What I've learned in June

• moving is exhausting.  Not just all the packing and cleaning and lifting and shifting.  But the being in a new environment too.  I am sensitive to change and being in a new place, especially a messy one taxes me greatly.  #highlysensitiveperson
• Saying goodbye is important.  My instinct is to slink away, unnoticed.  But it is never a satisfying experience.  I always resent the people I cared about because they 'should' have thrown me a party.  [Actually that did happen once, it was so wonderfully kind.] I organized a going away party for my kids and their friends.  One of my children appreciated it, and one of them was on sensory/people overload and hated it after the event but appeared to enjoy it at the time!  I was still glad I did it.
• Hot weather makes my feet swell and I am generally lethargic.  This is not new information to me this summer, but somehow I'm still slightly surprised but mostly annoyed.  Why do I live in the desert??
• Lego camp for my son was indeed an ideal introduction to his new school/city/peers.
• 12ft trampolines are enormous, especially in a relatively modest sized back yard.
• kindleunlimited is awesome! Both for me and for my minecraft-fan-fiction-reading son!
• I need Jesus!  We didn't go to church for a couple of weeks due to moving and concert in Las Vegas going and I really, really missed it. I managed to sneak to a Vigil service the weekend we were moving and gratefully (with tears) received Eucharist. It wonderfully satisfied my famished soul.
• I've learned to listen to my anxiety, for the Faith Barista tells me it is signaling something that is important to me.  For most of my life, I've told my anxiety to go away, squashed it down and told it to stop being silly. It's not being silly, it's being a signal.  And noticing it, acknowledging it, and stopping to listen to myself is revolutionary in terms of living in freedom.

Linking up with Emily P Freeman

Fear - Five minute Friday

I felt it again.  The fear that could take a swift journey to panic.  When I named it, the fear leaked out my eyes.  I don't want to die.  I don't like uncertainty.  I could talk the truth to myself about odds and reality but the fear doesn't really listen.  It tries to hold me hostage.  Because the fear is in the past too, when I could have died, but my life was saved.  When I could have been paralysed but instead just gave birth via c-section pain free and no complications.  The fear jumps to the worst case scenario.  The fear wants me to believe that all is darkness and there is no light.  I was glad not to be alone, and the sleep came and then morning arrived with the thing that I had been anxious about that turned out to be good.  The fear is always trying to cheat me out of the good, the better, the best.  The fear wants to hold me back in case the bad thing happens.  But doing the thing anyway proves it wrong most of the time.

World - Five minute Friday

"Where in the world am I?"  It's a reasonable question to ask in Princess Morag's life.  You'd think she'd be used to living in the new realm after 3.5 years...but recently moving cities and states has called into question everything once again!  What is she doing here?  She really doesn't know, except she has to be with her little family, thankfully reunited after daddy went pilgrimaging three months before them and found their new abode.

What has this new city to offer?  Some things are the same 200 miles north of where she was.  It is still hot and absurdly sunny.  The mountains are less majestic, but still hem her in.  There is more evidence of civilization: shops etc.  There are very similar playparks but they have very high twisty slides (kind of scary from the parental point of view) and on the plus side, nice walking paths to get there.

The Princess's usual optimism is flagging a little on this new move, but her faith is still working.  She is willing to switch track in this way.  She is pretty sure that God has a better handle on why and where in the world she is.  Hopefully He'll let her in that knowledge shortly.