My Inner Cottage

I read a C.S. Lewis quote today about how God is clanking around inside us building castles instead of cottages. I'd be happy with a mud hut. I'm a mess. Probably because someone(s) really is clanking around in my real house and it's total chaos. Has been for about a month now. I'm ready to send everyone home. You know how I said I finally got everything unpacked and in it's place, oh, about 6 weeks ago? Well, about a week after that, after realizing how dysfunctional our 25 year old kitchen really was (and to think I was just going to reface the cabinets and call it good), I got on Craigslist and found an ad for a display kitchen that was being sold for peanuts (okay, gilded peanuts). This kitchen matched, almost exactly, a kitchen we did in one of our other homes- a style I copied from a magazine and have never seen before or since- and my favorite of all the kitchens we've done. So, obviously this was a sign from God, right? We had to buy it. We would end up spending far more in the long run. And, that meant we suddenly threw ourselves into remodel mode- just after I had finished unpacking. Oh. My. Gosh. I don't know about you, but when my home is in chaos, my whole soul is in chaos. And I've learned that when my kitchen doesn't function, I do not function. How pathetic is that? Maybe not so much- especially after being nearly knocked down just from the move. There's something about messing with the kitchen that makes it a knock-down drag-out fight for me with so many young children at home all day. More than ever, what and when we eat is central to our daily rhythm, routine and basic well-being, and having that thrown out of whack has sent me into a tail-spin past few weeks. I crave order in my life. For me, it's a basic need, almost akin to breathing. When I have order, my creative juices flow, my mind and spirit are free to be and do. When there is chaos, everything comes to a grinding halt. I wish I was better than that. I wish it didn't affect me so much- that I could just blow it all off and smile and go on as if there weren't four different men traipsing in and out for weeks on end, drilling, sawing, wiring, sanding, pounding and leaving a layer of fine dust in their wake that covers every inch of my house, every single day. I am very grateful for these men, and that we can even re-do our kitchen at this point, but for some reason, my gratitude has yet to transform the crumbling walls of my inner cottage. I'm all slops of mud inside.

So if you have any little piggies, go ahead and send them on over!