This November

Hello, November, we meet again.  Remember last year when I tried to write a novel during your short thirty days?  I got a few thousand words in when I found out about this guy:

... and thus devoted the rest of the month to morning sickness and its woes.

This year, I attempted to participate in NaNoWriMo again ... but gave up after 1 1/2 days.  (Yes, clever reader, this means I threw in the towel at about noon today.  The second day of November.  I'd even made concessions to myself and decided to write a graphic novel after reading Scott McCloud's Making Comics.  I know, I'm an incredible nerd but he writes FASCINATING books and I bet you'd want to be a comic artist, too, after reading one.)

I'm sick.  I have an infant.  I have no business trying to write a novel right now.  And don't bring up the fact that J.K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter series in a cafe while she was a poor AND single mother.  (Oh, you weren't going to try and inspire me with that bit of Potter trivia?  Hmm.)

It seems like every time I feel like I'm on solid ground with this whole 'motherhood' thing (and by that I mean I have clean sheets on the bed again, I've got Knox adhering to a quasi-schedule, or I've successfully fixed my hair for school for two days in a row), then I'm suddenly covered in spit up, trying to close a thousand tiny snaps on infant's sleeper suit while said infant is wriggling and flailing his legs like he's trying to win the Tour de France. Bearings = lost. 

Still, I wouldn't trade this new, spit-up saturated world for any other.  Even if it meant lots more time for NaNoWriMo and fixing my hair in the mornings.  In all honesty, I'd probably just use that extra time for sleeping in, or this game I like to call Pinterest Pretend.  It's when I pin things and then pretend like I'm actually going to put those ideas into action.  Come to think of it, I think I saw a pin about that once...

One thing I WILL accomplish this November, though, is to explore the spiritual discipline of simplicity.  No, you didn't accidentally click on a link and land on someone else's blog.  While I was cleaning this past weekend (or whenever it was that I found all those recipes, remember?) I also found some papers that I'd written in college.  In one of them, I had been 'assigned' a spiritual discipline to research and practice, and I ended up with simplicity.  It really impacted me, but I could definitely use a refresher course.  (An item for your consideration: I bought eight pairs of eyeglasses last year from Zennioptical.com because I got a "good deal."  Eight.  Pairs.  It's like the Gaucho Pants Situation of 2006.  You'll understand later.) 

And I feel like November is a wonderful month to do this, because I think simplicity has a good deal to do with being thankful, joyful and content in the Lord.  In our society, I think we feel pressure to 'never be content'.  No, I don't think it - I know it and I see it every day.  I do understand the benefits of this mentality in that we might push ourselves to be the best versions of ourselves, but in the same way I think it can be a dangerous mindset: one that breeds materialism and a life defined by comparison.  If you're interested, I'd love to share how this experiment goes.  Be prepared, you may be challenged as well.  Or at least disgusted as I reveal how much time and money I've spent at Forever21.com.