TJ Hirst

I built a Lego dinosaur and fought in a Star Wars lightsaber duel while my children were at school. I sorted through mounds of Lego’s searching for flat red pieces for the feet and slanted red pieces for the tail.

After school nh saw the Lego buckets out and said, “Who was here today?”

My friend’s 4-year-old son came to play at my house so that his mom could do some things on her own. His curiosity encouraged me to still play with my own children, even though I think they have outgrown it. And I’m going to be more tolerant when nh spreads his Legos on the carpet. That’s what it takes to find just the right piece.

Try-It-With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

The April Reading Challenge was to memorize something you have read that inspires you, and today is the time to tell how you did. What did you memorize? Did you complete your goal? What did you learn in the process?

My goal was to memorize The Family: A Proclamation to the World. My reason for this mental challenge to memorize was to create a mental tool for myself. I can replace negative, anxious or wandering thoughts at any time and in any place with inspiring words.

Originally I made this goal at the beginning of the year as personal gift to myself for Mother’s Day. But I could see that I was not progressing in my goal so I made it the April Reading Challenge. Like many personal goals, it is easy to set it aside our own commitments when other choices or responsibilities arise. That happened to me, especially in the last week of my goal.

So how did I do? Better than I expected—I am 95% complete with my goal. I can recite the nine paragraphs or 29 sentences of this document today with only six or seven corrections or prompts. That is far enough that I will have 100% completely memorized on Mother’s Day.

Trying to Memorize is a process. I write the document on note cards and study them one at a time. Then, when I think I know each card, I study the document as a whole and try to say it from beginning to end.

Moving from the note cards to the document was a difficult but important shift in the process. I wanted to keep the small sub-goals of memorizing individual paragraphs. I lacked confidence that I was ready to recite the whole. But once I changed to recitation rather than just memorization, I achieved more success.

When the final week of my goal collided with other reading, writing and teaching assignments, the recitation didn’t add to that stress—it minimized it.

One of those added stresses was a CT scan on my sinuses. Ironically, it was while this machine created a diagnostic image of my head that I knew my true purpose of finding inspiration in any moment was fulfilled.

Did you Try It With Me? Tell about it in a comment below. If you would rather write about it in a post on your own website, leave a link to it here or send it to me and I will publish it.

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Next week’s Try-It-With-Me Tuesday will be my 101st post! Celebrate with me May 6, when I will announce the May Reading Challenge.

Intention: n. A course of action that one intends to follow. 2. An aim that guides action; an objective.

I wanted to make blueberry muffins for the 6:45 a.m. youth religion class I teach. It was Friday and we struggled through Jeremiah and Lamentations all week. I wanted to reward their effort and acknowledge their work. I envisioned combining a spiritual feast with a home-baked one.

At 9 p.m. the night before, I decide that I have too much on my plate and try to be content with the lesson I prepared.

At 6:05 a.m., dressed and ready, I say, “There is enough time; I can still do this.”

At 6:07, I heat the oven and began doubling my favorite blueberry muffin recipe. I need to get them in by 6:15 for this to work.

At 6:12, I stress a little, stirring the blueberries into the batter. What was I thinking?

At 6:17, I am lining muffin tins with paper wrappers.

At 6:19, My family comes in for prayers while I am filling the muffin cups. My husband looks at me funny. He says, “Do you have enough time to bake them?”

At 6:20, I stick them into the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. Perfect. 15 minutes to cook. 10 minutes to get there.

At 6:33, I load up my car and start it—minus the muffins, which are still baking.

At 6:35, the toothpick comes out gooey. Overfilled the cups. Going to take longer. I set the timer for one more minute.

At 6:36, I take the muffins out, set the hot muffin tins on two larger baking sheets and grab them to leave. I burn my thumbs in the process.

At 6:45, I am halfway to the building. Ok, only a few minutes late. I am never late, and they always are. Should work out fine.

At 6:49, I drive down the road to the building. I see a familiar minivan coming toward me. I hope they were just dropped off.

At 6:50, I pull up, and one boy gets out of his car. No one else there. I am juggling the muffins and my lesson materials. I ask him for help, and he tells me three other students were here but they left. “But I made them muffins.”

At 6:51, I open the building and turn on the lights and set the muffins down in the classroom. I can’t just teach him myself. I tell him that and then say, “Wait right here, maybe I can let them know I’m here.” I grab my cell phone to find some phone numbers, but the battery goes dead.

At 6:53, I am in my car, back on the main road, driving the short distance to the high school. I make it a block and see another student’s car coming toward me. Good, we can have class, now. I turn around and head back to the building.

At 6:54, I watch that student drive right past the nearly empty parking lot.

At 6:55, Back in the building, I tell the one original student, “We’ll wait five minutes.”

At 7:02, I hand him two muffins on a napkin and cancel class.

At 7:10, I am walking the halls of the high school’s south campus trying to bring muffins to my students. The halls are empty except for the cooks in the kitchen preapring school lunch.

Plenty of food. Just no one to eat it.

This is why I am not spontaneous.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

Ephesians 5:25

Thank you, ph, for loving by His example.

At this point in my life I am a trial and error gardener. I plant perennials, fruits and vegetables, annual flowers, shrubs, trees, and children.

We live in a smallish community in a Zone 3. That means two things to me: First of all, our planting starts about a month and a half later than most of the country. Secondly, the few retailers who carry vegetable transplants have only minimal varieties.

Last year the limited selection frustrated me enough that I determined I would start my own seeds to transplant into my garden.

By last week I still hadn’t done it. Time was still on my side since our last frost could be as late as Memorial Day. Fortunately, a few friends and I met at my house to share garden ideas and that jump started my follow through.

I planted my seeds and set them out in the sunny window. I watered them and waited with a whole lot of apprehension.

Then, I saw sprouts. A weird noise of glee come from me.

With faith that summer light and warmth will indeed return, I uncovered the winter mulch from my perennials and discovered the hosta also sprouting.

Admittedly, I doubt—as a gardener of both plants and people. My husband was relating that he asked one of our children to pick up up clothing several times and still a jacket remained on the floor. He wondered if it will always be like this. I laughed a bit. I said, “Just keep repeating it. There is hope; eventually they will learn.”

I have discovered it is easier to keep nurturing when I connect with people who have already experienced the stages of growth, in plants and children. I share my own struggle to move to the teenage season of parenting at the Letters to A Parent website this week.

What have you learned from nurturing children? Liz at Woolgatherings is launching a new website called Root and Sprout and is looking for articles on parenting.

Root and Sprout is a place for moms and dads to come for practical information, stories, and advice about being a parent and raising kids. Root and Sprout is a website for parents written by parents (or people who have experience working with children). If you can write a blog post, you can write an article for Root and Sprout! (Don’t forget that you get a byline and link to your blog or website). If you are interested, you can learn more here.

Finally, a big thank you to Scribbit for the post Starting Seeds Indoors. As a novice I thought the sunny window would be enough. But with her tips on getting a grow light and my desire to use what I have, I dug out our aquarium light and plugged it in. I hope this will be another success for my trial and error garden.