A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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The Hours and Days Create Your Life


Last week I wrote about Letting Go of Who You Were to Find Out Who You Are Now. I’ve been thinking about these topics quite a bit lately.

In the process, I ran across this quote:

Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard

People often talk about how your belongings own you in a sense because everything you bring into your home you have to maintain, take care of, store, etc. I realized that this is also true of this website.

Everything I create I have to maintain. Every single post and every single page has to be maintained, updated, uploaded, etc. This is something I’ve been discussing with other bloggers, especially those who create products/printables and have been at it since at least 2013 or so. From 2013 to 2019 there were a few significant waves of writing and doing business online. During this timeframe I and others created so much stuff. And every single thing we created has to be maintained, updated, uploaded, rebranded, and managed. We all find ourselves struggling with sites full of posts, products, printables, free printables, opt-ins, etc. It’s truly overwhelming.

It leaves me drowning in minutia and details.

A few weeks ago I realized I’m just tired of sitting in front of this computer. The hours and days I spend sitting here are creating my life. And if I’m not really deliberate about those choices, it simply takes on a life of its own.

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t written a new 20 Goals for 2020 post. I decided I’m not going to continue to do them. They took about an hour to create every Wednesday between writing them, finding a photo to purchase, editing, linking related posts, etc. If I continued doing them, 46 precious hours of my life will go just to doing that every week. That’s almost two full days worth of life. Or the equivalent of almost 6 work days based on 8 hours. An entire WEEK of 2020 work time would be devoted just to doing those posts. I realized it was not worth it. They weren’t posts that people were engaging with and I decided that they were done. I’m not willing to devote a week of my life to them. Not at all.

So I’ve been systematically doing the same thing with every product, every post idea, every series idea, etc. I have over 300 products that all need to be updated and then re-uploaded to my site.

The reality is I’m really a writer more than anything. That’s why I started a blog in 2005. I wanted to write without always having to go through the formal submission process for publication. It was like a whole new world. But I’m a writer drowning in printables and planners and worksheets and posts so I never have time to do what I really want to do which is write new content about meaningful things.

So David and I have been trying to figure out what is worth keeping, what is worth updating, what can be combined, etc. Because this is simply not sustainable long-term.

And it’s not how I want to spend my hours and days creating my life.

So you aren’t seeing much new content here lately and I’m sorry for that. I’m trying to spend less time sitting in front of this computer and more time with my family, my books, and my bed. I’m also trying to streamline and simplify things. We’re working on the new Editable Homeschool Planners and I’m reworking them to make them simpler and easier to handle from year to year.

I’m trying to tackle what feels like an overwhelming task at times, but a necessary task that contributes enough to our family that I can’t just delete it all. It’s a challenging balancing act right now as I find myself wanting to just delete massive amounts of stuff to not have to deal with it, but know that I can’t do that for the most part.

So in-between I relax with politics and coronavirus updates on YouTube. LOL!

Laugh or cry, people. It’s one of my mottoes in life. I choose to laugh, even if it is dark humor at times.

So as you are thinking about your time, consider this. As I write this today, there are 315 days left in this year. How you spend one hour each day will add up to the equivalent of 13 full 24 hour days. The choices you make for one hour each day will be the equivalent of how you spend two full weeks of this year.

The way you spend two hours each day is almost a full month of 2020.

And you don’t get them back.

Neither do I.

Choose wisely because those hours are creating your life.

Beautiful Products In My Shop 

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God’s Restraining Hand of Love


Before I got out of bed this morning, I was thinking about everything going on in our family life, the life of my country, and the world. I came back to a truth I’ve written about time and again.

Trusting in God’s restraining hand of love in my life.

This time I contemplated it from a bit of a different perspective. In the past, I’ve usually thought about it primarily in terms of my relationship with God as one of his beloved and redeemed people. This time I thought about it as a mother and the restraining hand of love I use with my own child.

The Bible tells us in Matthew 7 that if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more does God. I started thinking about the way I use my restraining hand to protect my child and how that translates into how God protects His redeemed children.

I can see four ways God’s restraining hand works.

Direction

 

Sometimes a child will be so excited about something she will rush headlong in the wrong direction. The motivation is pure. The enthusiasm is pure. But the inability to clearly understand it’s the wrong direction results in a mom grabbing an arm to pull the child back, pointing her in the right direction.

I truly believe that if we are seeking direction from the Lord, He will respond to that prayer. He may grab our arm in the figurative sense and turn us in an entirely different direction. He may close off opportunities. Sometimes this is bewildering when we were so certain and excited about the direction we were heading.

But God knows it is the wrong direction and redirects us accordingly.

If we as earthly parents will keep our enthusiastic child from going the wrong way simply out of sheer love and instinct, how much moreso will our Heavenly Father keep us on the right track when we seek Him.

Danger and Destruction

As a mother, sometimes I’ve simply had to tell my child no to keep her from danger. It might have been a danger that was evident to me as an adult. It might have been a perceived danger that urged me to be cautious. In either case, I was on the lookout for danger that could harm my child and I protected her accordingly.

I’ve often wondered how often God has restrained me simply to keep me from danger and destruction. I’ll never know in this life. But I can only imagine how many times God has said a resounding, “No” to a request because He knew it would lead to my harm.

When we prayed for a child, we often remarked about this, especially after we had been praying for so many years. We began to wonder if there was actual danger associated with me carrying a child and God was saying no to protect me from danger.

This is one of those ways that God probably protects us so often with His restraining hand and we have no idea it is happening.

And yet we can be confident that it is.

Timing

Children are quite skilled at asking for things. Sometimes my child will ask for the right thing, but I can’t give it to her because it isn’t the right time. She might ask us for a particular toy while at the grocery store and we tell her no because we know the gift is already purchased and wrapped for a birthday or Christmas.

The reality is I do want to give that object to my child. In fact, we already have it for her. I have to restrain myself because it’s simply not the right time.

God does the same thing in our lives. Our prayers for something good may be slow in coming to fruition, but He knows the answer is coming. Just not today.

A lack of an answer today doesn’t mean that the answer isn’t already there. It simply might not be time to receive the gift that is already selected and wrapped.

Building Trust

Lastly, I sometimes have to ask my child to simply trust me because I understand things in a way she doesn’t. I’ve said so many times to Caroline, “I will always tell you the truth.” I want her to know she can trust me when I have to restrain her in love for some reason.

If I am that committed to my own child in my human state, how much more is God committed to me.

God will redirect me, move me out of harm’s way, and choose the right timing all in my own best interest. He will also do these things to build trust in my ever growing relationship with Him.

I want my child to trust me and believe without any doubt that I have her well-being in mind as best as I can possibly humanly comprehend. How much moreso does our perfect, omniscient, omnipotent Heavenly Father have our best interest in mind as He lovingly puts His restraining hand on us though life.

And how it must sadden Him when we don’t trust His restraining hand, just as we are saddened when our child struggles against our loving direction.

We can trust Him with this. Even when the days and weeks are dark. Even when we don’t understand what is going on around us. If we are seeking, He is responding.

Always.

Encouragement In My Shop

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All The Random Things Right Now


It is actually quiet in my home at this moment. I know it would seem that with only three of us living here that it must be quiet all the time, but this morning and early afternoon was just loud. I think it is because Caroline has been sick with a nose and throat thing since Friday evening. She’s hardly been able to talk and today she can. So she’s got about four days worth of words to get out. LOL!

At the moment, however, David and Caroline are gone so I can think. Here are all the random things I’ve been thinking about the last several days.

Some are just little nothings and some are really important.

Why You Should Interact With Emails

A tip about emails and newsletters you receive from anyone, not just me. You have to open them and click on them regularly. Most people don’t realize email processing programs (such as gmail and all the rest) are moving toward AI “management” of your email. One thing I read said that they are testing out the idea of deciding “when” you will want to see certain types of emails rather than delivering them in real time. Super. I can see all kinds of ways this will work out really well. (/sarcasm)

But if you don’t open and click on emails from a particular company or blogger, your email system will start to devalue them. Then the system as a whole starts to mark them as less valuable. Then they end up in your promotions folder or even spam. It’s the next way Big Tech is going to try to control what you see. They already do it with smartfeeds in Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and the like. It’s starting in your email to varying degrees.

So the tl;dr version – click on a link every time you get an email from me. Click through to my site to tell the email provider you want to keep getting my emails.

Generation X Retirement Planning

One of my goals for this year was my Gen X Retirement Planning site. I have massive amounts of research for it and I constantly tried to get to it. Now I know why I never did. With the widespread changes to online search and online advertising, my site would have gone nowhere. It’s one of those times I feel like God’s restraining hand was on the situation and He spared me a lot of frustration and disappointment. I can still use all the research and info here in financial posts (and have just started to do so) so it isn’t wasted. But I’m so glad I never made much progress there. There was a reason.

Free Printables

If there are any free printables you want on my site that are in posts (not the shop), please take a few minutes and go into the posts and save a copy to your hard drive. I am thinking about moving all of my free products to my shop and I want to save you the hassle of having to go through the checkout process. I am also going to remove many of the free ones so they will only be available through purchase in my shop. Again, I want you to be able to get them now since you are a loyal reader.

No Sunshine and Other Miscellaneous

In the past seven days, we’ve had approximately 18 minutes of sunshine. Yes, you read that right. In 7 days, 18 minutes total. I like cloudy weather, but this morning I could tell it was getting to me. I think it will be time to get out the special lamp tomorrow morning. Thankfully we’ve had snow on the ground for most of that so it is brighter outside. I love the glow of snow at night especially so that’s been welcome.

I’m seriously thinking about moving my newsletter to Sunday. I was going to try it this past

Sunday, but then I ended up making our Thanksgiving meal that day. (Long story) And then Caroline was sick and David had stuff to do and it just all went out the window. But I was thinking about moving it to Sunday so people can either enjoy it on Sunday or it will be waiting for them Monday morning when they get back online if they turn off their technology on Sunday.

Politics and Culture

After David and I completed the gorgeous redo of my cultural commentary site, I fully realized how much Google and social media are never going to allow that site to take off. I haven’t posted on it in almost a month. Not because there isn’t anything to say because there is a lot. But because it seems like a waste of time to continue adding to a site that won’t be seen. I just received the domain renewal and it feels like throwing money away.

I went back and looked at the Reader Survey for 2019 for this site and was struck again by how many people liked it when we discussed things happening in our culture during the Kavanaugh hearings and such. At the same time, I lost over a hundred subscribers very quickly so not everyone likes discussing the truth. I absolutely hate that things have become so toxic in our country (and other parts of the world such as the U.K. with Brexit) that even trying to have helpful discussions is seen as divisive.

And yet I believe that if those of us who are sane and able to have conversations about facts and truth don’t have those conversations in a public manner then we are letting the nutjobs win.

We’re allowing ourselves to be shut down by people who have nothing to offer other than rage and projection.

I have a post that’s been written in my head for months about why I don’t celebrate the record high women participation rate in the workplace that Republicans and Conservatives like to rattle off when they discuss the accomplishments under President Trump. I’m a Conservative through and through, but I don’t celebrate this number and I think it would be interesting to discuss why in the context of faith, money, and parenting. But discussing women in the workplace, feminism, and the like? Some readers here will love it and we’ll have a great conversation. Others will hate that I mentioned anything to do with controversial topics.

People Who Compartmentalize Their Lives

Part of the problem for me is I don’t understand how people compartmentalize their lives. For example, there are more and more Christian homeschool bloggers who write from a purely secular viewpoint in order to attract more readers. Well, I understand it from the practical standpoint of wanting a bigger audience. But I’ve tried going that route and I can’t do it. I cannot separate my faith from my parenting, my homeschooling, my homemaking, my money, or any other subject in my website menu bar. As a follower of Christ, how do I cut off something that is in me? How do I discuss anything without taking into account the Holy Spirit who indwells me? I can’t.

In fact, it’s not just that I can’t. It’s that I would feel dishonest to not tell the full story of my life. How do I take the blessings and challenges that God has allowed in my life and then ignore Him by pretending He has no impact on it all when writing about my experiences? I can’t.

So it’s weird for me that people think it’s fine or even admirable to advocate for gifted kids or homeschooling or Christian faith or marriage or whatever but to advocate for or against political or cultural movements that will have a PROFOUND impact on my child, my grandchildren (God willing), my freedom to practice my faith, my freedom to homeschool, my freedom to do business as I choose, my very freedom of speech, etc. is somehow seen as crossing the line. People think it’s mean or wrong.

I don’t get that.

Whether we like it our not, we live in a politicized culture right now. We’re in the midst of something on the same scale as the American Revolution or the Civil War. To think that people going through those historic times never discussed the various points of view or got into arguments over aspects of it is ludicrous. We know they did. We know that family members literally took up arms against each other. The Civil War ripped families apart. But to take a stand today against blatant evil or the undermining of our constitution is seen as uncivil or hateful.

Why do we think we have the luxury or even the responsibility to stay silent? Don’t we look back with gratitude on the men and women who risked everything in order to give us the freedom we have today? If we stay silent so as not to offend people, we’re not living up to the example given to us by those who went before. We’re giving in to the bullies and the weak who are unable or unwilling to defend the freedoms they enjoy and take for granted. We’re allowing the immature and selfish who would gladly destroy our heritage make us cower in silence.

It’s disgusting that we allow ourselves to be censored in this way.

So what does this all mean?

Setting Up Political and Cultural Forum Area

It means this. I’ve decided that this website has my name on it and it’s going to contain whatever I want it to contain. I’ve tried over and over again to appease the people who want no controversial topics just like I tried to appease the highly partisan secular gifted/2e community by not talking about my faith.

I can’t do it. And I won’t do it.

I am going to move my cultural commentary site to a part of the forum. It will NOT be in the main part of my site. It will be at the bottom of the forum page so if you want to use it, you’ll be able to easily find it. If you want to pretend like nothing is going on, you don’t have to scroll down to look at it. I don’t want my main blog overrun with political posts either. I want to keep it focused on peace, understanding, joy, beauty, and faith. But for those who indicated in the reader survey that they really like the discussions about cultural issues, this will be happy news for you. You can find it right here every day.

I’m in the process of building the new area. I cannot import the posts from the other site so I have to copy and paste them. I’m going to unfortunately lose all the comments. If you commented over there and want to copy your comment over here, that’s great. Otherwise they will just be lost.

I thought about putting the new forum behind a password, but I decided I’m not treating people like snowflakes and babies. That’s half the problem with this country. If someone is triggered by what I put in this new forum, they probably need to read it without being hindered by a password.

So that’s where we are. I started out the year with three websites and I’ll be back to one by the end of the year.

Onward!

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A Jumbly Post On A Rainy Saturday Night In October


It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Yes, the past couple of weeks have been such a roller coaster as you can probably tell by the lack of much new content here. I thought about it every day. Many days I was working behind the scenes. Some days I just didn’t have it in me mentally to sit down and write here. Anyhoo.

So this is just kind of one of those dump it all out type posts with no real structure and little editing. If you are looking for something meaty or profound, you’re going to have to lower your expectations. LOL. If you want to read one of those posts where a blogger just kind of shares all the things in some random jumble of thoughts, you are in the right place.

Google has been doing I don’t know what the past few weeks and they have just tanked my search engine traffic (as well as that of many other people). And I mean tanked to the point that if I think about it enough I could make myself cry. I have worked so hard behind the scenes the past few years to continue to rank well in Google for many search terms so it would send more traffic and it feels like it was all a complete waste of time. I’m talking weeks and weeks and weeks of basically working on it full time and it’s all gone just like that. Poof. I cannot fully articulate how sad it makes me.

And because they are sending less people to my shop, there are less people buying. And that makes me sad. Not as sad as the people who have seen most of their livelihood dry up, but sad nonetheless.

It also makes me angry that one company controls the lives of so many people, but I’m trying not to dwell on that because I have to go to sleep after I publish this and I’ll get too worked up to be able to sleep.

On a brighter note and related to sleep, I discovered the joy of flannel sheets this week. That probably sounds crazy since I’ve lived my entire life in a place where fall and winter take up half the year (Michigan), but they never appealed to me. But I’m tired of my feet being cold and I can no longer wear socks to bed for some reason (even though I have for literally decades). So we bought some flannel sheets at Kohls and we both love them. And my feet are warm which is also very good.

On a sadder note, my alma mater’s football team (Michigan State) is just a mess and rapidly falling. It’s so sad to see what is happening. Phooey. So there is no fun in that and it makes me sad.

On a brighter note, I found a free online app to use for homeschool information organization called SeeSaw. I tried Evernote a couple of years ago for keeping records because I wanted David and Caroline to add to it when they did learning things. It did not work for us. At all. It was way too complicated for our needs (and brains). So I’ve still been using one of my own printed planners which works well because I’m a paper person. (I’m using the Lavender and Teal one this year.)

But now we’re also using SeeSaw for David and Caroline to keep me informed of all the extra things they do. I’ll explain it more in another post, but this is a great way for them to tell me what they did with Science and Art beyond what I had generally planned for them so I can keep a record of it. They would tell me after they did their schoolwork together, “Oh we looked at this awesome art site and we watched this great video about such and such element” and I wouldn’t have the info to add to my records. Now all they have to do is drop a link or jot a few sentences down in the app and I can keep track of it in my written homeschool binder. It’s fantastic. (Hat tip to Cait at My Little Poppies for her post I found while desperately searching for something on Duck Duck Go that would work! LOL!)

Caroline has really come to understand the joy of being an introvert. She was sick for about a week with a lingering throat and nose thing so we were home for a solid week. It finally clicked for her the joy of being home multiple days in a row, hunkering down on the couch with her laptop and drawing supplies and just BEING there. She spent hours alone in the family room, watching videos and drawing and such, while I was upstairs working in the office. It was wonderful for both of us. I’m not sure why it clicked for her now, but it did in a different way. It’s kind of neat to see it happen.

And she’s just a great kid anyway. Really. For all the hard stories about the early years I’ve written on here, I have to also say that we have a great daughter. Not perfect, but she’s great. She’s so funny. She’s got a great sense of humor. Really. She has an excellent command of the English language for someone her age and she knows how to use it. David said the other day that her drawing and character development in her drawings is better than some of the students in his college classes. (She just turned 13.) That’s the homeschool difference. She has had so much time to work on her art that she would never get if she went to a traditional school. It’s encouraging for me to hear that from him because I am so wrapped up in the process and making all the decisions about what to do and how to do it in a way that works for her 2e that I don’t always get to see the bigger picture as much as I would like.

On a down note, there is something going on in a particular part of my life that really frosts me. I can’t talk about it publicly, but I feel like a particular group of people is being manipulated and treated unfairly. This is the kind of thing that makes me angry. There’s not much I can do about it beyond what I have done. I’ve spoken my mind more than once, taken the action I can, and that’s all I can do. But I believe that it could have a negative impact on me in the not-so-very-distant future which is also frustrating. So I’m trying to figure out how to mitigate the damage that will almost certainly come due to the choices of others.

On a happy note, it’s a rainy and blustery autumn night and I’m safe at home with people I love and who love me. This is no small thing. I’m able to happily type here in my cozy office to send this out to the lovely women who come here and read and comment. I know I have a safe place to put my head tonight. God is on His throne and all is well.

For all of that I am thankful.

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