I know that I post in fits and starts, but that’s the way it has to be. While musing between the ordinary and the not-so, real life has to be lived. And while a simple life is sought, it is not to be mistaken for easy.*

I remember when we were a One Pizza Family. Too, I remember when my husband and I could go out for dinner, and we could feed the kids off of our entrées. And I also remember feeling no guilt when I bought yogurt in single serving containers. But now that there are no leftovers after two pizzas, my seven-year-old is still hungry after a kid’s meal, and yogurt must be purchased in bulk, I have to face the facts: I’m a busy lady. Whether it is considerable more time in the kitchen, in the garden, in the laundry room, or at the table doing schoolwork, until the school-agers outnumber the babies (or Mary Poppins starts returning my phone calls), I’m sunk.

In a good way, of course.

Not yet 30 (I’m holding on for three more weeks), I am caught in the precarious position between that of “older woman” and “younger woman.” My nest is not empty from children who have found their wings, and likewise, my nest is not new and bare because I am just beginning to build it. No, it seems like I’m in a middle stage— prepared to be called a “woman” who has tasted God’s hard providences early on, but still learning to be all the woman He’s called me to be.

With my husband recently out-of-town for 7 days and then working late nights, any time the baby was sleeping, most likely, I was/am as well. (Oh! And the baby got a fever, the older kids had a cough, and my Calgon-take-me-away was empty.) All that to say, don’t mistake my silence and slacker-style posting as indifference or indication that I had the baby. (Though, you’re welcome to pray on that behalf and leave me suggestions for boy names.) Rather, I recognize that there are seasons in life. There are free moments and not-so-free moments, and when the latter outnumbers the former, sleeping and eating bon-bons will always trump blogging and answering email. I am a woman with priorities.

To everything there is a season, and a good woman learns how to weather them all. Now… where’s my umbrella?!

* I recently previewed A Journey Home, winner of the Jubilee Award for Best Documentary at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. Now, here’s a story that will justify my statement about simplicity not being easy (but, oh-so-worth-it)!

P.S. (I don’t like bon-bons. I was just practicing editorial freedom.)