So in hindsight, watching Benjamin Button the same weekend my baby boy turned 1 probably wasn't the best of ideas. It only contributed to the echoing thought in my head: how fast this all seems to be going.

More annoyingly I feel as though I have been squandering the precious time I have been given with them as little ones. On the job training is rough.

Thankfully, I'm picking up some of the lessons before it's all too late.

The first year with your first one is incomprehensible. Your too busy just tyring to survive to even think about treasuring moments. Add to that an expectation of moving away from your friends and family, contemplating a career change, and dealing with the additional 30 pounds your carrying around and all that it does to your formerly know self confidence, and you can pretty much rule it out all together. Josh turning a year old was one of the biggest causes to celebrate that I had ever heard of. I was so glad to be done with that.

After moving to CT (shortly after he turned one), I was thrust once again into survival mode. What with no friends, family, church, and a host of other things that we did without, we became focused on getting out of there as quickly as we could. Except in the process of submitting resumes, and repainting the entire house, we forgot to live in the present. Some of my favorite times with Josh slipped by without me taking more careful note of what I was losing.

Then Jack came, and right behind it the move to Georgia. It was all that we hoped it would be. Great house, great people, great church, new friends, and new things to be involved again. Once again we had a life. After living in two years of isolation I jumped at all the new possibilities of doing something. This past semester Chris and I led a small group, I was in a Beth Moore bible study, and I lead a small group of girls in the youth on Wednesdays. Add on to that providing some sort of baked good for my youth girls every week, providing snack for our small group most of the time, a couple of dinners or other cooking obligation for other occurrences, and I have been going almost nonstop.

Then Jack turned one. And I realized even though I had been trying to be more intentional about treasuring the moments I had, I hadn't been intentional enough about making the memories.

I like being busy. I like being able to do everything for everyone and make everyone happy. I like being super mom. Problem is, I only need to be super mom in the eyes of two people (okay, maybe three). And I don't feel like I was doing the best job at that. So with more time off this summer (PTL!) I've been looking at the priorities. Something is going to go, and I will not be saying yes every time someone asks me to make something. Besides I have a business now, they can pay me : )

I don't want to just have more time at home or more down time. I still want to be busy, but busy spending time with my guys, playing with them, taking them to the park, making things that they actually get to help with, and building memories with them.

Parenting little ones is tough work. Anybody who can't admit that has amnesia. It's one of the most draining, exhausting, monotonous jobs. It's easy to get caught up in it and just trudge through trying to survive. In that process you loose sight of the beauty in that period.

I've been in survival mode, and I've done being focused on the "next thing" missing what is right in front of me. I've also done "my thing" being so busy with all my obligations that I forget how quickly it's all going by.

Now I'm going to try to figure out "our thing". Where I get to do what I'm really passionate about, and get the occasional breaks I need to keep me from going insane, but where what needs to be done around the house is getting done, and where both of the boys are getting undivided attention each day. The most important part: letting it be intentional, and not a schedule, or obligation, but really having my eyes open to all the wonderful parts of this time and enjoying it.

I'm just so thankful that God has opened my eyes to this while my oldest is only 4, instead of 18! How great is his mercy!

One of my dear friends once told me that making friends once you're out of college is like dating. I have found that observation to be very true. Particularly since moving to a new area that holds the possibility of new friendships (unlike CT).

Like right now, I have a couple of people that I have found that I consider myself to be friends with, and a handful of additional acquaintances. However, just like dating there is a big difference between just dating, and being boyfriend and girlfriend. I'm not looking to just date (casual friendships) I want a boyfriend (close friend).

I consider myself blessed to have the close friends that I do, however all of mine are a plane ride (or at least a days drive) away. It would be so nice to have someone in the same city that really knows whats going on in my life, who I can call on the phone without feeling weird, go out for a girls night with, and challenge me.

So how do I get there with the potential close friends that I have now? Like in dating does one person have to propose the idea, or declare it? And then there's the obvious, but what if they don't want the same level of relationship that I do? What if they are happy where we are at? What if they're too busy, or have better close friend options, or if I'm just not what they're looking for?

Then there is the issue of if you're friends (analogy for husband and kids) don't like them or don't get along with their friends.

Obviously both being girls there's not one person that's supposed to make the move, so I'm just stuck. Wanting more, but not knowing how to get it. And not wanting to be rejected if I ask for it.

And this is why I have a whole analogy on why the suburbs are like high school. But that is a whole other post.

I had to go to the doctor yesterday. I say had to because of just that I had to. Every spring or fall (depending on the year) in STL I would get a sinus infection. Now for some reason or another in CT I escaped this problem (that makes one positive for CT and 539 negatives). However apparently in Georgia this issue is making it's return.

That is why I had to go to the doctor. I had a sinus infection, I knew what it was, and I knew what I needed (anything other than the z-pak they always try to waste my time on, it never works!). Bu they control the drugs, so to them I went.

Mind you going was a process, since we haven't had to find a general practitioner for Chris and I yet. Lucky for me I was already in my pediatricians office that morning for Jack's ear infection so I asked for a referral while I was in there. Since the place I was recommended to was just around the corner I thought I would see if they had anything within the next hour or two. They practically laughed at me when I asked. Okay, sure I guess I will take 3:15. Right in the middle of my youngest (cranky ear infected, much needed) nap time. Thankfully the hubs came to the rescue saying he would just come home early and flex a few hours. Then I had to get online and print the forms (about 12 pages of them) with my own ink on my own paper, that I paid money for, and fill them out.

So off I finally went. After a chilly greeting (umh hello, do I not live in the south?) and staring at the ceiling (seriously, not even a good magazine) I was ushered back by a nurse who mumbled through a Jamaican accent. She was carrying a computer. She made me put down my bag, take off my shoes, and my sunglasses (?!) and step on the scale. I don't like typing on a computer while I am on a scale.

So we headed to the room. No eye contact, listed symptoms, blood pressure, take off sunglasses (for my BP?!). More typing, and she leaves, mumbling something.

Doctor in, with computer, no eye contact, no introduction, asked to list symptoms, I list them to no response. Typing. Finally she gets up looks in my ears and nose, then sits. Typing. No eye contact. Then she say let's get a sinus x-ray and then we'll go from there. Umh, a sinus x-ray???? Since when did they invent that, and when do they have it in office? I wanted to scream, no, I know what I have, don't make me pay, don't make me pay! But I said nothing, and went to the xray room. Same mumbling nurse, take off sunglasses.

Finally the doctor returns (with computer) to tell me, oh, that's right, I DO have a sinus infection (thank you Captain Obvious) and after trying to sell me on Z-Pak and telling her it has never worked on me she writes me a prescription for some other drug which I presume is a generic penicillin of some sort. Finally, the goods.

I drop off the prescription (of course Walgreen's is taking 1/2 an hour to fill them) and go home. Hubs to the rescue again goes and picks it up. Comes home to tell me the goods cost $130.00. There were no words. Jack had gotten antibiotics that morning and they were $9.00. Pharmacist tried to call the doctor, and surprise, couldn't reach them. And you can't exactly return a filled prescription.

I will not be returning to that doctor, and am already wincing at the very idea of the bill. We're trying to find a new one now, and there will be an interview process. It will consist of: do your nurses and doctors use computers?

I have been feeling rather conflicted recently. Chris tells me it's because I over analyze things.

So I grew up in a fairly affluent area. There was a row of BMW and Mercedes cars at my high school, as well as at our church. I was used to how people in the regular world dealt with money, mainly because they didn't know any better. But a lot of what I saw in the church really bothered me.

I always said I didn't want to have a lot of money, because I have seen what it can do to people. Not to mention the bible speaks over and over of the potential repercussions. It always seemed like something very dangerous to have, and I would have preferred to just stay away instead of figuring out how to handle with care.

Well it's amazing how having two children (and more in the future) to provide for, and living in the suburbs can change your mind.

I guess it was the naivete of my youth when I thought we could just do okay, and still be able to get our kids through college, and eventually build our dream home.

Problem is, I want to be able to put my kids in swimming lessons on a whim, and piano, and soccer, and baseball, and whatever else I or they want to be involved in. I want them to be able to go to any college that they want, and mom and dad not have to say no because of the accompanying price tag. And I want to build my dream house with a wrap around porch, six burner gas stove, double oven, commercial grade refrigerator, and a fun little loft are where my grand kids will love to explore.

But I don't want money.

But I want....

But I don't want money.

See the ridiculousness of my thoughts? Not to mention, my husband has just happened to get himself into a job that he is rather good at and continues to move up in and makes a bit more than that whole music minister gig would have.

So now I want... and eventually I could have... but I don't want money.

I would rather feed children in India or Africa than have a Coach bag. I think spending $30 on any shoes other than tennis shoes is extravagant. Probably 50% of my wardrobe is from Target, and if for some reason my husband wanted to go buy a BMW, I would cry over the amount of mission trips we could have gone on for that price tag, or the number of missionaries we could have supported, or the children we could have fed, or the people we could have given water, or the homeless we could have helped shelter, or the number of women we could have help escape sex trafficking.

But I could justify driving a brand new Acadia, and I'd be okay building that dream house, and I wouldn't argue a larger (okay, existent) clothes budget. Why is it that what I feel is acceptable is the standard? Maybe to someone a BMW is their low end choice as opposed to the Ferrari they really wanted.

That's just like God to make it all about the heart.

I'm struggling with becoming something I didn't want be, or wanting something I didn't want to want. Does that make me a bad person? Or is God humbling me, and reminding me that he showed me all the wrong things that can happen with money so I didn't make that mistake. Maybe not wanting to be that person is enough to not be.