If I can get past the fact that my kids are stir crazy ’cause it’s 20 degrees outside with  8 inches of snow on the ground, this is my favorite week of the year. I love when the tree is down, the decorations are put away, and the house feels so ordered and clean (if I can get past the kids being home with their toys all over their rooms). The last week of the year begs for planning and dreaming for the year ahead and that’s my jam!

I’ve got out my planner and a notebook and some markers and I’ve read through last year’s plans (which were useless and forgotten) and I’ve been dreaming. Usually my dreams are big, numerous, and overly ambitious (read unrealistic); I have a feeling that this year they will look different.

I think I am going to peruse this list and choose one, two, or three things to make my own.

I think I am going to peruse this list and choose a few books to help create my book list for 2016. I read 37 books last year and this year I am going to decrease the quantity of my goal and increase the quality of what I’m reading.

I’ve been perusing some sites that include “Copywork” for the children in scripture. I am trying to think of how I can adapt this for my children’s growth. I really want to be purposeful with their little hearts this year.  Time’s a-wastin’.

That’s where I’m starting. I’m excited to spend sometime accessing where I am after a year of inactivity and apathy; I might use Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life and the list found here.

See, I can quickly get carried away. I’m just excited that I care – and I do care.  I’ve got three days to contemplate and plan – three glorious days!!! I’m so excited.

Took the kids to Respitality this weekend (local organization provides monthly respite for parents of children with special needs) and the theme for the night was all things Inside Out. It reminded me that I never posted Halloween pictures.

This was the first year we didn’t have an idea brewing in the summer. Seriously, my kids have always had an idea or I have seen a common love and the ideas have just flown from there. This year that was NOT the case. KB wanted to be Mal from Disney’s Descendants (costume=$80 store bought and almost as much to put together creatively) and the first week of October Bubba mentioned Toad from Super Mario. By that time Little had seen a Joy costume and said that would be good and I felt it was the PERFECT costume for our Little Joy and so I suggested everyone go as an emotion.

Bubba was immediately on board and asked if he could be Anger. We all voted that it would be a fitting costume and went on. KB pitched a bit of a fit about not being the cruel daughter of Disney’s scariest villain. I gave her the choice between Sadness and Disgust but her attitude was so . . .well, disgusting, that I made the choice for her and went to Goodwill to look for a dress in green.

By the time it all came together everyone was content and they had a GREAT time wearing their costumes to school during the day and Trick-or-Treating that night. Our neighborhood is FULL of kids and Halloween IS BIG. It was super fun; felt like a community. But I didn’t get all teary. . . I kept my emotions in check. *wink* Get it? My emotions?

As a bit of a side note, the kids carved pumpkins for the first time in their lives too.Now, for those of you who are shocked by that, calm down! I didn’t carve a pumpkin until I was 30 so they are way ahead of that curve. Plus, we have a couple special brains kicking and so sharp objects are not what we reach for first when celebrating a fun season!

Each one did their own and each one rocked it. It was a fun memory – I know because KB said, “We are making a fun memory. You like that don’t you mama?”

“A Wrackspurt. . . they’re invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy,” she said. “I thought I felt one zooming around in here.”  Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. 

For the past 13+ months I feel like I have been doing battle with a wrackspurt . . . and mostly losing. I consistently find myself unable to think – unable to get my thoughts into a sensible order. It has been of a cycle that has caused me to live a bit reclusively; I’ve had limited contact with the outside world. (That sounds so sci-fi it’s ridiculous.)

I haven’t felt at all like myself and I guess one could see why. My temperament leans toward anything BUT reclusion and the zooming in my mind that I am used to are thoughts and ideas and plans for fun. This past year has not had any of that.

Why am I bringing this up?

Today I was driving down the street and I survived a wrackspurt attack and then had a moment of clarity. . . understanding, if you will. A dear friend wrote to me last night and I shared a couple of thoughts with her. She wrote back today and pushed me to think a bit further and even commit to action and my brain shut down; I could not respond to her.  My brain went fuzzy and I didn’t know how to explain to her what I was thinking (’cause I didn’t know) and didn’t have the emotional energy to try to focus enough to work it out. I went back to making Halloween costumes as if the conversation hadn’t happened.

In my car this afternoon, on the way to pick up the kids from school, I found my thoughts returning to my friend and the conversation. My first thought was fear that she would be upset with my silence but that was short-lived. She has known me long enough and loved me through enough that this fear was unfounded. My thoughts moved forward and I heard myself think, ” Why can’t I get my thoughts together? Why don’t I want to put the effort in and do what she asked?” The next thought was like a movie screen – not so much words of explanation but a picture of what was going on in me.

I keep thinking my life now . . . the way things are now. . . are temporary. I think somewhere deep inside I just keep waiting for things to go back to normal. NOTHING is as it was and, in my humble opinion, NOTHING is as it should be. I keep being shocked that I am where I am living as I am living with the people I am with and without the people I am without and I keep waiting for it to be over. It isn’t a conscious and purposeful waiting. I honestly don’t know that I have had the thought before today, but the thought today was more of an “oh, yes” instead of an “Ah Ha!”

It seems silly that I have moved around quite a bit in my life and all of a sudden I am not taking issue with the changes. As I try to process the whys, I realize that there has always been a constant home, an anchor of sorts. That has been tampered with and it feels like the fabric of reality has a rip in it; nothing will ever be solid again. Every moment seems precarious. My heart is cynical. heavy. bitter. alone.

Even this entry feels disjointed – wrestling with wrackspurts as I write. I am hoping my friend will read this and know what I didn’t write back today. And I hope another friend reads this and knows why I haven’t returned her call yet. I fear a wrackspurt attack while we converse (by pen or voice) and the fear can be paralyzing.

I was just reading through a bit more of Harry Potter and it seems Luna’s father created some sort of wrackspurt siphon, “to remove all sources of distraction from the thinker’s immediate area.”  I gotta get me one of those!! Until I find one  – patience please, dear friends.