Embracing the Chaos

It seems like the days are just flying by.  I look around our house and can't believe it is mid-October.  I see the stacks of boxes everywhere: the garage, the kitchen, the basement.  Our decorations are down and to someone who likes to keep a tidy home, the mess of less {you know what I am talking about..the living in a home transitioning to move} can be a bit overwhelming.  Add to that two toddlers and a newborn and being home all day and trying to run a business.  And the fact that I leave for a quick work trip just a few days after we move and host Beau's birthday party the next weekend after that...

I could let all of that overwhelm me.  Suffocate me.  Blind me. And there are definite moments when all I can think about is all I have to get done and the fact that I just want to clean something.  But I am trying really hard to focus on the bigger picture.  

Never in a million years did I think that this would be my reality.  Moving back close to friends and family before the holidays.  Knowing that a trip to see a friend would be minutes versus hours.  That feeling of not having to pack a bag just to visit cousins {unless it is an overnight sleepover for the kids but then still, the bag is not mine}.  The giddiness I feel to know Andrew and I will be able to take a date night because of the countless sitter options we will have again.  And not to mention, date night options closer than an hour's drive.  My heart is just so, so full.  

This weekend I was reading Melanie Shankle's The Antelope in the Living Room.  I laughed the entire way through that book and in the midst of laughing was dealt some deep thinking because that is just her style. She writes like she is talking to her closest friends and funny aside, there are just some things every good friend shares with the other.  As I reflected on some of the anecdotes and wisdom she shared, I thought about Andrew and I's journey, all the unexpected adventures, ups and downs of our marriage.  I wouldn't trade any of it.  Even the challenges.  They helped shape us.  They guided us to down roads we otherwise wouldn't travel.  They drew us closer and caused us to love deeper.  

In the midst of all the chaos of the next month or so, I know this is just another chapter in our story.  A chapter that has some stress but so much joy.  A chapter that we will look back on and see how we grew, how we yielded to honor one another through the stress and schedules and newness of life back home with three.  I just know that this chapter is going to become one of my favorites.