So my new planner came in January like I said it would!! I LOVE IT!! It's so colorful!
...and useful!
and well...
I'm not using it anymore.
*Sigh*
I know, I feel like a loser about it too. But the reason is that it weighs like 8 pounds and I wasn't expecting that when I ordered it. Isn't it just ADORABLE, tho?! I love everything about it because I got to design it myself and pick the cover and the pages and layout and it cost like 50 bucks, so I really REALLY tried to deal with it. I lugged it around for several weeks and tried to pretend that I was ok with the weight of it, but eventually it just got the best of me.
Ok, so it's not quite 8 lbs, but it is almost 2 lbs and that is just too much when I'm already carrying around my Chromebook, purse, lunch bag, coffee mug, water bottle, iPad and various notebooks/journals every single day wherever I go. Something needed to go. So I got a new, less bulky wallet and purse, and decided to leave my ginormous planner at home. I've been using the digital calendar on my iPad instead and although I have loudly sung the praises of a paper planner, I have to say I am liking the digital calendar a bit. No, it's not paper, I will just have to get my writing and doodling outlet via another venue. I have come to appreciate it , especially for things that repeat and I don't have to keep writing them over and over like youth group, baseball practices, voice lessons, Wednesday night mom's group...oh, and birthdays! Another thing is being able to add cute little emoji's :) They make me happy.
Looking back on my first blog entry for this year, I realize I am making some progress on the things I wanted to focus on. I have started attending a mom's group at our church, which I haven't done for some time. Not consistently anyway. We are going to a new church now, which was a difficult transition especially for me. I am very loyal and look at church as a family. Vince and I started feeling the tug to leave our old church a couple years ago. I denied it for a long time because that was the church I had been part of for 16 years and YOU JUST DON'T LEAVE FAMILY!! I raised my babies there, saw them both saved and baptized there. I made some very close friendships over the years. It was the church where Mr. W and I were married. I learned to play piano and served on the worship team for 8 years. I went to countless bible studies, led some women's ministry groups, had many talks and laughs and shed many tears inside those walls. I laid things on the altar, and buried my mom, and we saw people come and go. I didn't want to be a "leaver". I wanted to stay, but our kids had started going to the youth group at our new church a couple years prior and they were really growing and thriving. For a while we tried taking them to youth group on Wednesdays at the new church and attending Sunday services at the old, but after many discussions Vince and I decided last fall that having one foot in each church was leaving us not fully engaged in either. So we made the leap. It was hard, but it has been a blessing. Both churches are wonderful, but this is where we need to be now and we finally have a peace about it.
As far as the other goals I set at the beginning of this year, I have begun to sit at my piano again, which feels amazing. My Canon 40D has been dusted off and resurrected and I've decided shall now be referred to as "Big Mama" 'cause, think about it. And now here I am...writing. I started this blog post last night when my view was this:
And now it's 4:30am and I am on my couch in my robe wide awake. Not really doing a good job of trusting and surrendering and believing for good things. I'm stressed. Top on my list of things I'm stressed about: my firstborn is officially deployed. Out of the country. And I can't contact him. At least not right now. I have no idea how he is feeling, what he is doing, how he is being treated. Is he scared or homesick or in danger? Would he tell me if he was any of those things even if I could talk to him? No, but still. A mom knows when we hear their voice. No matter how much they try to hide it, we know.
My mom did. In the last moments I had with her when she could still communicate, she told me it was ok to cry. I told her I know, and I had been crying but I was hiding it. I'll never forget when she looked up at me from her hospital bed and said "you can't hide it from your mother". She was right. As much as I have said that my mom didn't understand me, she could always tell when I was sad. And she always wanted to help. Even though her helping didn't help sometimes, deep down I knew that she cared, and that she hurt when I hurt.
But now my mom isn't here. I can't call her, but honestly I wouldn't if I could because she would be even more worried than me. She never knew that Nicolas was being deployed. He found out right around the time she was in the hospital and I told him not to tell her. She didn't need to be worried with it. I'm not sure what we know about earthly things when we are in Heaven, but if she does know where he is, I have no doubt she is praying for him and it gives me comfort to know her prayers don't have far to travel to the throne.
