{"id":20784,"date":"2023-05-20T07:49:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-20T12:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=20784"},"modified":"2023-05-20T07:49:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-20T12:49:30","slug":"what-i-do-for-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2023\/20230520-20784.htm","title":{"rendered":"What I do for myself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eloise Rickman, in her book Extraordinary Parenting<\/em>, writes of asking mothers what they do for themselves only to meet blank stares. Many mothers don’t do anything<\/em> for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to stop the audiobook to clarify to Beth-Ellen, who was folding laundry alongside me, that I was not one of those women. I am no martyr. I do things for myself all day long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I make my bed when I wake up and delight in the beauty of the quilt my mother made us or the one I made myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I copy out a passage of Scripture, slowly working my way through a text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cuddle with one of my little ones as they slowly wake up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I peer out the window at the newest visitor to our bird feeder, trying to memorize its features so I can look it up later (if I don’t know its identity) or pointing out its various features to my children if I do know something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I memorize passages of Scripture and sing hymns with my children during our morning worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grub about in one of my many beds of native plants when I step outside to call the kids in or to get the mail or to empty the compost pail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read The Story of the World <\/em>and Hans Christian Anderson during “together time.” I read poems, old and new. I learn the names of the clouds with my children and what weather each type of clouds portends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I take long baths while reading up on whatever my current pet topic is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dream up and research out the next garden bed and then work to implement it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I plan the next year’s school curriculum and delight in thinking of the next subjects my children and I will deep dive into together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sketch ideas for the next Easter or Christmas outfits and then comb through the patterns I have and what free patterns I can find to approximate the vision I have in my head. I dig through my fabric collection and delight in not spending anything, except joyful time sewing, on my kids’ festival clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I make cut-up cakes for my kids’ birthdays, with each opening of the Twizzler bag bringing back fond memories of the cakes my grandma made me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do these things for myself day in and day out. Just because I also do them with or for others does not make them any less for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, my family and I drink deeply together of life-giving water. Other times, I pour out and find myself all the more enriched for having used the things I delight in to serve my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truly, I lead a rich and fulfilling life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eloise Rickman, in her book Extraordinary Parenting, writes of asking mothers what they do for themselves only to meet blank stares. Many mothers don’t do anything for themselves. I had to stop the audiobook to clarify to Beth-Ellen, who was folding laundry alongside me, that I was not one of those women. I am no … Read more What I do for myself<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[35,4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20784"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20795,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20784\/revisions\/20795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}