Purple Trees and Ice Cream

the past couple of days have been scattered.

adoption study complete, new-home-visit behind us, new job lined up, notice given at old job (it is already the "old" job to me), end-date in mind. and yet we still have about 3 months left. 11 weeks, to be exact, which makes it 77 days.

we're not unhappy. We really want to appreciate our time here because we know we'll miss it when we're gone, but it feels hard to find my groove when i hear the clock ticking so certainly. everything seems temporary, which has made my time feel vaguely unimportant.

today was a busy day of nothing in particular... wake up, get grumpy baby downstairs into the highchair, microwave oatmeal for her/hot tea for me, change diaper, check facebook, start chores.... clean up breakfast, start laundry, read a book/play with dolls/do a puzzle, get dressed, curl hair, dress happy baby, read a book/play with dolls/do a puzzle, SESAME STREET!... prepare a homemade healthy lunch, feed annika healthy lunch, eat a cookie. change diaper, read a book, nap time.... ahhhh.... and its here that i usually try to really get something productive done that can't be done while annika is up. but today i just felt burnt-out-blah.

usually that whole routine is pretty joyful for me. i like to housekeep (although its admittedly harder here), i like to cook, i love to simply be with annika. i like to shake thinks up with a crazy unexpected trip to the library or target or even the grocery store, and then treat ourselves to cookie samples. but today felt like moving through an obstactle course, just trying to get to the next thing so i could get done. but get done to do what? wake up and start over? yeah.... yuck.

i'm almost embarassed to write such a "yuck" post because my last was so full of the Lord's encouragement and hope, but part of our walk with him is learning to come down off the high and back into normal life. Maybe its that God gave me such a "big-picture" glimpse of what he's doing in our family that normal life seems inadequate to actually get us there, but thats a lie straight from the enemy. (doesn't he always know just how to lie to us?)

this afternoon, however, i wasn't thinking so spiritually.

i straightened up the bedroom and picked clothes up off the floor and just felt so tired. i wanted to just stop doing stuff and rest. the bathroom that i was cleaning was warm from the sunlight on the side of the house and full of light, so when i walked to the big king-sized four-postered bed in the dark corner of a chilly room, i changed my mind. sleep was depressing, i'd keep working. but when i came back into the bathroom, i could sense my tiredness again.

i brought my pillow in and laid down next to the heater and immediately fell asleep in the sun on the bathroom floor.

30 minutes later, i hear a knock on the wall and look up to see my husband standing over me, home an hour early from class.
"what are you doing?" he asked.
"get me out of the house, please?" i asked back, probably looking pretty pitiful there on the floor.

so we got out. we put annika in the stroller and walked to sonic because, luckily, it was happy hour and thats our favorite thing. we all three split a root beer float and annika kept shouting her version of the word "ice cream" which sounds disturbingly like a curse word. (i dont know how the word "cream" can come out as "hole" but somehow it does.)

we even saw those purple trees on our walk which made me want to rhyme like dr. seuss about them.

i'm not sure how to end this, because this long post was completely unexpected. i was planning to write a short note about wanting to value our time here rather than rushing through it, but its 11pm and its quiet and typing feels therapeutic somehow. my husband did, however, just ask me to "type quieter" so i guess its only relaxing for 1 out of the 3 of us in this room. (i'm counting the deaf dog, who can't possibly appreciate it.)

so i guess thats how i'll end it?