Every couple of weeks I’m hoping to give updates about our home adventures. I have a tendency to want to end my posts with a wrap-up message or conclusion, but not everything comes together that neatly in life, so why should it here? I’m not really doing this to provide you with sermons every few days. Let’s be real.

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The visits are calming down. The frantic things are fading and now we’re gearing up for bigger, long-term things. We have a couple of weekend trips planned, but beyond that, nothing.

Nothing, except home repairs, church investment, relational growth, marriage perpetuation, another term of full-time classes, and I might keep doing laundry. We’ll see.

Friend. Sometimes things seem pretty much laid out for the next while, and you think you can see what’s coming, and it looks mundane but also like a lot to handle.

That’s where we are. God’s grace has shown itself this past week in our marriage. A few days ago, a huge storm blew a tree onto our house, and that threw off our groove for some reason. Hubs was in the middle of 53 papers (or 3? same thing?) and having no internet and no light became stressful for me, even though I wasn’t directly impacted. At that point, maybe both of us just realized how crazy life can be and how much we need each other’s help. The next day we teamed up to bring our home back to livable conditions – mowed the grass, cleaned the floor, washed every dish, etc. And now we’re in the final push of papers before a little break between terms. We’ve been able to be light-hearted, which is huge because I’m editing and critiquing my husband’s writing like, every day. It’s like we can see that space just ahead where we can breathe, and we’re pressing on together for it.

And we’re tired. And aside from classes, the break will still have all the other normal things.

I’ve been reading so many resources about rhythms and habits, doing a bunch of e-courses and perusing blogs and downloading people’s advice into my brain. I do feel like we are making it through this term much more sanely (or maybe I’m talking about just me) than last fall, when we were going through so much more and living in San Francisco. That time around, we got to the holidays and I felt lonely and drained and bitter. So this is going better.

All the same, I have decided to work on some small habits that will grow into firmer, bigger ones, and give us a flow to life. And give me discipline. Is that something you’re given? Because my birthday’s coming up.

Here are some of those rhythms (I like that term better):

• Rise early, enough to read Scripture, pray, eat breakfast, and look like an adult person.
• Therefore, go to bed early, enough to get no fewer than 7.5 hours of sleep.
• Exercise. Get strong, boost that immunity/stamina, and be a little lighter on my feet.
• De-clutter. I’m going to start that “magic of tidying” stuff!

I can think of so much more I want to do! I want to write more too. So many things. But graduate school taught me that small wins create momentum for greater success down the road. And I definitely want to move down the road. Because we’re on a journey, you and I, and I need to make progress.

This might be actually a great analogy for me, because on walks and hikes, I am always the one who randomly sees a “special” leaf or aweome rock and MUST stop to inspect thoroughly. Maybe bring it with me, who knows. And if there’s a brilliant cloud, I need to stop and just stare until it dissipates. Maybe backtrack to find that colorful flower I just did a double-take for. I like taking it all in. I like studying something, really understanding it, mulling it over.

It’s great to do that in life. It’s great to ponder your current spot. Obviously I think that.

But also it’s time for me to use the feet and move along. It’s time to set my sights on the next summit. How will I get there? Probably by focusing on getting to the saddle. I’ll get to the saddle by focusing on this next bend in the trail. The next bend.

The next bend, these small rhythms, will take me, one day, to the culmination of so many goals.

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I’m so grateful for this momentum right now, even in the midst of the mundane, tired stuff we encounter predictably. I don’t really know what I’m doing.

And you, dear ones? Where are your rhythms taking you?