Perhaps it's a result of staying up too late and getting up too early, but today my mind is a swirl of thoughts about life and the big picture. I have been lining up my commitments lately and I'm excited to realize that all of them but ONE will be checked off for good by the time baby Villa comes along. Though I'm terribly overwhelmed at the thought of raising a newborn, it is a huge relief to know that I will be able to focus everything on her for the first few months.
In the mean time, life is a tangle of plans made, broken, and made again, as I try to tackle all the responsibilities that are on my plate right now. This is something I have always been bad at. It's strange too because just a few weeks ago I was complaining that I didn't have enough to do... and now suddenly it's craziness all the time. This is largely due to the home-buying process, which kicked into overdrive when our offer was accepted on a duplex in Auburn. It is somewhat of a fixer-upper, so that will keep us very busy until the baby arrives, I'm sure.
In the midst of this my husband has become fed up with the very obvious flaws in the university education system (particularly where he is attending) and is trying to figure out weather he wants to continue his education or not. There are other opportunities for him on the horizon, including (but not limited to) a new job which will begin a week from tomorrow. So needless to say the tectonic plates under our lives are shifting again, and we are constantly trying to re-define normal. It is definitely better than boredom, but I can't help but crave the simplicity of a suburban lifestyle. Sending the kids off to school every day and Dad getting home at 5 o'clock sharp would leave Mom plenty of time to write, cook, clean, and sleep.
Of course, we are not called to easy in this life. And I have the feeling that as long as I have the husband I do, life will never exactly be simple for us... and I wouldn't have it any other way! To spend and be spent is the greatest blessing I could ask for out of this life. The challenge lies in putting to rest my own foolish ideas about what is important or how I WANT to spend my time, to focus instead on what God has laid in front of me for the day ahead.
Speaking of which, I should be off to prepare for tutoring and to get some homework done. But this short break has cleared my mind a great deal, and I feel I can venture out into the world now with a sense of purpose behind me! It's amazing the wonders of a little writing therapy.
