Perpetual vacation

Being in our new home the past two weeks has felt like a perpetual vacation.

The kids are biking to get treats, we’re spending a few hours here and there at the pool, we have no routine, we’re up late playing in the neighborhood, and when I leave I’m still not sure the best way to get where I’m going. There are moments of hardness mixed in, just like there is in any good vacation, but overall this is good. This is working. Every part of me is saying that I need to figure out what our new town routine will be, but I also feel a grace in knowing that a rhythm will form soon enough.

The upstairs of our house is mostly unpacked and put together (I’m sure there’s still a lot to do but it looks ok) but the finished basement is a disaster. It was supposed to rain yesterday so the night before I declared that I was going to sort out the boxes and stuff down there, but then it ended up being the most beautiful day and I just couldn’t bear to stay inside. So instead I bought some more flowers, went to the grocery, and took the kids to the pool. The basement is still a wreck, but I’ll save that work for a rainy day.

What I’m learning is that I like to have a plan. I would have never thought that I was a planner, but if I don’t know what is happening day to day I find that stressful

I like to schedule fun things and events ahead of time so time doesn’t fly by and we miss it. I’m sure in my younger years I was more spontaneous, but as time has moved on and kids have piled up I desire more planning than spontaneity (but I still love last minute fun!).

There has been so much challenge in this season to literally (cliché warning) go with the flow and live in the moment. From not having a home for two weeks, to moving plans not panning out like we wanted them to, to our kids being sick for a full three weeks in the midst of all of this I have had to be flexible. And what this has revealed is that I’m not as flexible as I once was, but that with a little practice I’m getting there again. I’m (trying to be) OK with not knowing how our days will look, with our kids staying up too late and then subsequently Brad and I staying up too late, with letting the older boys ride bikes to the park and around the neighborhood with kids I don’t know well yet.

This is a season of spreading our wings, of forming new relationships, of welcoming people into our family.

I feel like I haven’t physically rest much in the past two weeks, but does my soul feel rested? I think it does (not in all ways, but many), I feel at ease with where we are and happy that God moved us somewhere that I NEVER would have thought to move on my own.