Marathon Momma Monday |

MARATHON MOMMA MONDAY

*Every Monday I will be posting MARATHON MOMMA MONDAY. This will be something helpful, inspiring, a product, a book, –whatever it is, it will help you on your marathon of life!

It’s Monday, the start of the week. You may be hiding with the covers up high or up and at ’em ready to conquer the day or somewhere in between. You might be taking the kids to school and then heading to the gym. Maybe you are back from your run and making lunches. Or, you’ve dropped off the kids and you’re heading to work. Possibly, you are sleeping in because you were up with a baby or a sick kid all night. Maybe you have no kids… in that case, I have no idea what you are doing because I am too far removed from that now. Whoever you are, and whatever you’re doing, let’s be honest— we all have about three million things to think about and do this week. If you’ve already made your to do list, make sure you put this near the top!

Have you read this book?

If you have read it, then you know what I am talking about when I pause and have a moment of silence for all you moms who HAVEN’T partaken of this goodness yet! You can purchase the book HERE.

Gift from the Sea was first published in 1955 and written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of Charles Lindbergh. Sound familiar? Her husband Charles Lindbergh was the first person in history to fly from New York one day to France the next day. He crossed the ocean in a single-seat, single-engine plane. Charles Lindbergh was known for many other remarkable things as well.

You know what they say…

Behind every great man, there is an even greater WOMAN!

Here’s the happy couple.

Seriously, to read about them is soooo interesting! For more background on this stellar couple, click below.

Charles Lindbergh & Anne Lindbergh.

Anyway, back to the book…it was written so long ago– 60+ years! This book has spanned the test of time. However, I would be willing to bet that it has fallen off of the radar within the last two generations. My mom, who reads it every year, gave it to me when I became a mom. I will follow the tradition of my mother and Anne Lindbergh’s words will boost me every year. They are so inspiring and REAL.

I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity. My husband and five children must make their way in the world. The life I have chosen as wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. It involves a house in the suburbs and either household drudgery or household help which wavers between scarcity and non-existence for most of us. It involves food and shelter, meals, planning, marketing, bills and making the ends meet in a thousand ways. It involves not only the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern “simplifications” (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, stove, dish-washer, radios, car and numerous other labor-saving devices) functioning properly. It involves health, doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, vitamins, trips to the drugstore. It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical, (work) schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball or orchestra practice, tutoring, camps, camp equipment and transportation. It involves clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, …friends, my husband’s, my children’s, my own, and endless arrangements to get together, letters, invitations, telephone calls and transportation hither and yon…

What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, and under control. Steady now!

You will relate to her in so many ways as a woman balancing the many roles you play. She will build you up and make you feel enough in this world of ever growing complexity.

The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.

Life for everyone seems so busy anymore, it might be hard to find the time to sit down and read books. I feel that way as I am in the thick of the young child rearing phase, waking up early to train.. (or in this case staying up late to write a blog post )– the good news is, this book is small and short- 130 pages to be exact.

As a woman, wife, mom, I am constantly worrying– am I doing enough? am I teaching my children well enough, will the kids at school be nice to them, will my kids make good choices when faced with temptation… and the list goes on forever, infinity.

This book will give you the boost that you need… that we ALL need. You can do this!

Women that try their best throughout the marathon of life are enough… no matter how many walls we hit!

XOXO Laura