Whirlwind

Yes, that about says it all.  It was a whirlwind trip to England, trying to cram a full year into two weeks.  It's not easy living so far away from the Incredibles.  We miss out on a lot, and that is hard.  But it was also hard to be in their house for two weeks, taking up Mr. Incredible's office space, trying hard to make memories every minute.  It's hard to miss out on the natural flow of life. Memories of my trip are jumbled and while I treasure them all, it makes me long for the days when we were just two and a half hours apart and could spend a few days together here and there without the whole experience being such a production.  It may have been a whirlwind, but it was oh, so sweet to see them all again, and to be able to participate in Baby G's early weeks.

I took the train to the Marylebone station in London on my last afternoon in England.  A very dear longtime friend had recently relocated to London from Melbourne and I decided to email her to see if we could get together.  What a delightful time seeing her again!  She took marvelous care of me, getting me to a hotel and carefully explaining how to take the Hoppa bus to the airport.  It was a whirlwind visit, but a tremendous blessing to me.

I got home just in time for Easter weekend, beginning with Good Friday.  Easter weekend is always a whirlwind for us with multiple services and responsibilities.  We have to be intentional, stopping to remember what it is all about lest we get swept up in activity missing the point altogether.  Dinner out with family and friends topped off the day and we headed home to crash.

The next morning, I was back to work.  We're in the homestretch of the school year and when I sat down to map out what I have to do between now and then, I was a bit overwhelmed.  It's a boatload of work and the week and a half I've been back in the saddle have been a whirlwind.

On top of it all, we cleaned out the pantry/frig, planned menus, shopped and bought all whole food - all on Easter weekend.  No more processed sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or rice, or artificial anything.  It has been nothing short of amazing to see Flyboy need less and less insulin.  We're not losing weight yet (somewhat surprising), but the changes Flyboy is seeing in his insulin is absolutely thrilling.  It is definitely a paradigm shift, but well worth the effort in planning and cooking.  Flyboy, even with his crazy sweet tooth has hardly been tempted to cheat, so encouraged is he by the dramatic results thus far.

I know that life is busy for us all and we all have times of whirlwind in our lives.  I am reminded that while I can endure the crazy busy for the moment, it's not the way I regularly want to live.  Flyboy has always said that for him heaven means balance and always having the right amount of margin.  I'd like to think it's possible while we're here, too, but the times of balance between too busy and plenty of rest seem too few and far between.  If I can just get through the next two months at work, it will be better.  My, do I get tired of hearing myself say those words.  I am working to keep the main thing the main thing and praying for grace to push through to the other side.

And now, for the moment we've all been waiting for, a smile from Baby G...his first smiling photo, I might add.  Thank you, Elasti-girl!