soul journaling 2.0

We had a really really good time.  They were such good sports.

I was - like last time - totally touched by how each woman instinctively reached for exactly the colors, mediums, and designs that matched their own personal rhythms.  

We laughed and glued and ate chocolate.  Good times.

And the best part....that different generations and personalities criss-crossed one another to create a functional reflection of themselves.

She pulled me aside and with sparkling eyes, said that Evelyn Rouner would be so pleased.
Icing on the cake!

heat packing

This weekend is the Mennonite Women's Retreat called Women In Conversation, which makes me want to poke my eyes out.  I like women and I like conversation, but it just sounds ew.   But I love the cackle and crackle of great minds and spicy opinions getting all rubbed into each other, which is exactly what it is.  Generally, things are always more fun with men around too.  But I suppose we can go without em for a solid 24 hours.  If we have to.

I made 85 heat packs for it.  I just think every person needs one.  I warm mine every night for 1.5 minutes in the microwave, drop essential oil on it, and hold it at my tummy or on my neck.  Its like a little "Hi.  You're kind of a rockstar.  You matter.  Be nice to yourself already" message.

I'm giving a workshop on soul journaling again.  Nothing new and fancy, same as last time.  (Not Normal Journals and Old Women and Soul Journal and Geese)  But the planners said it doesn't get old and they want the space to do it again.  So I'm looking forward to sitting down with multiple generations to create.  And if we're lucky, I'll take pictures.  See you when we're through...

whew

We just returned home from Phoenix, Arizona - where Ryan and I coordinated a program for Mennonite Junior Youth at the big bi-annual Menno gathering.  80 kids - age 11-14, and about 20 adult volunteers.

Look at em.....how can you not adore those prepubescent little people!?!......

It was like 4 days of summer camp, but we got to send them home at 9 pm each night!  We ate three meals a day together, and fit in worship, a water park, the Anabaptist Game (where they learned about our anabaptist history and current day victims of persecution), a service project, a scavenger hunt around the city, games, a trip to the science center, salsa dancing, and more.  

WHEW.

That's an understatement.

I'm incredibly inspired by these kiddos, and reminded of what it is to be so raw and full of life.  

Inspired to embrace life with abandon

reach out to people not like me

search more deeply for who God is

laugh easily

make new friends

and just plain grow

WHEW.

June did a number on me - getting ready for this and keeping up with our kids and trying to manage summer.  I'm totally worn out.  But it is a silver lining that I am strung out and exhausted, and in the same breath so thankful and so inspired.  Thank you, kids.  I told you every day that you were rockstars, and I mean it!!

Old women and soul journals and geese and tired me

The women's retreat last weekend was great.  Despite there being no men around, we had a really good time.  My favorite part was our soul journaling workshop.  No wait, it was going to other dorm rooms late at night in my pjs to eat junkfood and read People magazines.  No wait, here's my favorite - interacting with the multi-generations of women.  My new favorite people are age 82.  They are so wise and fun and inspiring and creative and simply beautiful.  Phyllis is my favorite favorite favorite.

Worship leading and workshop leading went well.  I'm really tired.  

So let's let these pictures tell the story of the workshop...

I think about 40 women walked away with their very own unique soul journal.  

I hope they find it as life-giving as I have.  I really do.

They wandered by.  We invited them in, but they weren't interested.  Baby geese outside the window.  That's what I call a retreat.

Sweet sweet Carol.  She came down and told me that she had gone to the prayer room upstairs, and since she knew I would be too preoccupied to go there myself, she made me a prayer stick - a color for every member of our family.  And she prayed for us each while she made it.  By name.  And we just met!!  It could be that maybe its that gigantically obvious that we need prayer?!  Or it could be that she's just that kind.  Or it could be both.

Ryan showed the kids a great time this weekend - the zoo, baby sheep at his parents' house, the icecream truck, skipping showers before bed - and even had lunch on the table stove when I got home.

Now the Buzz is sick.  Disgustingness is exploding from all orfaces  every hour or so.  Poor little man!  And poor us.  I think we need to be quarantined.  Just can't seem to get well around here.  Does that mean I have to step down from my high horse about how "eating well and getting fresh air keep my kids super healthy and we never get sick"?    I think we've moved well beyond that.  Just a quarantine will do.

Ok.  Like I said.  Tired.  And filled with gratitude for the women I met this weekend.

Not normal journals

Normal is just so overrated.

Women in Conversation is a retreat for this area of the U.S. put on by Mennonite Women USA.  I'll be worship leading at it this weekend, as well as leading a couple of workshops on Soul Journaling.  Hoping to aid in women celebrating their own God-given uniqueness.  Here's the description from the website:

In this workshop, Tonya will explore ways to bring the activities of our soul....our thoughts, prayers, ideas, lists, responses, collections....into a functional bound book.  An avid writer, she desires for all women to find ways to creatively express themselves in print.  Don't let the idea of "journaling" scare you - this is not your typical diary-writing exercise.  You'll be encouraged to create a space where you can begin to view even the most basic writings, such as grocery lists and recipe collections, as an expression of your internal experience of the Holy.  Nearly all of the workshop time will be spent in setting up your own Soul Journals.

Here's the kind of journals I'm referring to...made out of composition books and found things like wrappers, calendars, cards, lists, receipts, etc.  NOTHING like a scrapbook.  A functional collection of our "soul work".   I carry mine everywhere.  Its my brain and my dreams and my lists and my rantings all wrapped up in a not so tidy book.

So...if you have any scraps of paper, ribbon, stickers, stamps, wrappers, construction paper, etc. sitting in a closet and begging to be let out...and you're willing to donate it to this cause...pretty please let me know in the next few days.  The women at the retreat will put it to great use, I promise.  And your closet will thank me!

in print

Something fantastic is going on with these bushes.

They are far more than just your typical 

Line-the-driveway-cover-the-side-of-the-house Bushes.

They bloom notes.  I found about 10 different notes.  Rumor has that a certain Miss Evelyn Rain assisted a bit with the growing process.  Very fun surprise when I was outside getting the garden hose.  

I love it that she adds print to everything.  Not just her journals and notes, but random things like the plants and the side of the house and the backs of her dolls and even her toothbrush.  That she's choosing to express herself, just for the sake of expressing herself, and doing it in print...oh my happy heart.

This one is my favorite:

May she always "like me".

And it begins!

Dad gave me my first journal when I was five.  Green, hard-cover, with blank pages.  It had one of those ribbons that's attached to the binding and used to mark your place.  Hardcover, ribbon marker...I was quite the grown-up journaling lady.  It has lots of scribblings.  Mostly in marker.  

Then in 7th grade, Mrs. Zuercher taught us to really journal.  We got to write in it every day, and sometimes she wrote comments on yellow sticky notes and stuck them on the pages.  That time I chose a red, hardcover, paisley print book.

In high school, my journals were about friendships and parents and falling in and out of love.  In college, they were about figuring out how to be a grown up.  And a boy named Ryan.  In the last few years, they include lists and notes and quotes and ideas and cut-outs and cards and photos.

All that to say that discovering Eva's journal recently was probably my single proudest moment of motherhood.  Forget walking or learning to talk or spelling her name.  This is bigger.

Often, when I go to wake her up in the morning, there is a new page open on her nightstand - that she completed after being tucked in the night before.

Funny how they so clearly and simple convey the current chaos in our home...

"Title is: pushing. Pushing is a bad thing. I don't like pushing. My brother does it a lot."

They fight.  Constantly.

"Coppying. I don't like coppying.  Coppying is naughty.  Coppying is...bad!"

"I like icecream."

Well, at least there's that.

Lately, life fills more chaotic.  I go to bed at night with a longer list of things not yet done than usual.  I can't figure out what is causing it, and its making me short-fused and annoyed.  

Apparently, its obvious because she ripped out this page, and wrapped it  all together and brought it to me when I was in the middle of bathing the two littles, talking on the phone, and just generally trying to check things off my list...

Oh my happy heart.