Altered Altars

Yesterday Don woke up and wandered into the kitchen. Where he was greeted by this:
He asked, out of sheer groggy, half-asleepiness, "What's that? An altar to the iron?" Um. No. It is the result of the freedom of a New Year to return to the joy and wonder of the perfectly mundane. (Doing those weird little chores that have not been done, or not been done well, since the preparations for constant company began back in November.) Rather than an altar, this is what it looks like when someone washes and irons the table runner before leaving the iron to cool and decides to trim every candle wick from the living and breakfast rooms. And then wants to burn them all for a minute just so they don't look "too new".
After retrieving a cup of coffee, the mister retreated for his quiet time. Where he informed me that Oswald Chambers's tidbit for January 2nd reminded him of me as it talked of going out without knowing exactly where or why one was headed out. The immediate response was not, "Oh, thank you--- you dear, dear man!" It was a sulky wife who is still a teensy bit overly sensitive after the over-scheduled days of the so-called "holiday" season.
On the heels of an intended compliment, out came the explanation that the whole reason for my holiday funk this year was that the constant activity of those days just sucked the celebration out of the day-to-day like some sort of giant Hoover. Great thankfulness greets the return to normalcy. The pleasure of simply going out without mapping every last detail of where one must be going, the pressure of trying to fulfill a never ending list of tasks with whatever one must do, and worst of all missing out on the ones and the One with whom I really want to spend the hours of each day.
Today, once again the calendar returns to being placed on the altar. (Figuratively, not the one with the iron.) To the calendar, no further sacrifices will be made of people or joy. Ah, might as well throw the pocket book on a sacrificial pyre, too. These two items tend to reflect one's greatest priorities through the allocations of time and money as someone or other once pointed out. Time for both to again reflect higher priorities.