I am hoping to get back into the habit of recording our days, our weeks with the idea of being aware that our days are more than achieving a to-do list.

Was God happy with our day?

• Was there peace in my home?
• Did I achieve my priorities?
• Did learning happen?

So, last week, what happened?

Monday and Tuesday were spent getting ready for us to have a few days away.  I don’t know why it is that when you plan to leave your house you get the urge to have it very clean and very tidy! 

For four days, Wednesday to Saturday we went to a motel in town to give Peter and myself time to plan and set goals for the coming year or so.  We used Phyllis Sather’s ebook, Purposeful Planning, as our guide.  We found it very helpful to have an external influence helping us keep on track.

Purposeful Planning gave us a list of areas to address, such as our marriage, ourselves, our family vision, how our children were going, goals for our home, church life, finances, holidays and several others.

I highly recommend this resource, not only to guide you through planning such a weekend but also for the discussion points to help your talk-time.  We took 4 days, took our four children and had blocks of time for talking and blocks of time for family.  During our talking time our children occupied themselves. 

Which leads me to the “educational value” of our time there.  We took advantage of having a pool on our back doorstep and gave the children swimming lessons every day.  It was amazing to see how much their strokes improved just by daily practice.   

To be content with only a bagful of belongings is a good place to be.  When we entertain ourselves here at home (adults as well as children) it is very emotive, I feel like this or I feel like this.  Contentedness is a blessed thing.

The children joined in a few of our discussions, giving us their opinions and ideas.  It was good to see them think creatively and take ownership of some of the projects.

Our goal now is to be able to translate these things we talked about into action!