The chaos

 I would not be who I am or where I am if it were not for my mother. She's saved my life yet again by spending hours of the past two days helping me to organize my life into the small compact size of boxes and suitcases. I appreciate her, my dad, and my siblings so much for everything they have given to see me succeed.

  Where would any of us be without our moms, really? God is a smart God for creating maternal instinct.

 I'm leaving my sweet giant puppy tomorrow. I'm actually leaving a lot of things tomorrow, but my pup is the one heaviest on my mind as I head towards bed this evening. How is it possible to love a dog so much?? I didn't think it was. Although perhaps it's a possibility that I'm taking all of my emotional baggage about leaving everything I've ever known as home and placing it on my dog because it's too heavy to carry around anymore. Possibly.
 Or maybe I just really, really love my dog.

 I have about a billion things that I have to do before noon tomorrow... Including but not limited to repacking 2 of my perfectly packed suitcases because they are perfectly 10 lbs over my weight limit.  O_o .....oi.

 I don't know when I'll post again. It's kind of hard when there's a thousand different things that you're thinking about every day and a thousand different things that could make for interesting blog posts... Such as my sweet doula group and the meeting I had with them last week, and how much I love and am encouraged by them all the time! Or like the lovely farewell party my family and friends held for us on Sunday evening at Black Rock Resort.. Such a sweet time of tasty food and fellowship. Or theres birth and midwifery. I haven't even started reading my textbooks yet but I'm pretty sure I could write at least a blog post a day about my personal feelings on the subject.
I haven't really caught onto how best to blog yet.

 Anyway, the next post will probably be once we're in NZ. Or maybe on the plane. Or maybe before that in California. We're stopping for 4 days to go to Disneyland with my family...I'm SO glad that this worked out and that we'll have so much concentrated time together before I (literally) take off!

 God is good...I'm feeling better right now about this whole departure thing than I have yet. Today was a pretty rough day of sorting and sulking and staring at the walls and out the windows in remembrance of days past and anxiety about the unknown..But I am feeling better. Blame the red wine or the good company, perhaps (we spent the evening with Amy, Scott and Logan), but I'm blaming God for giving me just enough joy, excitement, and strength to make it though.

(remind me of that tomorrow as I leave my dog behind, ok?)

xo!