When your cup runneths over.

Hello! I write to you today from our front porch...the front porch was one of those boxes that had to be "checked" when we moved out to the "middle" and I have to say I am enjoying it as much as I had hoped I would. Over the past couple of years, we had some ups and downs that shaped me a bit and one thing that changed was my love for Spring.  I sit here with daffodils in bloom along our walk, birds singing on high-no really they're so loud, the wind is blowing the nicest warm breeze, bees are humming and the best part, the kiddos playing hide-and-seek in the yard.  These are the moments I wish I could linger in...for they provide what feels like true rest and peace for me.  

Do you ever feel like you've gotten swept away? Last fall was such an exciting time for me as I was preparing for my first presentation of my research. I had promised my family that after presenting in October I was "all theirs" and I took a break from researching and writing through the holidays which seemed to roll by like a steam engine and life seemed to have just kept running with it up until right now.  It wasn't until a few nights ago that I realized I hadn't been writing and when I felt like my cup was about to runneth over when my computer went to a blue screen I leaned forward and grabbed my leather notebook, that my sweet husband got for me for Christmas, along with my fountain pen and I started writing. 

As I wrote, I realized that since March when life changed for everyone in America, I had been making each day happen but I had been ignoring everything running in the background of my mind. Stay with me here for a moment... Did you see the Google commercial during the Superbowl this year? Just writing that line makes me tear up over it! Lately anything kind, happy, cute and sad has had me holding back tears like the Google commercial. Lordy, just a commercial that says #inthistogether puts lump in my throat. When moments would happen like this I would just plow through them in effort to get the next task completed to keep our world spinning. I have to be honest, I wasn't always being the best version of "me" even though I had the best intentions behind trying to do it all.  It made me think of my good friend who used to joke and say the famous Dr. Phil line, "Hows that working  for you?"

It wasn't until that moment when writing when everything I had been feeling and all of the things I didn't realize I was feeling all came forward and presented itself.  The steam engine that had been running full speed since October quickly came to a halt.  That quick pause I had needed finally came and gave me a sense of relief even though what stood in front of me was still overwhelming.  Within a day I was able to find a way to recenter, reevaluate and make changes so I can get through the time ahead in a healthier and happier way.

As I have shared in the past, I grew up having a "plan" and for me the plan worked out until about four yeas ago. I felt like I had arrived to where I had spent my life going and it was kind of like "well now what?"  I felt like I was the critter in the Dr. Seuss book "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" waiting for something to happen. It was hard to know something needed to shift in a different direction and even harder to explain to my husband. I just knew something needed to change...but in all of this I loath transitioning that accompanies change. 

Change is something I find to be very challenging as I like routines, order and some predictability...yet I have a growing track record of doing big impulsive things like leaving my job, having our third baby and you know just uprooting our family to go live in the "middle." As you can tell, I am still figuring "me" out...yeah that person I thought I knew all about growing up and what she wanted in life..she's still evolving at the age of 34-ha! 

 I am slowly learning that in the current environment, which we all are sharing in, is not the time to try and do everything and be everything because whether or not we realize it, as adults we are consuming and digesting more than we realize. Now is a time for us to be together because being together is ultimately all that we have right now. While there are plenty of distractions around us, like social media, that are fun and needed at times, it's those same distractions that were keeping us a part as families to begin with. Our society has been on a social media steam engine running faster and faster with each passing year leaving us more connected to those further away and eerily less connected to those living in our own homes each and every day. 

In a time when we are tucked away in our own corner of the world, it's my hope that many will find what I was looking for and has brought me so much joy four years ago. I hope you will find your life to be a little bit slower so you can enjoy more moments with yourself and with your family.  It's my hope for you to start getting to some of those things you keep wanting to do but have been putting off. I hope you find yourself recognizing things that maybe you typically just pass by or just don't hear because your mind was too busy to hear.  I hope you try something new and then try something new again. 

My greatest hope for you is that when all of this has come to pass and we slowly start venturing back out and returning to our new normal, that you will have reconnected with yourself  and have found  priorities that will help you go ahead into your days living a life where you are fulfilled and where Home is every sense of the word. 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. {Psalm 23:4-6}