Yesterday as I was hanging laundry I was being kept company by two or three Meadowlarks singing in the hills above my house. I love listening to those Meadowlarks. It seems like they always come to me on those soft spring mornings when the earth smells damp and new, and the breeze is warm on my skin. The Meadowlarks remind me of someone, someone I never even knew, she passed away several years before I met her grandson, my husband. The first spring we lived in our house my husband’s parents were here visiting and the Meadowlarks were singing like crazy. My Mother-in-law stopped to listen and they went on to tell us that the small town she grew up in was named “Lark” after the Meadowlark and that her Mother always loved to listen to the birds sing. She went on to say that her Mother always told her that the birds were singing a special song that went like this: “Lark is a pretty little town…” over and over. Every time I hear the Meadowlark sing I can’t help but repeat those words in my mind “Lark is a pretty little town.” A year or so ago those words changed when I told my youngest daughter “Do you hear the birds singing to you? They are saying ‘Emma is a pretty little girl’”. She smiled, and I remembered a woman I never knew.

To here a Meadowlark sing go here.

I have always liked this scene in “Farmer Boy”. It is so simple and serene. A far cry from most family evenings now days. In today’s world there are so many things demanding our attention, so much noise and so many activities. We are so busy, but are we doing anything? Notice that in “Farmer Boy” everyone in the family is doing something, some kind of work, something of value.

Before I started to simplify my life I wasted a lot of time on meaningless forms of entertainment. I would spend all evening in a dark room wanting to be entertained by the television. It was meaningless and empty, and it left me meaningless and empty. I wasn’t spending my time building relationships, expanding my mind and building my character. What do I have to show for all the hours spent in front of that TV? Not one thing.

A year ago we canceled Direct TV, and where we live that is our only option for television, we don’t even pick up the local stations, and our lives have changed! Instead of hurrying the kids off to bed so we can watch our “shows” we now hurry the kids so we can all read together. Dadzoo and I talk, we read and work on other projects. In the summer we spend more time gardening and playing outside with our kids. I haven’t given up on TV all together, we still watch movies (something that we need to cut down on) but I think we have become more discerning. We netflix documentaries and good family movies. We are not continually bombarded with all the junk on TV so we aren’t as tolerant of junk in movies.

One thing I have found that I really enjoy in the winter time in crochet. I so enjoy sitting next to Dadzoo after the kids are to bed and the dishes done, while he reads or watches some movie and crochet. It is so much more relaxing to me and I feel as if I have done something instead of sitting and waiting to be entertained. I am learning to relax in ways that build relationship, expand minds and build character.