She's Onto Me...!

I've been struggling a lot with losing things lately. I think because life has been so rushed and hurried, and I am getting very little time to keep our little home space organized. Thus it gets cluttered; and the outward clutter unfortunately sometimes seems to reflect (or exacerbate) an inward clutter.

Whatever the deeper problem, the immediate outward problem is that I keep misplacing things. Often. It seems as though I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things when I thought I knew "right where they were."

Thankfully, I've now found all the Christmas music. I won't tell you how long it took me to find the tapes, nor how snarly I got at one point when I couldn't (I'm embarrassed to say that Scrooge sometimes has nothing on me!). But I did feel properly humbled and grateful to finally find the beloved music, after all my frustrated attempts. And yes, it wasn't at all far from where I was sure I'd put it. Now if I will just heed the beautiful message of much of this music, and really find the space and time and energy to prepare and keep preparing my heart for the coming King!

Then there was Saturday morning, when I was gathering all the library books that were due. Our library schedule is usually like clockwork, but we made one unusual mid-week visit not long before our Thanksgiving travels. I checked out Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit that day, because the sweet girl (who was, as you might remember, very sick) had been sad that she couldn't keep on "being a bunny" if she was sick and in bed. I had the inspired memory that Peter Rabbit himself had to spend some time in bed, and then went to our shelves only to discover, to my astonishment, that we didn't own this classic tale. So we got it from the library and enjoyed it over and over.

It's due mid-week this week, but rather than make a special library trip, I planned to take it back early with the regular Saturday load. And wouldn't you know it? I couldn't find it. It's a tiny book (one from the miniature jacketed set of Beatrix Potter books, which I would so love to own!) and easy to misplace. I spent a few minutes looking on Saturday morning, and the sweet girl finally heard my various sighings and mutterings because she came in and asked what I was doing.

"Mommy can't find a book we need to take back to the library," I said. "Have you seen it? It's Peter Rabbit."

She didn't know where it was either, but I couldn't help but laugh when she trailed out of the room a few minutes later, calling back "If you can't find the book, Mommy, just renew it a lot of times!"

Zing! She's onto me!

The good news...I found Peter Rabbit too. Safe and sound. Still tucked up in bed with his chamomile tea. And nowhere near the Christmas music.