It's Autumn

Hello Dear Reader.
Are you snugged up under a quilt
watching an old black and white movie this morning?
Or are you out in the woods
stomping around on crunchy leaves?
Or, like me, are you about to sit down
to your second quarter plans
and try to knock them out of the park?
I'm kind of guessing I'm alone in that third category.

It's a nice, quiet Saturday here.
I have already run around town this morning.
I got up before anyone else and went to my parents house
to retrieve something
(they get home late tonight---I'm cooking a big lunch tomorrow).
I went by Sonic and got a Java Chiller.
I thought my brother would be home (at my parents house)
and I was all prepared with a joke/gag when I saw him.
But he had already gone to work.
(That is so like my family---you know you are on your
way to see a person, so on the way you cook up your
one liners to lay at their feet when you greet them. I have
an uncle who will tell them to everyone else if he doesn't
see the person he prepared the humor for.
I love my family.)

I do hope you are enjoying your day. It's a beautiful autumn day. We will be headed out to the soccer fields at lunch time. We only have one team playing today so that is kind of nice. Big E can watch Sweet T's game and we can all just watch one game and not run back and forth between fields. This will be the first time there will be a chill in the air at the soccer games, but I don't think it will be that chilly by the time we play. I wouldn't even notice it much if I didn't have a baby to stroll around in the elements. Having a little one makes you much more aware of the weather--or it does me. Maybe you are always aware of the weather. Not me. I was voted most likely to not have an umbrella when one is needed.

Remember the new Bible study I am a part of?
Well, for one thing, I am really enjoying it.
I really feel like God is using that and some other things
in my life. I'm not sure where it's all headed, but I can
tell that He is turning my heart toward something.
I don't know if that makes sense to you or not.
This past year or so has just been so hard on me
and I feel like right now all the pressure
and difficulty have finally taken their toll.
I'm so tired.
I'm tired of some of the stuff we have to deal with--some of it
just consequences of our own choices,
some of it just waiting and having to deal with what is there
until the waiting is over. So I am tired of those things,
but also just simply physically tired.
So physically tired right now.
And I think it's just like a cumulative tiredness.
And then there's always stuff going on.
Why is that?
I'd like a break. A time to just rest and not have stuff going on
all about me, but there doesn't seem
any chance of that happening
any time in a near decade. Even these past two weeks
with a break from school, I thought I'd be able to get
some stuff done,
to get caught up on some things, to slow down
the pace of life. But no. Things pop up on a daily basis.
There's always something to deal with,
something taking up the time.
If it's not a diaper explosion,
it's a flooding basement or a dead battery in the van.
Maybe I'm just not being realistic in what I think I can
get done in a day's time. Maybe I always feel like
I'm behind because I'm setting unrealistic expectations
of how much can reasonably happen in a 24 hour period.
I want to get to a peaceful place in my life where we
don't have change and upheaval and
major life decisions on the horizon.
I just want normal and ordinary for a while.
Maybe there's a reason for all this upheaval in my life.
Again, I do feel like there's a purpose,
like there is a certain reason behind it all.
I don't know what God is doing in my heart and life,
but He is doing something
and I'm not even pretending to have my hands on the wheel.
He is the potter; I am the clay.
Does the clay tell the potter what to do? No.
The clay has no sense of what is ultimately good for it.
I'm a big blob of dumb clay.
I know I need to be molded.
I know I have rough spots that the potter
is trying to smooth out.
I want to be a vessel that can be used.

And you know me,
ever ready with the appropriate song,
be it silly or corny or whatever.
Want to know what song popped into my head
while typing the previous paragraph?
"I'm just an old lump of coal, Lord,
But I'm going to be a diamond someday."
(That's about all I know of that song. It snagged
on something in my mind. It's probably some old country
song from the 70's. How strange that I remember
things like that? Why didn't
information from the periodic table
snag in my mind instead of blowing away with the first
gentle breeze that blew through? Why can't I remember
useful information? Oh well. I wouldn't be the person
to engineer an escape hatch if we were stuck somewhere,
but I would be fun to be stuck with....for a while....)

Enjoy your weekend, Dear Reader.
Soak it in.
Breath deeply.
These are the good old days.