I spent the first 8 days of June preparing our family for a trip to Disney World, days 8-18 IN Disney World, days 19-26 unpacking, reorganizing, and shopping to keep our family fed in two different locations while I was in a third; and days 26-+1 presenting/playing at convention. Since I returned, I have been…
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Claiming Space
New Era, New Routine
Well, it’s official: all my kids are in full-day school. For the past three weeks, things have been rather up in the air. I’ve been collecting a list of Things I Will Do When I No Longer Have Kids At Home All Day. Most of them are writing-related, but there are also things like going…
Read MoreLove Is A Tug of War
There are days when I look at the words (or the notes) I’ve put put on the page and I’m in awe, where I literally think, “Where did this come from?” And yet it’s just as likely that by the end of the day I’ll thoroughly convinced no publisher will ever accept such drivel, and…
Read MoreHow I Do It All
“How do you do it all?” This is the question I get asked most frequently. I have four kids. I play flute, lead a church choir, write music, write for magazines, and write fiction. Christian and I teach and promote natural family planning, and we (sometimes) and I (often) do a fair amount of disability…
Read MoreRuminating On The Rat Race
The weeks fly by so quickly, and every moment under pressure to accomplish as much as humanly possible. More than is humanly possible, to tell the truth. No matter how much I accomplish, it never feels like enough. I’ve always viewed myself as a juggler, but nobody can keep this many balls in the air.…
Read MoreWhere I Spent Last Week, And What I Learned From It
I spent last week at a conference for church musicians. I want to blog about it this morning, but so far I have spent ten minutes sitting in front of the computer grasping for what to say. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I can think of lots of things to say, but I can’t find…
Read MoreCars and Vans And Things That Go
When Alex was a baby, the time I felt most secure in my role as a mother (outside of nursing) was bath time. At bath time, I knew what I was supposed to do. There was a structure to it, and he loved it, so I felt confident that I was seeing to both his…
Read MoreOn The Need For A Recovery Day
It started out so well. We’d had two days of solid-packed family fun, with the promise of another coming up on Sunday, and we’d prepped all the kids that Saturday, the day in between, was the put-the-house-back-together day. So while Alex and I mowed the yard, Nicholas helped Christian in the house. When I finished,…
Read MoreIt’s Organization Week
At 3:30 this morning I woke up when Christian got up briefly. No big deal…he interrupted a terrible, vivid dream in which my mother was cooking dinner in my childhood home while I stood in the living room with my children, both adults keenly aware that five miles to the north was a pack of…
Read MoreOrganized Simplicity (and 7QT)
Yesterday morning I hired a sitter so I could go someplace offsite and dig into writing without being interrupted by children bashing each other , wailing over toys being taken, or making epic messes. Example A: Nicholas is beating on the box to Alex’s toy using a stick. This annoys Alex, who decides the best…
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Kathleen M. Basi 