My Front Porch ~ Plum Nearly

  

The front porch has been sadly neglected in the busyness of late summer.  It has been a flurry of activity from back to school hustle and bustle to the fabulous news of our daughter’s engagement to the start of football season for our 8^th grader. Fall is officially in the air: chilly mornings, first falling leaves, busy squirrels diligently storing for winter.  Pumpkin is in the air: kids aflutter about pumpkin spice lattes, talk of revisiting our favorite pumpkin recipes, pulling out fall decorations and cleaning up the fire pit.

Not only has the front porch been neglected, but the whole house has been neglected in the midst of the truly crazy busyness.  Fact: we are way too busy.  It’s just not fittin’.  Fact: we are just way too busy to figure out how to not be so busy! So, we have decided to just be happy.  You can’t always configure life to be convenient or peaceful or ultimately fulfilling, but you can just decide to be down right, plum nearly happy no matter what.

Just like these little squirrels scrambling around and ordering their stores for the winter, I used to scramble around to order my life . . . like once and for all . . . so I could live in a state of rest for the remainder of my journey on the globe. Now I did not say this out loud, or even think it out loud in my own mind, but I was nonetheless governed by this frantic hustle and bustle to get my ducks in a row, and have my life flow from a foundation of perfect order.  I was restless with things undone, the lack of harmony , things out of place. I was a compulsive perfectionist craving rest, but always restless. I was happy, but restless. 

Then one day, I was outnumbered.  I had been given more children than I could manage with the dignity I desired I could no longer keep my compulsive pace for order. I had a choice to make. Let it go and make time for snuggles and shepherding hearts without being in a hurry OR have the order that I craved and no time to really enjoy my children.  Granted it does not always have to be a choice between order and gentle shepherding but in my case it was.  You see, I did not have the kind of children who sit quietly and play with their toys. Ok, so I had two, but for the most part, I gave birth to inventors and artists.  That is messy stuff y’all.  I could either embrace these gifts in the package they arrived in or allow my need for order to turn me into a grumpy mother of frustrated inventors. So, I gave over to the mess of creativity.

Sometimes I am sure that my husband would like to visit the old me. Well, this weekend, I visited.  After a month of purging the “once necessary” and piles of good intentions, I was very excited to host a reunion with our dining room table. I have already given away close to over 1000 books this year, but here in lies another 1000 purged.  I know,  where did I keep them?  Well, imagine a house decorated in “early bookshelf.” During the flurry of late summer activity, I stopped and started the great purge several times.  Every time I was right in the middle, some event would happen and we would once again, cram it back into boxes and stuff the closet. Then I would haul it out again and start over.  My family would say, “Why are we doing this again?” I would remind them that we never actually finished it, only postponed it. So this time, I pressed on and pressed on and pressed on and I did it.  Did you hear me?  I DID iiiiiit ! The stuff is gone and I am free.

My goal is to get rid of things and make room for more people, more time for people.  Things take time . . . time to care for them, time to organize them. Things take space. . . space to store them, space to use them.  I turned 50 this year and I want to make every day count… for me that means less stuff, more people. Sunday was a great day of celebration for me . . . not on the front porch, but on the back porch.  We closed in our back porch and expanded our home to make room for more fellowship. Sunday we celebrated the return of gathering around our big ol’ dining room table, clean and clutter free. We even had the privilege to set another plate for an unexpected visitor.  I LOVE that. Less stuff means always room for one more.

 I am delighted to team up for a front porch series with one of my dearest friends in all the world, Elizabeth Ours, who hosts the blog Yes They’re All Ours. She lives on the warm, sunny Georgia coast, while we are nestled in the a little cabin in the woods of the SC mountains.