following the path

i've been neglecting this blog lately, and feel incredibly guilty.  not for my readers, mind you; i'm under no false impression that i'm somehow disappointing people who check this site and find no new post.  no, i feel guilty for my children.  (and isn't that like trait #1 of any parent?  guilt?)  it's just that the kids are living their lives as always, learning and growing and doing funny things and not-so-funny things and several times a day i think, i must document this in the blog somehow.  and then time passes and work demands my attention and i find myself over-extended yet again with volunteer work even though i SWORE this year was going to be different and i was going to find a balance somehow. 

being the math dork that i am, i looked back at previous years just to see if my guilt is justified or not.  it's easy for me to see the number of posts on the right-hand side of the blog (believe me, if it required me actually scrolling back and counting, then this little statistics lesson would never have happened) and this is what i found as my totals from september through november of each year:

2008: 35 posts
2009: 28
2010: 22
2011: 15
and this year: 8

for anyone who doesn't want to figure this out, i'll do it for you: i posted 4 1/2 times as often in 2008 as i've done this year.  were our lives 4 1/2 times more interesting?  did we have 4 1/2 times as much going on?  or am i just 4 1/2 times more distracted with other things now?

i don't know.  but i do know i'm feeling 4 1/2 times more guilty.  i keep thinking of the day that our blog book arrives on the UPS truck -- probably sometime this summer, as it will take me roughly 7 months to get my act together -- and how disappointed the kids will be when they see how much smaller it is this year.  how many fewer stories there are for them to relive and laugh about.  how many fewer pictures there are for them to flip through over and over again. 

so here's my pledge to myself: i will post twice a week from now until the end of the year.  it might just be a few photos for wordless wednesday, or it might be a long, rambling story that doesn't interest anyone but me.  but i'm going to do it for the kids.  and for my memory, because i swear i'd forget most of my life if i didn't document it somehow.  (ask me in a week if i've found my car keys, which have been missing for most of november.)  but there's one more reason: i don't feel guilty only because i'm letting down liam and susanna; i feel guilty because i'm also letting myself down.

this fall, our entire church read the book following the path by joan chittister.  chris and i met in a small group last night to discuss it, and while i can't claim that i read the whole thing, i did read much of it.  and the message that i got out of it was that i need to feed my soul with things that i'm called to do.  there are certainly many things that i have to do: teach, cook, carpool, chores, etc.  that list could fill a few pages if i allowed it.  but there is a shorter list of things that i want to do.  things that i love to do.  things that i feel called by God to do.  i do them -- volunteer, read, play tennis, Bible study -- but only as time allows.  only when i have time left over from my obligations.  and one of those things that i love to do, but hardly ever do, is write.  only 8 times in the past 3 months have i sat down at the computer and written. that just strikes me as sad.

so i'm going to follow the path.  i'm going to heed the call.  twice a week, anyway.  it will make my children happy.  but it will make me happy too.

and now that i've spent a half-hour writing, i have four loads of laundry to fold.  better go follow that path to the laundry room.