It's a non-exciting post. Don't get your hopes up.

Little bit is chilling with her dad (he takes the 1st shift of the night), and I'm a little awake since I had 2 naps today. Don't be a hater, because I didn't get to fall asleep until 2 am and was awakened 3 times before 6:30 am. :)

I've had so much free space in my mind the last few weeks...I spend most of the day either feeding my newborn or feeding myself so I can feed my newborn! I love having more time to think and ponder things--more time for small prayers and meditating on a verse, and more time for pondering my life over the last year. This time last year, we had just moved in to our new apartment. It was a little crazy. I didn't blog much about it because I was trying to focus on the positive, but let's just say things were interesting. :)

I feel like there is so much the Lord has shown us over the past year, and yet SO much more I could have/should have learned. So much more to learn and I hope I never stop wanting to learn. It would have been so easy for us to just quit and move in with parents for awhile because of how much we struggled this first year in WV, but I'm glad we didn't. (I'm sure that our parents reading this are glad too!) We would have been happy to live with parents, don't get me wrong, but I don't think we would have learned everything we did by taking that road.

The biggest thing I learned is that the growing never ends. Either I'm growing in the right direction, or the wrong one, but always growing. Last year, I thought, "Oh, I've learned contentment now...the past 2 years have really taught me something! Let's move on to another topic now, Lord." Guess the joke's on me--we're still learning contentment, LOL. How does that Scripture go? "But godliness with contentment is great gain." For real.

I learned how to be married again...like that kind of married where you're both home at night at the same time and you sleep in the bed at the same time again (because he used to work nights so I slept alone...don't let your imagination run away with you, now). :) Let me tell you, it was weird at first. But now I can't imagine how we made it through those 2 long years of Marc working 2 jobs and crazy hours. It was all God, for sure.

I learned that the world doesn't end if you have to put your dreams on hold awhile. My kids survived me not being home, and they actually flourished more with Marc this last year than I think they would have with me. It has given Marc's body time to heal and rest, and he has really connected with the 2 oldest. I'm sure he's dreading me going back to work in November, but I think he'll do great with Emily. Hopefully she continues to be a sweet baby!

This isn't really an awesome post, but you'll have to grant me a few "non-exciting" posts for awhile until I get my blogging back. It's been so long since I've written anything besides a professional email for work...I almost forget how. Maybe I'll be able to re-cultivate my blogging abilities while I'm on leave. We'll see how little Emily does!

Ok, well, I'm off to bed now. Don't want to waste too much of this precious time that I could be spending in sleep!