Date Night! and Saturday Morning Rambles

My entire life I have been a list girl.  I start and spend my day making and marking items off my list.  It keeps me on track, and I feel very accomplished crossing things off my list.  When I have a long list and a lot of lines through items I feel important.  Sometimes I even put things on there that I know I'm going to do and don't need an item for (like "pick out church clothes") just for the satisfaction of crossing an item off my list (I know, I know, I'm a sick person).

Recently, I have felt compelled to be more purposeful in my life.  Worrying about all the details that I want to do without any input from my family or God has not been healthy for me.  So, I've decided a new approach.  Every morning before I created my list this week I simply prayed, "God, thank you for this day, tell me what you want me to do," and then I wait for His response.  Immediately, an average of 4-5 things come to mind, but nothing else.

The first day I tried this I was shocked that all He wanted was those 4-5 things.  I kept thinking, "God, I'm really a good multi-tasker--surely you can trust me to do more than this!"  But, I kept hearing, "No, this is all."

It was really incredible because I had just enough time during my day to complete those things, I felt the accomplishment of tearing up my list at the end of the day, and didn't feel harried to complete the remaining items on my multiple page list.

Crazy.

I was able to complete everything I wanted to do this week at work and at home AND enjoy conversations with students, friends, my family, and take time for myself.

Unreal.

So, the moral of the story is:  I need to stop trying to be God and control my time.  Apparently the creator of the universe has it all figured out anyways.  You know, since He made time and all. . .

Last night, Chris and I dropped the kids off at his mom's for a MUCH NEEDED night to ourselves.  Chris and I rarely have time for the two of us, and most of the time we like spending our weekends together as a family.  However, it has been a little while since we have had a night out and about to ourselves AND we received our $70 rebate card from my phone purchase in November from US Cellular.  We drove around Greenville, stopped in Olive Garden and promptly returned to our car after we were told it was a 45 minute wait.  Finally, we stopped at Mongolian--no wait!!! and something neither of us had had in a while.  Normally the food there requires an automatic cleanse for me (not to be too graphic, but it TEARS ME UP!), but Chris really likes it.  I really like the taste, but sometimes I don't appreciate literally flushing the cost of the meal down my toilet the way the food doesn't like me.

Ahem.

So, we ate dinner--I played around with the sauce this time and voila! the food stayed in my belly!  Afterwards, we decided to go to Target and just browse around.  Chris is a very good shopping friend when we don't have a deadline, crowds, or children with us.  We wandered around in each department, picked up a trinket for the girls for Valentine's Day, oohed and ahhed over the most divine pink fuzzy blanket in the world (and if you see Chris, drop the hint that it would be the perfect present for me), found a uniform shirt for Molly for only $2.68 (yea red sticker!!!), and a few other toiletry items.  It was nice just to look at things I never spend time looking at (like cookware or sports) because I'm an in-and-out girl with my kids.

It was nice to be together.  I adore my husband, but sometimes I forget to stop and remember why I adore him in the whirlwind of our chaotic lives.  I hate that we don't get to do these things more often.  It's so nice for our marriage to have some time to ourselves.  That isn't a healthy rut for us, and I'm trying to dig us out of it.  

After a long night's sleep, I'm relaxing with Buster in front of the fireplace.  We'll go pick up the girls in a little while, but in the meantime I'm just enjoying stillness of the morning.

Have a good weekend everyone!