Recently, I’ve been trying to become more aware of how many times I say no when I could say yes.

Five days ago, we celebrated our eleventh anniversary. Five days before that, Father’s Day. And the best part of both is that the best part is now.

It’s not even noon, and I can hear my kettle hissing for the third time this morning. I’m not drinking a pretty little cup of tea; I’m pour-overing a strong black coffee.

I must make a lot of lists, because list-making is a game my children frequently want to play. They rustle through the drawers in our dining room hutch for sheets of computer paper, journals, and pens. Then they work very hard: my daughter on making figures that look like letters, my son at writing a few words he’s learned (apples, rice, bananas). Most of the time, they’re crafting a grocery list.

Somehow, I still find myself saying to people who ask about future education for my children, “I think I might homeschool.” My son is nearly five. Kindergarten approaches. We’ve joined a local co-op. I’ve ordered curriculum. I’ve read a few books on homeschooling and have several more waiting on the shelf. I’m not thinking about homeschooling; I’m deep in the midst of planning for it, and yet I struggle to say the words out loud.

I blame the perfectionist in me for many wrongs; it’s the catchall scapegoat. Surely my worship is not disordered, my loves not in disarray. No, the reason I am warring inside myself is purely a result of my personality clashing with my circumstances.

When we bought our house three and a half years ago, we knew we’d be gutting the denim blue kitchen with its mauvy purple countertops. I’ve loved our kitchen for many things: the view from the sink of the backyard, a perfect place to keep an eye out for children creeping out the back gate; the expanse of cabinets I’ve left empty because I don’t have that much stuff; the dented linoleum that can withstand crayons, spills, and dirty dog paws because it was never that pretty to begin with.

I cried over a glass container of sauteed kale this morning. Maybe the kale isn’t entirely at fault; I’d been up multiple times in the night, convincing my two children that 1) three am is an unacceptable time to turn on the lights and play and 2) adjusting a shifted blanket does not require screaming for my assistance.

Like many, I have a love/hate relationship with food. I’ll start with the positives: I love food. I’ll eat anything (so long as it’s mostly well-prepared; I’m much pickier about quality than content).

My therapist (why do I cringe when I begin a blog post with those words? There’s something to work through later) recently mentioned the difference between a master list and a daily list. The master list is everything that needs to be done, or could be done. The daily list is what I can actually accomplish.

I didn’t grow up practicing the Sabbath; in fact, for most of my life I would have believed that resting one day a week sounded remarkably like law-adhering, which we should have abandoned after Jesus fulfilled everything in the Old Testament. But now I’m a stay at home mom of two, and life, while rich and full and beautiful, has gotten harder. I’m not saying I didn’t need to rest earlier in my marriage or youth, but I wasn’t aware of that need. I’m aware now.

When something is wrong in my body, I itch. For the past seven months, I’ve tried discerning what exactly the wrong thing is, because I’ve only been diagnosed with psoriasis, but my body has flared with rashes that are not related to my autoimmune disease.

My skin—freckled, birthmarked, mole-spattered, and acne-prone—has never been my greatest feature. As time hurtles forward, I notice, almost vaguely, where there are creases in my forehead, around my eyes, and how the skin on my stomach pleats into so many tiny wrinkles when I bend over.