Today I may have unpacked the last box from last year’s move. It is another one of those unsung triumphs in my work.
Such as…
a sink with no dirty dishes,
a well-stocked bathroom cabinet with clean towels and plenty of t.p.,
an organized storage room with labeled boxes,
a room with a year’s supply of basic food items, well monitored,
clean baseboards,
functional light bulbs in each fixture,
a child’s closet with neatly folded hand-me-downs ready for use in a couple of years,
bills paid and checks deposited,
freezers full of meat, bread, and vegetables,
a carefully curated gallery of artwork by the children,
family photo albums intact and up to date,
rotating decorations on the mantel to celebrate holidays and changes in season,
magazines prominently displayed for use and old editions filed away,
jackets on hooks and shoes in baskets, laundry carefully folded (and unfortunately never ironed!),
the dog fed,
the humidifier cleaned,
the awards, programs, report cards, assignments, and papers are sorted and saved,
sugar and flour bins stocked,
seeing that the bookmarks in the children’s scriptures move steadily forward,
and so on.
My quiet life feels even more quiet this week with the kids away at school, but I know that this collection of small tasks that I do each day makes our lives better. What a blessing to be the one who gets to have so much time to reflect and ponder, to work and develop talents in the quiet of the house, all the time looking forward to the hour when they all come back through the doors and begin pounding on that piano, ringing on that cello, running through the yard, and crashing within the bins of Legos.
Someday when the kids are grown and out of the house, I’m quite sure that after the piano music I will miss the sound of crashing Legos in their bins. Echoes of this sound will always remind me of my boys.