October, break week, and post-church lunches

First, can we all congratulate each other for making it through October? Seriously. Give yourself a hand. You made it through the first doldrums of the school year! Well, almost. We just have to make it through Halloween, my absolute favorite holiday of the year. What's not to love about spending too much money on candy I can't eat while making/buying costumes for my kids? Actually, I don't like Halloween. I see this holiday as the day I have to get through to enter into the blessed month of November. 

I'll spare you my gushing for November. We're still in October so it's time to think back over the month. Mostly, it wasn't as painful as previous years. I don't know why. Oh wait. It's probably because I threw out my math plan for Tommy, and we're still not fully committed to a high school math curriculum. I am not worried about this because he can still do a full class of geometry in a semester. Even if I wait until January (which I won't), we'll be okay. This is me embracing my homeschooling super powers in earnest. No more staying up late wondering if it's really okay that we're not doing a formal spelling curriculum. Oh no. I am a high school homeschool mom that can see the end. I'm am becoming more chill because it really does all come together eventually. 

A couple of weeks ago we had our break week with my homeschool group. Some years I've used this week to catch up on school work, but not this year. THIS year, I put away the formal school books and did all the other things I'd been putting off. I made a long list and got through half of it which I count as a success. I painted the upstairs bathroom because we've lived in our beautiful house for nearly 2 years and the entire upstairs is still construction grade flat, white paint. It is evil, and I hate it. It gets covered in fingerprints and can't be cleaned. Now the bathroom at least is painted a lovely shade of pensive blue. What else? I finished a book! I read Of Mess and Moxie by Jen Hatmaker. It was fantastic, and I highly recommend it. It was light with short chapters. It was easy to read a chapter here and there while waiting to pick up kids from their respective activities. If you're worried about her little theological brouhaha last year, don't. She didn't try to write a theology book. She wrote a book to women about women things. While the specific details are the same, we can all relate to the overall themes. So yeah. Read this book. As for the rest of the week, I did business-y kind of things that I'd been putting off because I don't like doing them. Overall, it was a much needed break. We were all able to come back to our school last week refreshed and ready for our next quarter. 

And now for my churchy stuff. One of my biggest struggles in church for the last few years has been in finding where I fit in our church. I was raised from birth to be the go-to church person. I taught, I led, I decorated, I cleaned, I cooked, I planned, and I loved it. I was one of the 10% that did 90% of the work, and I wasn't mad about it. I enjoyed it. That hasn't seemed to be our place in the last 6 years or so. In the last few months, I've looked at the people that make up the 10% of our church home, and I miss it. I want to be with them doing all the things, but I can't do all the things at this phase of life. So what do I do? Those are the people I connect with, but their time is all used up with church. And I can't be at church all the time. It's left us in a sort of connection vacuum at our church. Each Sunday morning, I'd look around the room and see lots of people that I don't know. Everyone that I did  know would be running around, doing their work to begin the service. I'd try to talk to people, but honestly, I'm not good at 30 second shallow conversations. Like, I'm really bad at it. I need a good 5 minutes with someone for them to walk away from me and not think I'm a total weirdo.

Finally, at the beginning of the month, I came up with a plan. It's not inspired or original, but it is full of intentionality (church buzzword).  Are you ready for my amazing new idea?!  Get ready to be blown away.

My goal is to invite someone to join us for lunch after church. Ta da. Yes, I know what you're thinking. It's the most unoriginal thing ever, but hear me out. We've tried this in the past many times. I think we'd actually had one person...maybe two take us up on it in all the years. But I say NO MORE. We will find one person to go out to lunch with us each month. That's the goal. We will invite people until we hit our quota. And so we started on the first Sunday of this month. I was ready for the rejection, but I was determined to make my new tribe. A tribe of people that really do want to be a part of the church beyond a surface level but don't seem to fit the mold we're supposed to fit.

And guess what happened? The first person we asked actually said yes. We went easy on ourselves and asked someone we already knew, but we were moving beyond chatting at church and small group. It was lunch. At Zaxby's. Then last week our small group (okay, I'm supposed to call them Missional Communities, but I will forever call them small groups in my heart) met for lunch after church at a Mexican restaurant. We doubled our goal. We were at 200% for post-church lunches! And that brings us to today. We'd already gone above and beyond, but we were feeling the heady arrogance that comes with success so we decided to try again with new people we'd never met before. And THEY said yes, so we went to Zaxby's again and met some really great people. And there you go. We're forging ahead and making our own tribe one chicken strip meal at a time.

If you're one of the great people we've had lunch with this month, please know that we really enjoyed getting to know you better and hope to hang out again.

Okay, finally a quick blurb about the week I'm about to have. Months ago this idea sprang into my head to try to get one of my best college friends to come visit. She lives in Hawaii so it's kind of a big deal for her to come to the East Coast.  I wanted to time it with the return of my other best college friend from Honduras. Somehow it actually all worked out so we will have a reunion that's been waiting to happen since 2003 I think? As things have unfolded in the last few months with us in our totally different lives, I can see already that God was putting that idea in my head to bring us together at a time when we would need to have that touchstone moment. So that's my week coming up.

I planned to get the house totally ready for guests. Honest. But as always, I've decided that would not be a true representation of who I am as a person (I'm kind of messy). Plus it's impossible. I'm still waiting on bookshelves. My library still looks like a war zone. Oh well. At least the bathroom is painted. 

And that's all for October. Have a wonderful week, friends!