This is the week for love. Valentine’s Day is characteristically the day for romance, but often stress escorts the day as well. The florists hike their prices into oblivion, restaurants have no openings for those who didn’t make reservations early, and a husband agonizes over his lack of ESP to know what to buy to meet or exceed his wife’s expectation. Consequently, many forgo acknowledging the day as commercialism overshadows the reason to celebrate.

I’m not one to insist my husband pay the 200% inflated price for a dozen roses, he lavish me with extravagant gifts, or expect an elaborate fanfare. But I do like having a day to remember to take time out for nurturing our relationship.

Life is busy. Schedules are full. The demands from children naturally push the luxury of dates into the background. Sometimes … a reminder is necessary.

I love the idea that this week millions of couples will go on dates and take time for each other. But I’m saddened that it is reduced to an annual event. A decade ago, one million children were involved in a divorce each year. Now, half of all children will witness their parent’s marriage break up and one-fourth will witness their parents’ second marriage break up.

Our marriages must be priority.

As much as I hate the commercialism of Valentine’s Day, I love the idea. Love. Romance. Uninterupted time together. Concepts just fading these days.

Rather than refusing to indulge commercialism, make a fuss over your marriage! Plan a day this week to spend time together (without children), talking about anything (except children), to cultivate a relationship that is essential to our children.

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret

Information overload! Ever been there? Your head feels like a full laundry basket after two-weeks — not one more square inch remains empty. Straggling shirt sleeves overflow the edges. Socks mash to the size of dollar bill. When the crammed basket is tipped over, jiggling and shaking is necessary. Onto the floor plops the heap like a formed jello mold. No dead air.

That’s my brain right now. Ideas, information, creativity, angles, perspectives, instruction, insight, and thoughts are racing through my mind like clothes in a spin cycle. I returned Sunday night from my four-day Writing for the Soul writer’s conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado held at the Broadmoor.

The conference overflowed with invaluable information, amazing speakers, applicable teaching, and editors. At the end of each 14-hour day, my mind whirled with new ideas.

It’s four days later now and I still haven’t digested all the information. I woke up the other morning with my first thought in mid-sentence of how I can tweak things, rearrange, and package my book. Clearly the laundry basket is overflowing!

Parenting is a bit like this for me as well. Just when I think I’ve got it down, the rules change. I rack my brain for a new angle or perspective, or get creative to find unconventional ways to teach our daughter the lesson.

When Hannah was just a toddler, I would try to sit her down and give her the talk of all the whys and why not’s. Of course, at that young age, her attention span waned quickly. Get it out quicker next time! Get to the point! Now that she’s entering the adolescent years, more creativity is needed given that hormones enter the scene to mess up any plan in seconds.

As parents, there are days that we feel like our minds have only dead air, fresh ideas dried up, and the rules spilled over. But somehow, somewhere, God’s gracious perspective enters the scene and the innovative angle appears like the sunny blue sky saying hello after a thunderstorm.

I love that about God’s unsullied perspective. It’s nothing I see. It’s an indefinable slant I struggle to wrap my mind around. Yet it’s just what He purposed all along.

As a writer and parent, I need His perspective. I stumble in my approach, my slant spills out wrong, and my perspective needs a gentle twist.

Now if only God did laundry …

You may read a few entries here and think I’m typing from a foreign keyboard, but it’s just the wonderful world of technology. “Updates” really should be called “Drop- everything-to-fix- problems-this-will-create.” But I guess that is a bit lengthy. Perhaps “Generates Issues” is better.

Whatever it’s called, bear with me just a little bit. My wonderfully trained technician is hard at work to take away all problems … or just ones associated with the funky characters you see.

Soon blog entry categories will reappear on the left and all text will be readable. In the meantime, you might need to refill your coffee cup to sit longer deciphering these entries.