Big Thoughts Week

Happy Monday! I hope your week is going well. Mine is off to the races with craziness! This week is bananas and I am hoping to high heaven that I can survive. Last week was no picnic either but work was a little less crazy than this week promises to be.

Last week after I picked Calvin up from school we drove up to Michigan to go to our favorite nursery, Varner’s, for mums.

While we were there we walked by the Agricultural and Botany colleges which had the most beautiful flowers and plants. We would have spent oodles of time there but it was quite hot and after walking over 9 miles, we were pretty tired.

I also bought some cabbages to make large planters. If I get a chance to ever finish them I will show you the end result. I bought these gigantic planters as Costco on clearance this spring for only $10. While I want to love them they are proving almost too big. Everything I have put in them looks miniaturized when I get it planted.

Cal was with me because every time I’ve gone to the nursery alone has turned into a crazy fest of me trying to stop the cart as it flies across the parking lot at the hands of the wind. I snapped his photo and couldn’t believe it when I got it home. Calvin is a freshman this year and just a squeak away from 6 feet tall already. I don’t know why I am surprised as Nick is 6feet 4 but it has taken my breath away lately. I can’t believe I’ve grown a kid so tall and handsome. He’s striking and so cute. I’m just so proud of this boy of ours.

While I was driving all over the world on Thursday I couldn’t help but notice how much the crops are starting to dry out and die already. Harvest has just started and will continue through the autumn months but it always starts to make it feel a bit more fall-ish when the crops start to turn.

Seeing the soybeans sway in yellow hues made me reflect so much on life. Life is so cyclical, in a large scale of being born, living, getting older, and then passing on, but also in more short-term ways. There are seasons where I am going gang-busters which must be summer and then there are times I need to slow down, which would be more life fall. There are times when things die off and end which would be like a winter. There are springs in life where new things are getting started.

Speaking of new beginnings, over the weekend we took Emma to Purdue to tour the campus and get aquainted with everything there. She is super excited to apply to colleges and is making some big decisions. We had a great tour of the Veterinarian Hospital there where she was able to meet a DVM student and a vet nursing student. The horse portion of the hospital was so impressive with these huge stalls to take care of the horses. I couldn’t believe how big everything was to take care of the animals. They had this huge pulley system to move the animals around which I never would have thought of but was so cool to see. Emma didn’t say no after visiting the equine and large animal hospital which was different than her tune before. We will see. It all is so overwhelming right now and only God knows this girls future so we will see! It’s an exciting and nerve wracking time right now, for sure.

I am in love with the dusty color of this hydrangea! I am thinking of one of these for the outside of our house so I had to take a photo. I guess I know where to find it if I want to find out the exact name of the plant to order, right?

As the kids are growing and getting older I am forced to reflect on how quickly the time has gone. I am not sure how the kids have gotten so old so quickly but here we are. I am hanging on by the skin of my teeth, telling myself to soak in every moment, to be present, to enjoy them together, to enjoy the bickering, and the messes, and the attitudes, while it all scurries past me faster than I can grab at the moments. I am at peace with how much I am with them. I feel like I have done my absolute best at being their mama.

But still I doubt. I wonder if I’ve done enough, if I’ve held them back, if I could be closer to them, a better mom, a better woman, a better christian.

These are questions I am unable to answer. I try to find the answer while also trying to find the time to just hold on and catch up all at once, an impossible cocktail of time stealing events, happening all at once and in a moment it will all be dashed.

But today. Today is enough. I am enough. The kids are enough. Our life is enough. And Christ is more than enough to german schmear the not enoughs to a smooth finish of perfection. I’ll be able to see the imperfects but he holds me together.

And that will be enough.