TGIF

There's no better place to be on a Friday night than home with my family!  Ok, so Thursday night at Biggby wasn't too shabby either (it's justified...I was grading papers...lol), but after a busy week, it's comforting to have a cozy, warm place to hang out and enjoy one another.  God is good.

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With lots of ripe bananas hanging out in my kitchen, I decided to make a batch of Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and a batch of banana muffins.  The kids were anxious for the muffins - I was anticipating cookies.  Lucky for them, I started the muffins first and ran out of eggs.  :-)  It's been awhile since the combined aroma of cinnamon, vanilla, and banana has been in my kitchen...too long, in fact, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

This week I read a book titled Attack Your Day Before It Attacks You  by Mark Woods.  Because planning my day early is a weakness of mine, I was challenged by the solutions that Woods offered.  Particularly intriguing was the segment on distractions.  He mentioned that distraction recovery (the time it takes to re-focus following a distraction) can take three times as long as the distraction itself.  I don't think I had ever heard that, but it really makes sense that it would be a valid statement.  Sometimes I become so frustrated because I seem to get less done now than in the same amount of time nine years ago when three of my kids were practically babies and number four wasn't even on the horizon!    Granted, I was nine whole years younger, but really my energy levels should be higher now than then simply because I actually get sleep, I'm not nursing, and my kids are pretty self-sufficient (with guidance, of course!).  I should have more disposable time because I'm not changing diapers, fiddling with car seats, and rocking babies.

But the whole distraction thing has me thinking.  Thinking about myself, my students, highly productive people I know, and less productive people I know.  How much of my day is eaten by distraction recovery?  For instance, I'm grading papers and have to make a call to a parent about something.  As soon as I pick up my phone, I see that I have four texts and six new emails all within the last 30 minutes.  Instead of just making the call and resuming grading, I reply to each text, and read and respond to the emails that aren't junk.  Yes, this is just one little time-sucking example, but this process repeated throughout the day is a recipe for time-management disaster!

Although I'm still in the process of identifying distractions, I really want to develop a plan to be more focused and productive.  I believe I'll be doing little time studies on myself next week, seeing what I actually accomplish in small blocks of time.  I may even have to put a rubber band on my wrist every time I recognize a distraction, just to see how many rubber bands I accumulate by the end of the day.  :-)

But for now, I'll just enjoy having banana muffins with my kids - without wishing the muffins were Banana Oatmeal Choc Chip Cookies - and snuggle in with them on the couch to watch a powerful DVD that we feel it is finally time to share with the family (Sarah's Choice). 

I hope your weekend is full of love, warmth, and worship!

Sentimental Moments

Special moment with my parents and maternal grandparents,
Papa and Mama Yount  (1977)

This evening I'm in Cincinnati, savoring a few hours with a woman who has been like a best friend to me for all 36 years of my life.  Her back porch is one of her favorite places, and I'm hanging out there watching my girls let off some steam in the back yard for awhile. 

As I sit here and reflect, I can't help but have my mind flooded with thoughts of my Mama Yount.  Her unconditional love, constant concern, and genuine kindheartedness make her one in a million, in my book. Although my grandfather passed away at the age of 56 from a very rare blood disease, she has kept his memory alive for the rest of us, and I can feel the love and respect that she continues to have for the man he was...33 years later. 

I remember the trips that I took with her as a child.  One of my favorites was when she and her sisters cooked breakfast for my cousin, Andrea, and I on a charcoal grill near the Nolin River in Kentucky.  It was 5-star cookin', let me tell ya!  Mmmm!  :-)  I was able to ride along on several of her trips back "home" to Evansville, IN, and those are some of my earliest chilhood memories that I will forever have in my heart.

She took me on my first city bus ride.  I was probably 8, and we went from her house in Hyde Park down to the beautiful Riverfront Stadium.  After we finished walking around the downtown for awhile, we rode the bus back home.  Nothing huge, but it was just another one of mama's efforts to make my visits fun.

Her house was my favorite place on earth. 

It seemed to be the biggest place I had ever seen, and when I visited again just a few years ago (I explained to the current owners who I was and they offered my sister and I a tour), it didn't seem to be any smaller.  With three stories plus a full basement, who wouldn't feel like they were in a castle?  And we always wondered what lurked behind the little door in the wall of the third floor.  Probably just attic space, but little girls can have great imaginations, right?  :-)  All of us cousins loved putting on our yearly Christmas drama on the lower landing of the dramatic staircase, playing ping pong in the basement, helping make biscuits in the kitchen, opening Christmas gifts in the living room, and yes, even spying on the Catholic priest who lived across the street. Usually did that from the bay style window on the second floor...lol.  If we were bored inside the house, we might get walk a couple of blocks to Hyde Park Square, where we could shop at Pier 1, get ice cream at Graeter's, or browse the children's section of the library.  If the timing was right, we could always go to mass across the street.  Ok...so I only did that a couple of times.  :-)

As the years passed, mama felt that she needed a different style of home, something easier to navigate.  She moved to a beautiful brick ranch in Amberley Village, and we made hundreds more memories there.  When I had my wisdom teeth cut out, she came to be beside me and change out my ice packs every twenty minutes.  As I enrolled in college in  Cincinnati, she gave me a job working under her in home health care.  That was a huge blessing to me all four years. When I chose a husband, she accepted and loved him.  Then we had children.  And she started the cycle all over again.  Now Kait and Alli love to help mama make biscuits.  Her house is one of their favorite places to go.  And they feel that same unconditional love, constant concern, and genuine kindheartedness.

But we're entering a different season.  Last week brought difficult news. The strong woman we know is fighting a physical battle that will be rough at best.  She has a large ovarian tumor that is likely cancerous.  Within the next couple of days she will be making the decision of whether to pursue surgery and treatment, or let nature run its course.  Her doctor has told her that physically she seems to be 20 years less than her actual age, and that is why surgery is an option.  Although none of us wants to have to see her face these difficult decisions, they are here.   If you think about it, please pray for her to have clarity in the face of this. 

In the meantime, I'm going to get back to savoring the moments and making some more memories.