This week I’m supposed to be cutting out excess stress in my life, and you know what? I’m stressed about how unprepared I am to CUT OUT STRESS. Gah. Am I unteachable? I’ll get to why I’m unprepared in a moment. First, an explanation on “Stress Week.”

I’ll be following the example set by Macrina Wiederkehr in her book “The Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day.” Here’s a brief description I yanked from Amazon (where I purchased the book):

Macrina Wiederkehr’s bestselling book invites readers to learn how to pray the hours through the practice of consciously pausing at the seven sacred moments of each day, making their daily passage through time a more sacred pilgrimage.

Using scripture, poetry, reflections, personal stories, and quotes from a rich array of spiritual teachers for many religions, Wiederkehr helps readers become more attuned to living in the present moment and develop a kindred spirit with the rich tradition of the sacred hours. Seven Sacred Pauses is a wonderful gift to those who seek to find balance in their busy days and to bring the practice of the Divine Hours home to their own hearts.

Sounds good, right? Except that I spent all day today wine tasting with my mama-friends, and only just bought the book on my Kindle, because all the stores that sell real physical books were closed, and I didn’t plan ahead. I have basically zero idea what I’m getting into here, because I haven’t even begun reading the book yet. SO. At the very least I need to read enough of the book tonight to know when I’m supposed to stop and pray tomorrow. (How is this supposed to help me rid myself of excess stress again?)

Never one to idly whine, here’s why I think this whole “Seven Sacred Pauses” thing is going to be a valuable practice:

• I love rituals and traditions, and I think that unless I’m more purposeful about my prayer life, I’m totally missing opportunities to celebrate and reflect throughout my day, simply because I’m rushing right through them.
• I love that the book uses poetry, reflections, and quotes from all over the place, in addition to scripture. Being a word-person, creative and beautiful use of language really hits the spot for me.
• While I say countless small prayers throughout the day (while brushing my teeth/washing my hands/warming up the dishwater I’m always thanking God for the blessing of clean running water, and remembering those who are not as privileged as us to have clean running water), I lack a focus or direction sometimes. Because “Seven Sacred Pauses” is guided, I’ll at least have a focus for seven prayer-times throughout my day.

I don’t intend on writing a daily update on how “Stress Week” is going, but who knows what will happen. I’m already feeling overwhelmed, and it’s only day 1. I guess de-stressing and refocusing that energy on God is harder for me than I thought. Is one week really going to be enough to change me in this regard? I’m still skeptical.

Once I had a child, I found myself in a perpetual state of responsibility and obligation, which is quite a “culture” shock (if you can call it that) to a woman who was used to doing basically whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and never having to answer to another soul for anything. So yes, I can remember times when I was nursing Ellie at half past three in the morning, with tears streaming down my face, wondering “when will I get more than two hours of sleep in a row?” “I love this so much. Why is it so hard?” and “will I ever just be me again?”

No. No, I’ll never “just be me again.” Since Ellie was born, and until the day I die, I’ll be me+. That’s just the way it is. And I wouldn’t have it any other way (no matter how hard it was in the beginning).

***

Some of my mama crew, plus some friends!

Today, several of the other mamas in my moms’ group, and a couple of their friends and I got together and took an RV (Thanks B!) down to the Santa Maria Valley to go wine tasting, and we had such and excellent time. We left our kiddos with their papas, and actually got to hang out. I laughed way too loudly sometimes, and I got to hear SO many great stories. The lives these women have lived! It felt so good to just be, without feeling pulled in twelve different directions. To just talk and enjoy each other’s company. How refreshing!

That is what I was missing, back in the lonely nursing hours. And while I’ll never “just be me” again, I couldn’t be happier to be me+ alongside all these amazing women. Motherhood has been the greatest blessing of my life thus far; I thank God every day for my little Ellie Bean, and for the bonds that are being created between me and the rest of the mamas in my group. This is such a special and unique time of our lives, and I’m so grateful to have their love and support while we all begin to figure out what it means to go from “just being me” to being “me+.”

I’ll be honest: I’ve had some awesome dating experiences. Based on smallish sampling of guys that I let take me on dates, there are a lot of interesting, handsome, thoughtful, hard-working, gentlemanly fellas out there. A lot of mamas have raised their boys rights.

BUT. I have also had some miserable dating experiences. I’m sure I don’t need to give you details, because you’ve all seen a romantic comedy before. I remember thinking, after some dates, that all men are dogs, and that I’d be better off being single forever.

That all being said, for the good and the bad of dating, I am so happy to be happily married. I do not envy the dating crowd. I want to tell all these love-sick girls at Sally Loo’s that it will be okay. You will get over it. Everything will work out exactly the way it should.

———————————–Another thought entirely———————————–

Part of my job is keeping my eyes peeled for people and organizations to collaborate with in a manner that is mutually beneficial. Inviting someone to collaborate on a project is SO MUCH like asking someone on a date, or wanting to be asked on a date. There are the people who passive-agressively hint that they might be interested in collaborating on “something” “sometime,” and then there’s me, who’s all “hey, we should get together and do a video!”

Some people are too cool for school. I am not one of them.

If I’m into your work, or I love your company’s mission, I will tell you. Probably over and over again. I’m over-eager. I’ve found this to be just as off-putting in a business relationship as it was when I was dating, unless I’m dealing with a woman. Women (GENERALLY) love to be excited for each other. I can’t speak for everyone, but when I meet a new friend and we immediately “click,” I’m all up on my phone, texting my husband “I met a new friend and she is TOTALLY AWESOME!” And when a girlfriend of mine has some good news, I love sharing it with them. What’s more fun that celebrating something together? (This by the way, is why I agreed to join my “Summer of 7″ blogging group. None of my So7 sisters are afraid of being “too excited” by our project, or about each other. It’s so. totally. rad.)

Anyway, in that way, collaborating with men, or rather, inviting men to collaborate, reminds me so much of what I didn’t like about dating. Can’t seem too eager. Can’t seem too excited. Can’t seem to be too into the project. Like, I want to work with you, but you know, whatever, no rush or anything.

HOW LAME.

Let’s be excited for a new partnership! Let’s talk about how we can help each other out! Let’s DO A THING rather than talking about “maybe doing a thing together sometime.”

I’m not looking for a collaborative partnership in which we stay up all night braiding each other’s hair, and make-up skits about the mean girls at school, but I am looking for one in which we give each other permission to be into it, you know? Permission to be excited.

Summer of 7, in a nutshell: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” –John 15:1-2

And this:

Pruning (via wikipedia): Pruning is a horticultural practice involving the selective removal of parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots. Reasons to prune plants include deadwood removal, shaping (by controlling or directing growth), improving or maintaining health, and both harvesting and increasing the yield or quality of flowers and fruits. The practice entails targeted removal of diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue from crop and landscape plants.

Doesn’t this just sum-up “Summer of 7” perfectly? ‘Targeted removal of diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound’ bits, in order to shape (by directing growth), improve health, and “harvest and increase the yield or quality of fruits?”

Booyah. John 15:1-2 manages to communicate what took me, like, 2,000 words, in a single sentence. Our “Summer of 7” is about pruning, both physically and spiritually. Cutting the ties of the earthly things that bind us that we might bear more and better fruit.

One more bit of spiritual smack-talk, then I’m done.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” –Galatians 5:22-26

Booyah (again). A reminder that we’ve already won, and if we’re living by the Spirit, that we need to “keep in step” with the Spirit, not becoming conceited, ie. this isn’t about me and my struggle in being pruned (“Ohmygoshyouguys, summer of 7 is so haaaaard!”). The story in our Summer of 7 is how what we’re being changed into, and by whom.

xoxo, Melissa

*** Not sure what I’m talking about when I mention the “Summer of 7?” Well, go here the post in which I ‘splain all about it, and here to read all about it from the perspective of the gal who wrangled me into it, Katrina from thepoorganiclife.com. ***

Related articles

• Pruning and Being Pruned (bethstedman.com)
• Being pruned (cbnindiablogs.wordpress.com)

Remember back when I said I was “being haunted by a book?” Well, I’m not the only one being haunted by “7: An ExperimentalMutiny Against Excess.” Turns out that “7″ (by Jen Hatmaker) is ruining the lives of families across America! (Just in case you can’t sense my sarcasm, let me just tell you that I’m kidding. No need to go getting all nasty on me in the comments about Jen Hatmaker being a Saint. I know. I’m on Team Hatmaker. I even read her husband’s book, okay?)

Here’s the gist of Jen’s book “7″: most of us live lives of crazy excess. We might not see it, and we might, in fact, want more stuff, but that’s kind of the point. We’re so caught up in the pursuit of “stuff,” and the image of having lots of stuff, that we don’t even realize what we’ve become: a people who exist for the purpose of obtaining and enjoying comfort. Sloths, basically. Sloths with closets full of clothes we don’t wear, and stuff we don’t use, existing on diets of processed food. (My words here, not Jen’s.) And that–if I may be so informal–totally sucks. So Jen took seven months, and focused on eliminating excess from seven categories: food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress (which is where the subtitle comes from: “An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess). If I could force you to read the book I would, and though her journey is a spiritual one (Christian, specifically), the lessons learned, and the realizations acquired are worth reading about, regardless of your personal religious affiliation.

Why give stuff up?

If you’re familiar with the idea of “fasting,” (abstaining from all or some kinds of foods or drinks, especially as a religious observance) then take that concept, and apply it to things other than food, and you “get” the idea behind “7.”

Jen explains fasting well in 7: “A fast creates margin for God to move. Temporarily changing or routine of comfort jars us off high center. A fast is not necessarily something we offer God, but it assists us in offering ourselves.” She also lists six circumstances in which one might initiate a fast to “summon God’s movement in [their] life:”

• Mourning
• Inquiry
• Repentance
• Preparation
• Crisis
• Worship

Like Jen, I can definitely identify with fasting for repentance. Jen sees fasting for repentance as “a tangible way to bow low and repent of greed, ungratefulness, ruined opportunities, and irresponsibility.” To which I say yes, yes, yes and yes. Though I consider myself a thoughtful and grateful person, my actions simply do not match my view of myself. In so many ways, I’m a hypocrite, and I need to repent for that big-time, and will have to continue repenting for that all the days of my life. I’ll never be “perfect,” but that’s not the goal. I want to become more and more like the one who created me; that’s the goal.

And again, like Jen, I can identify with fasting for preparation. Like I may (or may not?) have mentioned previously, I feel as if I’m at a crossroads with my work, yet I can’t see a clear path ahead of me. I have a cloudy picture of where I might be headed, and I want to know for sure that it’s something God is calling me to do, not something that I simply want to do. So I guess I’m “fasting” for preparation AND inquiry. Even better!

So what does this all mean?

So yeah, here’s the kicker: I’ve joined a blogging group, y’all. Next stop: couponing, watching The Bachelor and, throwing linky-parties or whatever. (Does one “throw” a linky-party?) If you’d have told twenty-three-year-old me that in five years I’d be “serious” about my faith, or a mother, or PART OF A BLOGGING GROUP, I’d be all like, “this gypsy fortune-teller has got me all wrong. Doesn’t she know that I, like Miley Cyrus, Can’t Be Tamed?”

SO. I’m banding together with a group of bloggers (who are basically strangers to me, as much as anyone can be a stranger on the Internet) to try our hand at a summer-length version of “7.” I’ve considered going whole-hog on this thing, but I have a tendency to jump into things with two feet, only to realize that I’m in way over my head, and then I somehow have to weasel my way out. (I know, I know: I’m so honorable.) So rather than burning myself out and quitting halfway through, I’m committing to our “Summer of 7″ project enough to give it its VERY OWN CATEGORY in my nav. bar. (Is this the blogging equivalent of getting your own drawer at your boyfriend’s house? Like, he’s “committing” to you, but not enough to put a ring on it quite yet?)

Digressions aside, I’d like to invite you all along with me on a mini-journey. A blogging-roadtrip, if you will. Here’s my (very flexible) “Summer of 7″ schedule, and I’d love it if you participated right along with me!

Summer of 7 “Schedule”

(Details and rules and the like will be posted on the first day of the week. Or maybe the day before the first day of the week, I’m not sure.)

June 3-9, Stress: I’ll follow Macrina Wiederkehr’s “structured” prayer schedule in her book “Seven Sacred Pauses,” thereby forcing myself to pause throughout the day for prayer. Something tells me this is going to be more difficult than I imagine, what with chasing around a toddler and all. Also, I’ll be attending Storyline Conference this week, and I’m a little concerned about the timing of the sessions, and how they’ll coincide with Seven Sacred Pauses.

June 10-16, Food: Only eat seven foods for a week. I don’t have to eat them all in one sitting, and condiments count as foods. When Food Week begins, I’ll post a list of my seven foods. (Bear in mind that I’m going to be as nutritionally well-rounded as possible.)

June 17-23, Possessions: Each day I’m going to purge things from our closets, cabinets and garage, and at the end of the week I’ll bring them by a local women’s shelter.

June 24-30, WEEK OFF: I might be traveling to VidCon this week, and thinking back to how insane the week leading up to VidCon was last year, I’d be crazy not to take this week off. So, a brief intermission from “Summer of 7″ is in order. If I don’t go to VidCon, then I’ll adjust my schedule and let you know.

July 1-7, Clothes: I’ll wear seven items of clothing for the week, which I’ll list at the beginning of the week. This one isn’t going to be difficult, because I live in California, and it’ll be summertime (“and the livin’s easy…”). I have plans to ramp this one up considerably, but I’m still hashing them out, so second half of this one is TBA. (Be excited.)

July 8-14, Spending: We will only spend our money in seven locations. I’ll kick this week off with a list of those places.

July 15-21 , Media: No Twittering, Facebooking, blog-reading, Instagramming, Pinteresting, TV-watching, video-game playing, etc for the entire week. BUT, and this is a big but, part of my job at iFixit is to be ever-present on social media, so when I’m being paid by iFixit, I will do my job as usual. It will take every once of my will-power not to log in to my personal accounts, but so help me, I can do this. I’m still not sure how I’ll update the blog on my progress for that week. Maybe I’ll journal it all on pen and paper, scan it, then upload full-res images of my scanned journal pages? That might be fun. We’ll see.

July 22-28, Waste: I’ve always wanted to start composting, so maybe this will be the week that I do that. Also, we’re TERRIBLE at recycling, so this might be a good time to establish solid recycling practices in our house. This is also Ellie’s birthday week, so I’ll figure this one out a bit better as I have time to think about it.

Things That Make Me Anxious About “Summer of 7″

(In no particular order)

• I’m concerned that people will see this as simply a test of will-power, like “CAN I only eat seven foods for a week?” rather than an exercise in purposeful reduction in order to examine the condition of our hearts. How will limiting my buffet of choices make me feel? How will the very human part of me that cherishes comfort react to new boundaries? Of course I CAN do each of these challenges, but if the focus is just a matter of “how strong is my will-power?” then this whole thing is totally pointless. Fasting and restriction is not the point, but a means to an end.
• Is my insecurity going to make me feel the need to explain every weirdo thing I’m doing whenever I feel uncomfortable? Or worse, will I end up bragging about it? Am I going to make this more about me externally, than me internally? A week is a short amount of time, and if I’m not careful, I could very well spend the entire week mourning my creature-comforts and not actually be changed on a heart-level at all. Double pointless!
• Is a week really enough time to be affected? Won’t I just spend the whole week counting down the days until the next week of suffering begins? I’m not really sure that a week is enough, but I’m going to give it an honest shot.
• I’m in a blogging group.

PLEASE let me know if you’ll be participating at all. I’d love love love to cheer you on, and hey, accountability is important! And if you’re not going get crazy and do “Summer of 7″ right along with me, then leave me some encouraging words of support, because I will need it.

Last thing, promise: ‘member that I’m blogging with a group? Here are the other crazies that are blogging The Summer of 7 along with me:

Katrina from The Poorganic Life (whose post you should read if you want more info on The Summer of 7 and all the ladies involved)

Kay from Kay’s Counseling Blog

Steph from Only Here, Only Now

Amy from Permission to Peruse 

Alene from Positively Alene

Jamie from Six Brick High

Rachel from Occassional Boredom

Amy from Amy in Wanderland

And, well, me right here at melissajenna.com of course.

Love you all! xoxo, Gossip Girl

Just kidding.

xoxo, mj

Related articles

• 7: An Experimental Mutiny On Excess – Jen Hatmaker (thespentpenny.com)

You can take the girl out of San Clemente…

Is this a thing for little girls?

I’ve mentioned this a few times in the past, but growing up, I was never a girly-girl. I imagine that this has less to do with my inclination to “girly” things, as it does with the fact that I didn’t really have the means/relationships/security to develop that aspect of myself. I spent a great deal of time by myself, and my volatile family situation made it hard to make friends, or meet people outside of my immediate family. When I was in my late teens/early twenties, I brushed this off as an inconsequential fact of my childhood. Would I really ever care that I didn’t get the “typical” girl experience? And wasn’t I better off for not having that whole gender-identity thing shoved down my throat? Yes…and no.

Here I am now, inching towards my twenty-ninth birthday (which is about a decade longer than I expected to live), married, and with a daughter of my very own. And it wasn’t until I was married and had a child that I started to get the feeling that I was missing something.

I remember several instances when we were planning our wedding that my husband (then fiancé) would ask me for my opinion (music, food, etc), and I didn’t have a preference one way or another. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it’s just that I had never put much thought into it, and in the end, we were going to be married regardless of which band played, or whether we had a wedding cake or wedding cupcakes. I’m not trying to say that being ambivalent with regards to one’s wedding preparations makes one “less of a woman,” but I am using that as an example of how little preparation or comprehension I had for what “normal” women are like. Most women (certainly not all), have, you know, some clue as to what they’d like their wedding to be like. What their dream house looks like. What they might name their children. Whether or not they’d even like to have children. Those sorts of things. And I had nothin’. (Which, in many ways, made my wedding totally awesome. Lowest maintenance bride ever, this one.)

But here’s the thing: growing up with so little attention paid to my gender, and yes, my gender identity (as much as people seem to hate the very idea of “gender identity”) and having so many negative examples of femininity ingrained in me from such a young age, made my young adulthood ridiculously difficult to navigate, and has left me totally unprepared for many aspects of my life as a wife, mother and maker of my home. Don’t get me wrong: I make up for it. I read a LOT. A LOT a lot. And I discuss. And I argue both sides of things to myself to discover how I actually feel about *breastfeeding/cloth diapering/vaccinations/preschools/etc. But none of this comes naturally, the way it seems to for women who were raised to be women (whatever that means). Sure, it’s not “easy” for anyone, really (life as a mostly stay-at-home-mom has been the toughest “job” of my life), but some women just seem so…natural, you know? I chalk it up to all those years they spent pushing their dolls around in strollers and playing house. OF COURSE their houses are beautifully decorated, they’ve been planning it since they were five years old!

I could go on and on about my perceived deficiencies, but that’s not the point here. The point (yes, there is one!) is that I don’t know what books to make my kid read. Can you believe it? Four paragraphs of background, just to solicit book recommendations? Before you yell at me, hear me out: My Friend Flippa? (Flicka?), American Girl? Something about a Prairie? Anne of Green Gables? Something about a black horse? These all sound vaguely like book titles to me, and if I reach for it, I feel like they’re typically associated with little girls. Am I right? I know there’s a whole sea of wholesome, little-girl books out there, but I have no clue–not a clue–where to start. I figure, if you all can give me some recommendations, I can begin reading through the list, and have them ready for Ellie when she’s five or so.

For context (as if you need more context…), the first book I remember reading was an oooold Webster’s Dictionary. It was the biggest book we had in the house, and I feel in love with it. In the back it had charts of the solar system, and the periodic table of elements, and a field-guide to rocks and minerals (not sure who’s going to carry a dictionary with them out in the field, but okay) AND a section with old-timey slang. I went into kindergarten calling boys “fella” and my favorite game was “making a list of words that mean the same thing” (evidently I skipped the entry on the word “Synonym”). And as if you didn’t see this coming: I ended up marrying an AP English teacher whose favorite book is Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” and who sends me hand-made postcards from work quoting e e cummings. *SWOON*

So, if you’d like to help a sister out, please leave your favorite little-girl book recommendations below. I’m partial to stories about courageous women who make huge sacrifices for the betterment of others, and stories about girls who overcome adversity and make an impact those around them. I like stories about hard work, and struggle, and when the characters get excited about things like “going into town” or “playing in the crick,” but I’ll read whatever. Thanks for your help! And I’ll let you know what I think as I read through them.

<3 mj

*Yes, as long as possible/Love the idea, will do it with the next one/Regular vaccination schedule/Montessori, I hope

Today, we sat at the park and watched a man driving an excavator dump a huge pile of sand into a trench. Ellie was fascinated. “Scoop mama! Biiiiiig scoop. LOUD scoop!” Then Ellie fed me “soup” (sand) out of a “spoon” (dirty old plastic shovel). She climbed into my lap, said “kiss! smooch!” and gave me the biggest, longest, sandiest smooch. Then she took an amazing photo of herself, which I promptly Instagramed.

Today me and Ellie played “chase” all the way home. “Chase” isn’t about hiding or seeking, or even catching. Just chasing.

Today it got too too hot inside the house, so I filled the bathtub with cool water, and we got in and splashed each other and laughed for a good thirty minutes straight. Until our feet shriveled up and got super wrinkly. Then she ran around the house yelling “nakeeeed! naked naked naked!”

Today was so full of those moments where you breathe deeply and realize that you couldn’t be any happier than you are right now, and that you are so darn grateful to be alive. So grateful for today. I can’t believe how blessed I am, not just for today, but for having so many days like today. Every single day is better than the one before it, and what did I ever do to deserve that? I’m humbled at the thought of how little I deserve, yet how richly and abundantly I’m blessed.

Here’s to hoping that your tomorrow is even better than your today.