Live Deliberately

Hooray! It's finished! The project I started in January and have been addicted to working on . . . is done.

Let me tell you how this project came about. Around the fall of last year, I started thinking a lot about what is really important in my life. The life of a full-time mom is a tricky one. My life has no rules, no set schedule, and no official deadlines, other than those I set for myself. I wake up in the morning, and the whole day is open to me. I can do whatever I want to do with the next 12 hours. This can be a beautiful thing. At the same time, it can be a horrible thing, because every day there are also 50 bazillion "important" things that I "should" do to fill my time. Sometimes I find myself running amok. I start with one important thing (sorting the laundry) and then realize I should be doing another important thing (calling the insurance company), so I switch gears, and then halfway through that phone call, I get called away for another important thing (kissing a bruised forehead and wiping tears). Then I usually end up forgetting the [laundry] thing I started with! I often make it to the end of the day, realizing that I have done a lot of "important" things, but perhaps I forgot about the "most important" things. I'm sure many of you can relate . . .

Anyway, I felt desperate at this time to figure out exactly WHAT is most important to me. I spent a lot of time journaling this one out, and I narrowed down the most important things I can do every day. It was liberating to discover what is actually not AS important to me. Once I had this figured out, I felt compelled to not just close my journal and forget what I had learned. I needed a visual reminder. I needed it to be huge, hanging right where I would pass it every day -- right when I was on my way to the computer to check my email for the 14th time when I really should be reading to my boys. And hence, the "Live Deliberately" board was born.

My dad did a miraculous job cutting out the wood and sending it back to MA in my suitcase (in pieces). I mapped out the ideas I wanted to express, along with visuals (inspired by Sticks andCurly Girl, among others). I penciled it all in, then wood-burned the outlines. I then picked a color scheme and found paints and decorative papers to match. I painted and stained, then added decorative papers for some of the details. I polished it all off with Mod Podge, and then put it all together! Huge project, but hugely meaningful, and I'm hugely happy. When I got all the finished pieces of wood together, I just stood in front of it and cried.

So now, here's hoping having this hanging in my home will help me to remember what's most important. It's a bulletin board, and the quote around the middle border is a fun reminder to keep beautiful things in our lives every day. So I'm planning to pin poems, pretty pictures, etc. to the board.

The theme across the top, "Live Deliberately" comes (of course) from Thoreau. He said of his time spent at Walden Pond, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." This is the theme of my life. I don't want to come to die and discover that I forgot to live. I'm pretty sure the best way to ensure this is to make sure I don't come to the end of the day and discover that I didn't live that day the way I wanted to. This is what I want to do every day: