Life

I don’t really know how to describe this past week.

Lots of sadness.  Lots of praying.  Lots of quiet moments of gratitude.

Lots of reevaluating.

I feel like we were already reevaluating everything in our lives before this happened, but this week has only intensified those feelings and those evaluations.

This week has brought moments of reflection.  More than that.  Pause.

Moments where I feel like I am pressing “pause” on life, and watching that moment happen.

I think we should do that more often. 

Matt is going back to Ohio tomorrow, to be with friends.  I will miss him, and I think I will miss him more because of the new, humbled, changed person I am inside.  That new person still feels a little raw inside.  But it is a good change.  I thought before this week that I already loved him more than was possible.  I love him more now than I ever did.  Kisses mean more.  We hold each other tighter at night. 

Today there was a commotion in the kitchen.  You know those old movies where ladies somehow didn’t know how to use a dishwasher or a washing machine, and soap bubbles came pouring out, making a monumental mess?  

I thought that wasn’t actually, truly possible.  :)  Turns out, it is.  

I’ve been learning to make soap by hand.  It’s been a wonderful life experience, and something so basic that has reconnected me and helped me this week.  I’ll write more about why I’m making soap later, but Matt and I have turned out several lovely batches now.  

I’ve been really good about cleaning it up the right way.  But today, there were just a few “test” containers I had used that I didn’t clean out totally before putting them in the dishwasher.  They had just a little bit of soap in them that had set up after I took the bars out to cure.  I figured it wasn’t much soap, and would only help the dishes. 

These pictures only show the very beginning of the total eruption.  :)

When it first started, the girls anxiously called to me.  I could see from my oldest’s face that she was a little worried about how I might react.  After absorbing what I had done for just a second, I burst out laughing.  It was such a release.  After these pictures, soap erupted and it was everywhere, and it was a bugger to clean, but it was so “cleansing,” ha ha.  :)

I think that this week has taught me many, many things.  Many things have been reaffirmed about what actually matters in life.  And it has also taught me not to care so much about the things that just don’t.  

Life is full of moments…wonderful ones, and very, very hard ones.  There will be many of both.  

Hopefully, the moments that make us cry help us to love and laugh even harder during the other times. 

(PS – If you ever chance to sample one of my soaps in the future, I can promise you after today that they have EXCELLENT lather, and that they smell divine.  And they clean skin, floors, and dishes.  And to any other moms that accidentally do this someday…I figured out how to get it out.)  :)