of your bedroom floor visible if someone else is going to vacuum it. So once a week, after being reminded repeatedly...I'd roll my eyes and then pile everything on my floor on top of my creepy antique bed. I'd come home from school that day to find little lines in my carpet, the wood polished and all my dirty clothes, YM magazines, homework and mixe tapes all piled right back up on top of my now perfectly made bed with clean sheets. She'd even picked up my clear neon phone and placed it neatly on my bedside table. ( I loved that phone). Then I moved off to college and there was no cleaning lady. But thankfully I lived in a room about the size of most ...

I come from numbers. My dad is a CPA, my mom is a CPA, even my older brother is a CPA and even Although I don't think I have attempted to balance a checkbook since the 90s, my math sat scores were still impressive. I usually like to think that I left all that nice neat left braindedness behind in my high school calculus class. I talk in circles. I rarely drive straight. and nothing in my life seems to fit a formula. and sometimes I miss those nice assured answers. The ones you can be certain of. The ones that can be checked at the back of the book. Instead, I am all over the place. I have no sense of limits. I do not show my work. I can never prove my answer. I and am one eraser mark short of tearing a hole right through the page. But I still find myself counting. counting the minutes. counting the days. counting the miles. counting backwards to go to sleep. counting my blessings. The other night as I was in that place of almost sleep, I rememb...

New year's day I dont think I left the couch. Hardly. Except to go to chickfila, because I don't like black eyed peas...unless they sing. The same exact couch my daughter had puked all over the day before. I was not sick, or in a rut or even nursing a hangover.  I just wanted to rest and I don't think was quite ready to face a new year. I eventually got dressed and took my kids to the gym so they could swim while I watched all the people upstairs running no where on the treadmills. I did not join them. My kids or the people kicking off their new year's resolutions. Day one of 2013 and I ate waffle fries and did not work out. Instead I watched about 5 hours straight of TNT. I figured I could do this whole new year thing tomorrow. And suprisingly I did, minus the peas. I got up and made a list. A long one of things I needed to do that day, that I should have been doing all week. And I managed to scratch off almost all of them. I wiped off the counters. I made a...