Room for Improvement

"I rarely make the same mistake twice."

I have boldly proclaimed this many times in my life, and it might even be true.  Unfortunately, there are so, so many mistakes I still have yet to make!  I was feeling fairly despondent the other day, and told my dear husband "someday I will figure all this out and be done making all these mistakes".  I have had a lot of slip-ups lately.  From little things like not letting the ice cream freeze long enough, to bigger things like putting something on the calendar in the wrong year and having to spend a day scrambling to make up for it, to important things like running my mouth and not thinking about the way my words will affect the people I love.  The move to Bend has been one huge opportunity for me to make all kinds of new blunders.  In Texas we had a routine, and I knew where I fit into it, and it worked.  I had found my role and I was rollin' with it.  Now I have so many new roles to figure out, and have to make them all fit together....it's been an adventure.

Yet, with adventurous as it has been, there isn't a whole lot for me to share with you.  I go to work every day, come home, make dinner, and go to bed.  Then I start all over again.  There are little things that make me laugh, other things that make me cry, some things that make me take deep breaths and count to 10 (or 10 times about a thousand).  It is the beginning of a new year, though, and with that comes all the usual things...Ponderings and recollections of the past year, aspirations to somehow make this year "better", to be "better" and do "better".  For example, Jesse was bragging the other day about all the great things he was able to do in high school, and how in-shape he was, which has obviously resulted in new fitness goals for me.  Fitness goals, period, really.  I'm not one for "fitness goals".  That is a phrase I have never used before.  

But anyway, goal for 2016:
 superman planks!

I honestly have no idea if that is what they are actually called, but I'ma be able to do them, whatever they are!  As an early step I've started adding some weights into my morning mini-workouts.  Not anything beastly (I will never be a "weight-lifter"), just adding some 10-15 lbs to my regular shennanigans.  Here we are a week into this process:

Jesse has also started something resembling an exercise routine.  He may grumpify at me for revealing this on the interwebs, but I gotta talk about him some time, right?  The Clarks have a stationary bike in the living room, and Jesse's current habits have him hopping on every evening for a little bit.  We've been plotting all the mountains we're going to climb this summer, so it may have something to do with that.

We have been somewhat lacking in the job department, which has been frustrating, especially since we are living in someone else's house and feeling a little bit like lazy moochers.  However, Jesse is supposed to be starting a full-time job on Monday, and Bryan is attempting to take the steps to get me on actual payroll, and I've started looking for a second job as well, so hopefully we will be gainfully employed adults contributing to society again soon!  Maybe we'll even get our own living arrangements.  How crazy would that be?

Fully unimportant side-note: I definitely just typed "arraignments" instead of "arrangements" just now.  That's a word which is new to my vocabulary, but has clearly pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.  I typed it a lot today.  Lots of checklists.

New living arrangements will definitely be welcome, for while there is room for improvement in many places of our life right now, there is no more room in this house for much of anything.  Our life has been spreading out and taking over the entire place.  I know I am capable of living with fewer material possessions (obviously, since half of them are in boxes in the woodshed), and I am tempted to throw so much stuff away...but I really enjoy having all the multiple yoga mats and foam rollers and resistance bands and crap that are filling up an entire corner of the room!  I'm trying to think of other examples, and realize I don't even know what I have.  I have a food dehydrator in the back bedroom, but I actually use that every week or two to dry bananas so I can take them to work and not leave banana peels in the trash can I never empty.

Anyway, I could ramble on all night about bananas and yoga and all the frustrations I have with myself and all the improvements I would make if I was omnipotent, but instead I will recall something I read this morning:

"The thing molded will not say to the molder 'why did you make me like this,' will it?  Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?"            Romans 9:20-21

I suppose from that I can ask So What?  And then answer myself: There will always be room for improvement, but in the long run, I should not aspire to fill any role but the one(s) God has intended me for.  There is no use getting my knickers in a bunch when I am not a body builder, or when my brain takes longer to process things than I would like, or when I am an introvert.  I am, however, an assistant and a roommate and a sister and a daughter.  These are all roles I have been given and can improve on.  I am also a wife, and that is a role I ought to be working actively to fill in a godly manner and be the crown of my husband (Proverbs 12:4).

And with that in mind, I will fetch my husband a bowl of ice cream and go to sleep.  At 6:30 pm.  Yay old people!