When I first created this blog, if weeks had gone by and I'd not posted, I'd get anxious. I remember thinking that though this blog was another stressor - another deadline to meet - it was good to get my thoughts down and it was "necessary."
And here it is, over five months since my last post, and I really could care less. In fact I'm proud that I've not posted; I laugh that at times I completely forgot I HAVE a blog. And in these five months, there's not been a whole lot to blog about - I mean, not a lot that I would like to share. I've not hit many milestones, aside from a wonderful shift in my professional career. And since April, I've accomplished the best thing a working, mother who's a student can accomplish: routine.
I should mention one more milestone - Samara turned 1 1/2 yesterday. My sweet, challenging, amazing young one turned my life upside down when she was born. And for a while some of the things that toppled over just didn't want to re-root themselves in my life. A lot has happened in the past 18 months that got in the way of establishing a routine: the death of one of the most amazing men I've ever known, my grandfather; the unexpected and unfair death of a wonderful friend who modeled motherhood with grace; diagnoses of illnesses of ones closest to me in life; natural disasters affecting the lives of my family members; the stress of putting a house on the market and then taking it off; a ten-year anniversary of an event I watched first hand and felt through the missing signs and the patrons at the restaurant red-eyed from tears in despair because loved ones were missing; injuries that kept me from utilizing my favorite defuser: exercise; and the funks into which I fall when I leave the company of my family.
Yet through it all, I have more blessings than I know I deserve - the mercy God bestows on me and His grace are... shocking to me and always have been. I started this blog as a means to prove that I could "get things done" as a working mother and student. I think God heard me, challenged me, and won. Of course, I win too. Isn't that the way God works? He obviously had a better plan. I mean, I've not yet handed in my dissertation proposal. The changing policies of our government have affected what I'm writing from one day to the next so I make constant revisions. But I've found a wonderful balance to my wonderful life so that I'm not stressing away the time to get from one place to the next. I have my moments; I have my days. But I don't CARE now if my dissertation takes me until 2014 (which by the way is the 9-year deadline set by the school... ugh!) I may finish early, but if I don't, I don't care.
