just a walk in the park

I pray with all my heart that Sam and Julia only the remember the good parts of these last few days (and weeks) - like our walk to the park this afternoon or our half birthday party for Julia yesterday.
I pray they don't remember how short my temper has been or the lack of organized mealtimes for the past two months.
We've had so much on our plates in the last year that I feel like I'm constantly in survival mode. I don't handle survival mode well. It makes me moody, short tempered, irritable...you get the idea. I thought selling our house would ease our load, but all it did was create a different problem. Now that we've found a place to live I'm learning just how difficult it is to pack with two little kids demanding my attention. Every day I scour the web looking for a better job for Brian but after searching for months, nothing has come up. I know this is going to come off like I'm complaining and I probably shouldn't even post it, but I want to keep this blog real, our life sure is, and believe me - it's not always a walk in the park. We have seen what God can do when we lean on Him so that's what we'll continue to do. We can check one thing off our never ending to-do list and that's buy a second vehicle. We raided a savings account so we could pay cash for a little 97 Honda Civic. I can't tell you how nice it will be to not have to wake the kids with only a moments notice in order to drive Brian to work, to not have to be trapped in this house on the days Brian takes the van to work, to be able to efficiently run errands and meet up with friends and family instead of missing out on events. We sold our first Civic two weeks after Sam was born and considering he'll be 3 1/2 on the 13th, we made it a looong time with only one vehicle.

I know in the grand scheme of things that our lives are easy. That's probably part of the reason my heart is so heavy this week. Reading the blogs of Nathan, Hilary, and Angie puts everything in perspective. Please take a moment to lift these families up in prayer. I know I do every time my blood pressure starts to rise.