tranquil home

This catalog arrived in the mail yesterday. Mike collected the mail and just knows not to recycle this when it comes. He knows that it is filled with pages of color, inspiration and that days-worth of vintage fantasies will follow a mere browse of this catalog and that these are vital to a mother of three at this point in her life.
I am just getting to it tonight. There is something about this cover that just draws me in. The scene- a family of five, spending time together at the ocean- is so wide-open and so full of possibilities. It's like looking a clean slate.

A clean slate is just what I am in need of. After weeks of balancing home-life, work-life, home-schooling, corresponding with friends, meal planning, meager attempts at spring cleaning, preparations for Easter and Elias' third birthday, dating my husband and trying to find time to decompress at the end of the day- I am in need of some down-time.

I am in need of a tranquil home (yes, I know that a plush, gray, vintage sofa from Anthropologie is not going to provide me with true tranquility, but I just love the slogan- although I'm pretty sure that I would feel pretty relaxed while lounging on this beautiful thing!)

Traditionally, I have always regarding the week leading into Easter Sunday- the passion week- the most holy and sacred of all weeks. We typically take a break from homeschooling during this week and this year will be no different.

It will be a time to prepare our hearts and home for the celebration of Easter and all the hope that we have as Christians because of this day. Very worth spending time preparing for.

My desire is to keep it simple and to slow down our pace; to enjoy one another, our home and to quietly journey towards the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

My desire it that it will be a time to put all nagging thoughts, doubts, insecurities, guilt-trips, falling-shorts and strivings up on the shelf for a week of neglect. I know that they are not going anywhere and that they will be counting the days for their reunion in to my life after they have collected bit of dust.

But for now, just for this week, I will not think about...

how four rooms in my home remain curtain-less and are in desperate need of me spending some serious quality time with my sewing machine in order to provide a remedy

or how we really should patch those holes in the back wall from the wall pegs that were torn out last week from our little batman child using them to hold his full body weight in an attempt to fly

or how we really need to paint the schoolroom because we are so tired of that bright yellow and every wall has a thousands scuffs, pencil marks and scratches

or about the fact that if we are really going to have the garden we dream of this year, we really need to make our raised-bed-garden dreams a raised-bed reality.

It will take effort and deliberation, but I know that I can focus on the simple and the important this week.

I think I can. I think I can...