Beginning and Endings

Time is once again galloping away with me and running like water through my fingers.  Another week, another apology for being so absent.  Life, as they say, getting in the way.  In the way so much, in fact, I've even stepped back from photographing it all.  Knitting needles are still waiting in my bag in the hallway for their turn, waiting now for months.  A sewing project I dreamed up shortly after baby came?  Still in pieces, now gathering dust.  The garden a mess of towering weeds I ignore while harvesting lots of peppers and beans and tomatoes.

This past week has been full the brim, as they all seem to be toward the end of the summer.  Crammed in with new babies, visits with friends, housekeeping, family visiting, large dinners with extra chairs pulled in, a baby baptism.  My baby's baptism, in fact. 

Just as it signaled a beginning for him, I brought him home still smelling of sweet oil and laid him on the bed just to realize those markers of newborn-hood were largely gone.  He is now full on baby, chubby cheeks breaking into full grown grins for his mama, cooing and kicking thick thighs at me.  A beginning, and an end.

We're ending our summer with last minute cook outs and visits from family, all the while looking ahead and preparing for the beginning of the school year.  The end of our trips here and there for the year.  My oldest wiping back hot tears watching his Grandparents pull away from the house for the last time this summer.  The end of a summer visit in Virginia for him.

Perhaps the end of some other things as well.  I'm taking a closer look at the way I spend my time and the rhythm of our days.  Still struggling to make it all fit with husband's new schedule.  Possibly needing to step back from some outside responsibilities and shift focus more homeward.  Longing for just a quiet evening together with him.  Praying for a change.

Beginnings and endings.  How are yours coming along?