The most important things.

When the Savior was visiting His friends, Mary and Martha, Martha was taking care of business in the kitchen. Mary was sitting near the Savior, learning. Both are needful. I spend way more time thinking about things than I do keeping house, which is still, nearly 60 years after I got here, bound up with my adolescent power struggles with my left-handed Virgo mother about the right way to do things. And so it goes in cycles, as I fumble towards balance in that aspect of my life.

And I spend more time inside my own head than I do interacting with the people who matter most to me. For those of you familiar with the Lord’s counsel to Oliver Cowdery to study things out before asking for inspiration, well I have that part down cold. I could stand to do more asking. Both with Him and with my kids and my friends.

Starting last Sunday, I have been able to spend a little time with four of my five offspring, either in person or on the phone. It has been, quite simply, terrific just to be in their presence, whether we could talk, as I did with Middlest on the phone Tuesday night or Fourthborn over ice cream last night, or we were worshiping quietly, as I did with Firstborn and Secondborn in their respective wards. I hope to catch up with LittleBit before the end of the week.

I have laundry to do and computer issues at work, and my kitchen does not bear contemplating at the moment. But there are four times this week when I know with certainty that I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing.

And that, as another famous Martha has been known to say, is a Good Thing.

The new guy has more chemo today. I would much rather be with him than at work; thankfully I have enough stuff to do because I didn’t get it done yesterday because I had to reboot my computer five times because the mouse kept freezing, that I will have no time to fret.

In knitting news, I listened to 1.75 podcasts this morning and added another two rows to the stealth project. I am now going to emulate Taz while putting my temple bag and my lunch together so that I can scoot on out the door in eleven eight minutes or less.