For those who care to bear with some of my random thoughts...

My life has changed so quickly. In July I had no idea what was coming. In October I skipped merrily along. And then in December life was crazy different than my plans. I look ahead at the next few months...March...May...July again, they're empty pages in my calendar, blank canvases waiting for paint. Can I plan them and they will come to be? Will paint appear on them by some unbidden hand, creating a picture I could never have imagined? Do my suggestions and choices create them moment by moment? Or is life some combination of these? Or possibly something else that has never even crossed my mind?

Today Unedited...

"Love does not die. Time cannot kill it, nor many miles, nor even death."

After such a wonderful weekend its hard to remember that it is truly only miles that separate. Only miles. I am hoping to discover that partings become easier. Hoping that I have learned from past experiences to enjoy the moment and then let it go and enjoy living in the present.

Food for thought...

"Life is too short. Too short to not take the time to nurture ourselves, to seek out relaxation, to walk silently through the woods, and to laugh out loud with someone who knows us better than we know ourselves." ~Heather

Risk

I have to admit that I find it rather interesting that two of the most important lessons I have been learning over the last few weeks happen to be found in my two new favorite songs, yet it was only after listening to them quite a few times that I discovered this fact. Perhaps instead of attempting to explain, I'll just let the songs speak for themselves this time...

"You know we don't have to wait until the end of the night just to say that somethings wrong and maybe nobody's right...steady now, we're in this thing together." (Steady Now -Brandon Heath)

"Love does not run, Love does not hide, Love does not keep locked inside." (Love Never Fails -Brandon Heath)

In the end it all boils down to taking risks. The risk of letting yourself feel instead of denying, the risk of sharing those thoughts and feelings with others. The risk of being perfectly open and not hiding, the risk of trusting and loving. They've been some of the scariest risks I've ever taken, but the results have been oh, so rewarding, and I cannot help being happy that I am walking down this path, as frightening and uncomfortable as it may be at times.

Views from my weekend - Raven Rock Park

Paradox...

...Is it strange to remember when and how you learned a word over a dozen years ago? I'm not sure if it is, but I know I'm grateful Rachel explained this word to me in an email all those years ago because it has so aptly described many things in the intervening years, but especially my life right now. This time I am walking through seems so chaotic, uncertain, ambivalent. I have a feeling these next few years are likely to be filled with a lot of change. And yet this is the most settled I have felt in a long time. A paradox. Two things which would seem to be mutually exclusive and yet somehow manage to exist together at the same time.

Family Sociology

Hello dear friends! I have missed being back in this space with you this last week, but it has been good for me to take some time to process everything that happened during my adventure, to adjust back to "normal" life (which I am realizing cannot ever quite go back to exactly the way it was before), and to become aware of some lessons I need to learn and things I need to work through. I'm sure you'll get to hear bits and pieces about all those things in the week to come, but if there's something specific yall would like to hear about please feel free to ask :)

In the mean time I think I'm really going to enjoy only taking one class this semester. Yes, it should allow me time to finish up my CLEP tests and therefore my degree, but it is particularly this class that I think I am going to enjoy: Family Sociology. So many things have happened in the last eight weeks that I had nearly forgotten the description of the class from when I signed up for it; so when I got my book and started flipping through it I was surprised to discover that a lot of it deals with marriage. (I know, duh, family...marriage...yeah, somehow that didn't connect in my brain.) I was immediatly struck by the fact that this class is going to be much more interesting to me now than if I had taken it last semester when I was still convinced that my prince charming really had gotten run over by a lawn mower when he was still a frog ;) As class began last week though I began to see another piece of Providential timing.

While our textbook attempts to present a balanced perspective on marriage and family life, it is still a secular perspective. However, John and Stasi Eldrege (some of my favorite authors as most of you know) just wrote a new book on the the same subject called Love and War and I just happen to have a copy of it sitting in my room, itching to be read ;) And so I decided that perhaps now would be a good time to start it (even though I'm in the middle of two other fabulous books at the moment...ahem) because I think that reading it along side my textbook would be very beneficial. It would help me to see things from many different perspectives.

Now, by way of inviting lots of comments on this post, I have a question for each of you. My first paper for class is going to be lots of fun. Its about my ideal family and I have very few restrictions/guidelines other than that. I absotlutely can't wait for homework time tomorrow morning so I can have some concentrated brainstorming time for that topic :) In the mean time I would love to hear some of yall's thoughts on what you would include in such a paper. What are some snippets of what your ideal family would look like?

As the Adventure comes to an end...

*On New Years Eve I was introduced to fondue, then we played Pictionary till midnight

*More music with Dawn :) We're gonna have to somehow find time to do this more together at home!
*I also got to observe an official meeting...
*To start off the year Michael and I took a little road trip together and on our way to Green Bay we arranged to meet Shelley :)
*Walking on Lake Michigan
*A cousin's wedding was the reason for this little side trip into Wisconsin. Some of the guys got lessons on ironing from me and tying ties from each other ;)

*After the wedding the fun began on the long drive home with Dawn, Phil, Michael and I
*We were a little cramped but were cozy and had lots of fun singing, talking, knitting and of course...
*...playing games on the iphone ;)