Cleaning House...

looking ahead; photo taken in Johannesburg

enjoying the moment with sister Jess: photo taken in Sweden

Welcoming Porter: photo taken in Dallas

enjoying a moment with Evelina: photo taken in Boise

looking back, looking forward: photo taken in Utah, a long time ago

Cleaning house comes in many forms. A friend of ours was telling me that this weekend she cleaned out from behind her bed. She has no children yet, just her and her husband. She was appalled at what she found (the dust, the dirt) between her headboard and her wall.

Sometimes we clean house by cleaning out the garage. Sometimes we clean house by giving away/getting rid of holiday decorations that are dated or just unused and taking up space.

Right now I'm in the process of cleaning out my computer. Or cleaning it off. I have to install the latest operating system on my laptop and I don't have enough hard drive to hold it, so I've attached a little external hard drive and have been, when I have time, copying all my photos from my laptop to the drive, later to be downloaded onto our big home computer where the majority of our photos are kept.

It has been quite a walk down memory lane to copy and clear out the photos. When the machine was given to me it had been 'loaded up' with years worth of memories. Sweden, Boise, Dallas, the birth of Porter and the arrivals of Molly and Lucy all scrolling before my eyes as I 'dump' those memories onto the little blinking hard drive that sits beside my little laptop.

Time is flying by, I see it as I scroll. Children are growing. Our adventures living abroad, our time away from 'home' in Utah, all back there in the past. All being 'stored', moved, cleaned out...making room for future scenes, future experiences, future changes to our family.

Its made me desperately want to slow down. To 'stop the train' from moving so fast, so seemingly out of control. These words resonate in my mind every day, and yet when I pray (fervently!) to know what to let go of, how to slow down, the answer has not yet come.

So I continue to look to the things that lie ahead, and try to pleasantly remember the things that are behind us. And accept that cleaning house-in all its forms-is a natural part of this life's experience.