Living Deliberately

Briana got to call from the airport today.  I know I mentioned this already, but it was a pretty big deal.  Especially since I didn't know if that was really allowed, and then HELLO!  There's a call coming from Colorado!  Yayayayay!

We had such a wonderful conversation.  But I digress.  I wanted to tell you about Bri's MTC companion, Sister D.  Sister D.'s mom is having a really hard time having her daughter gone.  Sister D. is getting like THREE letters a day.  Every day.  She gets boxes of stuff every week.  Sister D's home is about 2 miles from the MTC, so she is constantly seeing people from school or the neighborhood or the ward.  And to top it all off, Sister D's sorta-boyfriend-but-not (whatever that means) teaches at the MTC.  Monday night, as they were packing everything, Sister D said to Sister Hill, "Can you believe we are 1/18th through our mission already?"

Bri is telling me this story, and she says, "Mom, I just can't think that way.  I mean, I've been out for almost a month already.  Sometimes it's seemed really long, and sometimes it's seemed really short.  But mostly it's just been about living happily while it's happening!  I don't wanna think about a countdown to get to the END of my mission.  I want to ENJOY every minute of my mission!"

Every once in a while there is evidence that you really did teach your children something, and I think that was one of those things.  Because while there have been endless days sometimes, there have also been days that fly by.  I've always tried to live carefully and deliberately in the moment, because all-too-soon that moment will be gone.

Today our daughter called us from the airport.  Just yesterday she was in 6th grade, getting ready for a class dance she did NOT care about.  The day before that she was wearing her dad's work boots and a dust mask that covered her entire face.  I'm so glad I didn't miss any of it by wishing for the next stage to come!

It Never Goes According to Plan..And That Is Good!

You know that I have started an online MBA program.  I finished my first course, which is a required course for all students of that university.  Basically it is a "How-To" course:  How to enroll is each class, how to find books and other sources online, how to contact people when you need help, how to submit assignments.  It was fairly straight-forward.

After completing that class I had to get enrolled.  It's not difficult, but it is the first step in getting my online access to about 400,000 things.

I thought that perhaps I would be able to spend some time doing school work during these days away from work and home.  But, alas, it has not worked out that way.  I'm still waiting for all those access things to be done.

That's a bit of a disappointment.

HOWEVER...

I have had the chance to do some visiting and some cleaning and some driving and some Christmas-gift designing and some TV-watching and some more visiting.  And I found the frozen yogurt shop, which is very important.

This has been a little vacation with a big slice of peace of mind.  Tomorrow I will get on an airplane and head back to "Life As We Know It."  The school plan will kick in; the Christmas shopping and gift-assembling will need to be done; the emails will have to be answered; the RS lesson will have to be taught.  For now I'm basking in the fact that life did not go the way it was planned.