8 Week Hospitality Journey: Recap Day 1

Throughout the weekend and Monday I had high hopes of waking up at 5:30 am Tuesday morning, discovering I truly loved waking up early, have coffee made and would have had amazing insight into my life all before anyone woke up at 6:30.  (And perhaps even have breakfast made for Reid since it was his birthday Monday and I didn't manage to wake up early enough to surprise him with a hot breakfast then.) 

I thought it would be so cool to think of Jesus as my first guest in this whole hospitality project.  I was going to pretend we were having coffee together and try to get to know him like he was someone I had just met.  (But don't worry-I wasn't going to actually go and fix him a real cup or anything and ask aloud in my kitchen in the dark "Cream or sugar, Lord? Okay, let me see-oh, we are out of goats milk but I do have some raw cow's milk. Will that work?" Come on, I'm not that brand of crazy just yet.) 

So here is how Tuesday morning played out:

I do vaguely remember the alarm going off at 5:30 only to have this very foggy yet insightful thought enter my mind:  "Early is not going to work."

Apparently, if this was truly an 8 week boot camp, I'd be in charge of the dunce squad.  

Instead I woke up closer to 8:30 and then struggled mightily to get everyone clean, dressed, fed, diaper bag packed and car loaded before 9:20.  I had to be at an appointment in Augusta by 10:40 sans babies so I dropped both of the kids off before dashing out of town.  

What ensued was an hour long drive followed by a nearly 3 hour appointment, most of which was sitting in a waiting room.  (Side note:  I was there for my postnatal appointment and I will say I did not envy any of the pregnant women there.  Big cheers for being on the other side!)  Aside from a massage appointment which made my back feel tons better, the entire day was like this-either speeding to the next errand or just waiting, waiting, waiting.  

The first time I even felt pretty calm the whole day was driving home and listened to a Focus on the Family show on the radio about the first few years of marriage.  Even though it certainly was not the dedicated, quiet focused time I had envisioned, it was definitely good for me to focus on just one thing rather than the 50,000 errands and giant to-do list spinning in my head.  

I was super grateful to my in-laws for picking up the babies because neither Reid nor I got home until after 8:00 pm.  Even then my mother-in-law stayed and bathed Josephine and got her pajamas on for me.

After we got Josephine to sleep and Roch bathed, I laid down with him to snuggle and nurse.  And that was pretty much the first time all day that I finally felt my body just relax and my mind turn "off."  

I missed them both so much yesterday.  I don't want to be just getting through all of our days like this-exhausted at the end of every day but not feeling like we had really "redeemed" our time.  I just don't think that we were created to be stressed from sun up till sun down with our bodies literally clenched and our brains on high alert.  

So even though I never had the quiet time I had so beautifully envisioned for yesterday, I did learn this:  

This ain't no way to live, y'all.

Love,

Kathryn