joys.

I'm attempting to be proactive in looking at evidences of God's graces in my life. The first thing that came to mind was throwing in some pictures to show the joys in my life.

This is my little family doing what we do best...lounging on our terribly uncomfortable futon and making our kitten, Lander, love us when she would rather run away from us. I've finally learned contentment in our nightly routine of watching TV and getting in those sneaky kisses and getting Lander to attack things we throw across the room.

Here is Lander's debut as model kitten. Here is the skinny on our kitty. So I had this dream a few weeks back about our children. We had two boys, one about three and one about 6 months. They were ADORABLE....blond hair, blue eyes...pudgy little cheekies...but Phil and I didn't know what to do with them. I remember leaning over to him and whispering, "I know I'm supposed to have that maternal love thing, but I don't quite...love...them." The whole dream was us staring at them and them staring at us, no one being sure of what to do. We would take our kids to people's houses and set them down in the middle of the room and slowly back away.

Ok so the older boy's name in my dream was Lander, and I woke up saying, "What kind of name is Lander?! No wonder I didn't love him very much." We picked our cat out from the store and on the way home, we were going back and forth on what to name her. We really wanted a name from Arrested Development, but none of the girls' names fit so Phil suggested Lander.

"That way," he explained to me, "if we don't really love the cat, it'll be like our test child."

So thus, Lander.

I didn't know if I would be a pet person, but I knew a cat would be good company while Phil was gone. But holy toledo I'm in LOVE with this cat! I have 50 pictures in her own file on my computer, Phil and I refer to one another now as Mommy and Daddy, we talk constantly to it in a little Lander voice, and let her snuggle up with us in bed...on our pillow.

"Mother, there was a BIRD on my pillow."
(Sorry I couldn't help it.)

She's a huge joy and I'm loving my 2-pound wonder.

Next up!

Oh boy. Here's my issue with deployment. It's not that I'm afraid of doing things solo, or nervous about waking up to a cat, or scared of the idea of 12 months. No no no...I'm good with all of that. I'm actually excited about my list of things I'm going to do while he's gone and adventures I will take. But my issue is this picture. Who is going to make me laugh to the point of keeling over and almost piddling my pants? (okay it's happened, like once...or twice) He brings so much happiness to me with his voices, his dance routines before bed, his ability to quote any movie at any time.

We have our inside jokes, our rituals, our meals...and he brings joy to all of those things. I'm fully prepared to create my own patterns while he's away and those will be fun, in their own right (cereal for dinner while watching Gilmore Girls? heck yes). I will definitely miss him and high kicks.

So...here's to my joys. I've had the privilege to savor them for 7 months and I'm excited to see how God graces me in the next 12 months. He leaves on Thursday night...3 days!

AWK < >

It's less than two weeks before my hubby is shipped off, and I've entered into a new phase I'd like to call the awkward phase.

Phil comes home everyday and we get the evenings together as well as the weekends. Plenty of time to snuggle on the couch watching CSI, go grocery shopping together, take excursions to pumpkin patches, make dinners...in other words, he's still here and we still have time to make memories and use our time together well.

And yet, and I don't know if this is a survival mindset or a quirk, it seems like he's already left. Or that I'm telling myself he's gone and it's now time to hunker down and do the independent thing. He'll come home from work and we talk about our days, eat, and watch TV in near-silence. Then bed. Shouldn't we be making the most of every moment? Snapping pictures, recording videos, taking walks to talk about loose ends?

On the other hand, I've been preparing myself for him to leave for a good 6+ months. In the past two, I've diligently been preparing for his departure. I've called USAA to get insurances switched, power of attorneys, simple wills made. I've saved forms on my computer to fill out if you want a flag-folding ceremony at the funeral. I have contact numbers, names of commanders and FRG info if I need to contact someone. I have purged, sorted, organized and condensed all of our possessions in case I need to move in a hurry. I've done it all (I hope) and now I'm just sitting, looking for others things to prepare and knowing I'm devoid of all control.

I am at the crossroad I've found myself at a million times before: wanting control over everything I possibly can and yet listening to God whispering, "Stop. Breathe. Follow Me."
I know He is in this trial and that though He won't get me out of certain circumstances, He gets me through them. I know that. But I don't understand what goes through my head..."Hey, big guy, so...I know you've got everything under control, but...what if I just did this. Oh and this. And maybe that, too." Only to realize I'm causing more pain to myself than relief, and I get in the way of myself rather than letting God do what He does best...love me.

And to round all of that off, I've retreated inside of myself and have already begun numbing myself to certain things, like the joy I used to have when Phil walked through the door. Obviously I'm still thrilled to see him, but now there's this twinge of sadness as I tell myself that I won't be hearing the key turning in the lock for a long time. I don't want these remaining days together to be mere routine, but I don't want to open myself up so completely that it becomes even harder to say goodbye.

Awkward. Sometimes I feel awkward around Phil, or that dinners are awkward as we small talk random things, or interactions with friends are awkward because we'd rather be at home watching TV and not discussing what we're feeling about the deployment. I don't want to tell myself that what I'm feeling right now is right or wrong...there's no need to label it as such...it is what it is.

I will, however, be relieved to start counting down the days to when he comes home rather than the days to when he leaves.

It's fall...how can I be sad?

Life feels heavy these days and I've decided it doesn't need to feel that way.

So for evidences of God's grace in the day to day, here's what I've got:

The boy in 2nd grade, the one who's going to be so cute when he's older, doing the robot dance for me today on cue.

Eating potato chowder soup with Sarah and venting how we hate Army.

Picking leaves off a tree today in the QFC parking lot while employees on break wondered what the girl in skinny jeans and brown boots was doing in the bushes.

Looking out at my maroon, yellow, fuchsia and marigold mums on my patio each day and getting warm inside.

Recording all of Phil's accents and dialects on my note-to-self so I can replay them when I miss him. My favorite is the overly-cautious old lady.

Putting on my new bright green sweater cardigan. I love sweater weather.

Hearing Corrie's daughter talk in her 2 year old smoker voice.

Listening to the lyrics, I'm just not strong enough...I can't do this alone, God I need you to hold on to me...

Waking up and thinking I'm doing this, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be just fine.