Then I got carried away with the illustration in my head.  I decided that I wasn’t getting 100% Whole Wheat Bread of Life daily because of all the “preservatives” I fill my life up with instead – all the busyness that occupies my hands and my head all day.  Some necessary, but some that I could definitely put off.  These preservatives are tricky. Like with bread, they help it not to spoil, they extend the bread’s life, but not without nutritional costs.  For me, my preservative is busyness. I use it to make me feel in control for a while, but it also has a nutritional costs – it creates a barrier between me and God.  And, with my self-induced preservatives I can’t get the 100%WWBOL. (Whole Wheat Bread of Life)

I could go on with what was going on in my head about bread and Jesus, the parallels between high fructose corn syrup or what it means when you cut the crusts off the bread.  But, I’ll spare you the the crazy that comes from the internal committee in my head.

I’m trying to understand how the fact that God gives me the choice about where He is in my life- He is offering me 100% Whole Wheat (Ephesians 3:19)- but I choose through my excuses/busyness the lesser.  How do I flip that – I don’t know quite yet, but I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

note: the one thing I couldn’t draw a parallel to is why does PBJ taste SO much better on white bread?

This morning I had no idea what I was going to do.  Nothing was planned.  I figured I’d head over to Kaldi’s in Kirkwood with a few books I was reading and go from there.  I ended up popping into Madison Avenue Salon to see if they had any openings for a pedicure. They did and could get me in right away AND they were offering a special, buy a pedicure and get a manicure for FREE.  What the heck? Only if I had “time”, they said.  And I did have time, so I did.

I ended up having a great conversation with the nail tech, Catherine.  She is a mother of five, ranging from 22 to 9 years old.  She was very encouraging and just real about being a mom. I really enjoyed our time together.

At the salon, I also started to read a book Kim lent me called, “I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids“.  I LOVE it so far.  I’ll probably blog about it in another post.

Afterwards, I headed up to Kaldis to grab a quick lunch before I got the boys.  I tried something new – the Turkey Artichoke Sandwich and the Berry Tea.  I was not disappointed, really delicious, but a bit messy – glad I was alone.

I’m not going to do a book report on each of them, that’s what Amazon is for, so here’s our list from our “checked out” this week.  These are all great, you know the the kind of book that you actually don’t mind to read again, the books that the words just bounce off your tongue (love Dr.Suess) and then especially the ones that get a giggle out of me and the boys.

- Duck and Goose by Tad Hills

- Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankar

- Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

- Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

- One of those Days by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

So one of the rituals I am working on is our dinner time.  I would say we already had a pretty good thing going.  We sat and ate as a family I would say 70% of the week and I cooked.  After reading the book, I realized that I really wanted this time to be a ritual for family connecting.  Before the book, I don’t think were very intentional about making it a time for this connectedness, I guess it I thought it would just happen on it’s own.

So the little changes I have made include: 1) the boys help me with dinner and to set the table, including  lighting candles and putting on special dinner music 2) when are eating we try to ask about each others day (the best and worst) 3) The boys help me clear the table and if they tried all their food they get to blow out one of the candles.  The candle thing (suggested in the book) totally makes a difference in the mood of dinner.  I can’t describe it, maybe b/c the lights are dimmer..it makes it special and it’s total incentive for the boys to eat their food so they can blow them out.  Go figure candles.

Some other ideas I want to do is to incorporate music themed to the the dinner (ie mexican=Bueno Vista Social Club– love it) or having a themed topic of discussion, but that would be when Henry can talk more I guess.  I imagine the boys helping with this when they are older – like going to the our play list in search of the perfect music to go with Chicken Tetrazzini. Or have the boys think of a great question to bring to dinner tonight like, “If you could be any flavor Kool-Aid what would it be?” I just want to make our family dinner a time everyone looks forward to and b/c it is a special time,  all members feel loved through it.  I know I have high hopes, we’ll see what happens.

The other ritual we’re working on is daily time for John and I to connect.  So we are trying to set aside 15 minutes after the kids go to bed to sit on our porch and talk. That’s all I got on that for now b/c we just started to be more intentional about it.