transitions

thanking sweet Jesus for dodging all of the bad weather we had coursing around the south this weekend. boy wonder and i left town saturday morning to go fetch bamagirl. i was cursing our laisez-faire attitude in leaving over an hour later than we intended, because the sky looked threatening and i knew big-time rain was headed our way. about two miles into our trip, huge splats of rain assaulted the windshield as we headed towards chattanooga. i envisioned five hours of potential hydroplaning and white knucked passenger angst as boy wonder gripped the wheel.

sometimes i wonder why i worry. why i waste the energy on such an unproductive activity when i could pray (which i did in between kicking myself for our tardy departure and nervously watching boy wonder drive quite capably).
and God kept the miserable weather at bay and our trip to alabama was mercifully dry and uneventful. i enjoyed having some one-on-one time with boy wonder as we talked about all kinds of stuff. i look at myself at that age and remember how clueless i was about life in general and how unwilling i was to take advice or even look pragmatically at my choices and direction. not so, boy wonder. we talked about budgeting, car shopping, relationship issues (or really, how to avoid issues), faith, ministry, life goals, future vocation, apartment/house hunting, and even politics. it was so awesome to hear his heart. (my heart at that age was so self-focused and kind of crispy around the edges… i marvel at how i even survived those years)
made it to the university of alabama without incident, and loaded up the suburban with all of her world's belongings (i swear we loaded at least half of the entire world's belongings!!) which were almost packed and ready to go. the goal was to get the car packed as much as possible before the monsoon hit. we quickly checked out the weather channel to see what was going on in nashville because i had received so many tweets about nashville collectively floating down I-24. the videos were astonishing. all of that destruction in such a short period of time. it proved to be a rather deadly week for the south, weather-wise!
bama boy picked us up and the four of us went to dinner, picked up a few things for the storage unit her roommate wisely secured for the summer, and then went to a movie (back up plan… not gonna waste alot of time recapping the movie… it was funny, but much of it relied on cheap humor, and i'd say this movie could easily wait until rental {or never}. shoulda seen clash of the titans or nightmare on elm street).
we were up early the next morning ready for her to be checked out of her dorm and off we scurried back to east tennessee in hopes of beating the next wave of bad weather.
other than a slight drizzle at the beginning of our trip along with a plea to Jesus to guide our trip back home with a minimal amount of moisture (not tellin' ya what to do Jesus, we're just sayin'…). stopped in chattanooga to have lunch with girl wonder and wondered if perhaps our car might blow away while we ate {although with bama girl's world in the car, it would have taken an F5 twister to hurl that car into the air}.
home sweet home without any kind of weather incident and again, the Lord allowed us to unload without having to dodge any raindrops. about thirty minutes after closing up the car, the heavens opened and we received plenty of rain, but no violent winds.
there are bins in our family room from boy wonder's move-in on tuesday. there are bins in the living room, entry way, and hallway from bama girl. as i peruse my home and put away glassware from the girls who were over to the house within thirty minutes of bama girl's return, i recognize that the life i had become accustomed to for the past nine months is changing again.
i'm thrilled to have the kiddles {and their vast entourage} home again. i am.
but i'd be lying if i said that my heart isn't having a bit of trouble adjusting to being a much busier working woman than i was when they left in august. and i'm wondering how that is going to fit in with all that comes with being a good mother.

and while i'm prone to begin that hand wringing worrying, i think i'll just take it to the Lord and ask him to calm my overwhelmed heart.