Is Five Minute Friday still a thing? Years ago, I remember a former colleague posting about how she followed a site that challenged them to write for 5 minutes on a certain topic and see what developed. Well, since it’s Friday and my husband just told me to sit and write for 5 minutes and get myself in the zone – here goes.
There has been a lot of change in the few years since I started this blog/site. My life has changed dramatically and in ways I have trouble quantifying, so if I’m supposed to write about something I know for 5 minutes: here’s a little about me.
I’m married to a giant of a man who is the best person I know, other than Jesus. We got married almost 10 years ago, after dating long distance for our entire relationship. After we got married, we spent some time in Raleigh, NC (where I had been living for work), before deciding to move to Denver to help start a church. 8 years ago exactly, we made the city our home. After a couple different jobs, I started my new career as a stay at home mom to our little girl (Sugar Plum). Soon after, my husband got a job with the city, working with inmates as the program coordinator for religious issues.
Fast forward a year, and we added a second bebe to the brood – Mighty Guy. I was terrified and angry and altogether not happy about having a little boy. Boys grossed me out and I didn’t know anything about raising Godly little men (thanks for being the kind of man I want our boys to emulate, babe!). After a bit of a traumatic birthing experience with him, I sloooowly warmed to the idea of being a boy mom. And good thing too – almost 2 years later we added another little boy to the bunch – Big Easy.
We’re now a family of 5 living in a 100-year old home in Denver. We recently began the homeschooling journey with Sugar Plum, and I’ll start kindergarten with her in earnest in a month or so. As if life with 3 kids, a cat, a grouchy old dog who moved to a “retirement home” at Grandma’s, a couple occasional other dogs and/or puppies and a husband with a high stress job wasn’t enough, we decided to open up part of our home for short term rentals this past spring. And then, just to make things really fun, we decided that my husband should jump out in faith, leave his incredibly tough job and start a non profit.
And here we are. Sitting side by side and writing and trying to wrap our minds around what life looks going forward and just being thankful to be here in a place of having to trust Jesus. We’ve got big dreams and simple desires and just are trying to take a moment to catch our breath and soak in this new life, this new rhythm, this new way of being a family. It’s good. It’s hard. We get cranky about seeing Daddy more but not having him focused on us (because starting a business is supposed to be easy, right?). We spend lots of evenings playing and catching up on 5+ years of random conversations that were always pushed to the back burner.
Despite the changes and the togetherness and the uncertainty of how everything will look…even so, it’s good. It will hopefully allow us to homeschool together, allow me to have time to write and allow us the flexibility to make decisions for our family that actually work.
So as I wrap up this little five minute assignment (which took way longer than five minutes), I have to laugh at the providence of where we are right now. We sit in this coffee shop together. Writing together, chatting, and just enjoying each other’s company. Much like when we got married after dating long distance, we’re learning how to live together again (because five years at his old job left very little room for life together as we tried to survive). We struggle through it sometimes, but most of the time, I am so grateful that I get to do life and ministry and parenting with this man. Together.
The Natural Lens 