A delayed post... I wrote in March :)

I have so many things I want to write about but the last few weeks have just been crazy.
And I haven't quite been able to form the thoughts.
So they stay unwritten in my head.

We took an awesome trip to visit my sister and her family. They just moved to a small town outside of St. Louis. We spent a lot of time just hanging out.

We played a lot of Settlers of Catan. I even won one night.
We looked at paint colors and rugs and fabric.
The hubby and I took a date to a really great hot dog place (have I ever expressed how much I love hot dogs? Because I do. They rock my world).
I got a Chicago dog. It rocked my world.
They had an old fashioned soda fountain. With a bunch of flavors.
I tried black cherry and tootsie roll. It tasted exactly like a tootsie roll. Awesome, right?
We did some thrifting. I found a globe for Jackson's room.
Three dollars.
 I was so excited I may have freaked out a little bit.
We also found the most AMAZING antique shop. They had EVERYTHING! Seriously wall to wall of awesome antiques. No pictures though, I left my phone in the car :(
We ate a lot of good food too. My sister made some awesome white chicken chili and homemade pizzas. So good. We went to a place called Ted Drews for custard.
Vanilla custard with hot fudge, bananas, and Recesses.
That flavor combination changed my life.
We came home and bought all of the toppings to enjoy on a regular basis from the comfort of our couch.

Our car broke down this week. I hit something, yada yada yada (please tell me you've seen that Seinfield?) the cars in the shop until who knows when. I was able to stay so calm. What a blessing from the Lord.

Jackson is full on crawling. And fast. He's also full on pulling himself up on stuff. Not sure I am quite ready for that, but it's happening whether I am ready or not. I love watching him learn and grow. It seriously brings so much joy to my heart.

It's Spring here and I could not be happier. Spring in the South is amazing. Absolutely beautiful and perfect. I never want to leave it. So much green. So many blossoms. Such perfect sky. Aw.... All of it is just perfection. It truly makes my heart sing.

Blooming into a cactus

We leave for Las Vegas in two weeks. And my heart is aching. 

I don't want to go. It's not what I want. I know it's just for the summer and we'll be back in August. But after August there will come next Spring, when Brandon finishes school and we have a job offer somewhere, possibly in Vegas. And then we won't be back. We'll be gone for good. And I hate that. That's why this summer is so hard. Because it may be temporary but it's sneak peak at the not so temporary. And I'm pretty sure the not so temporary doesn't include Tennessee, except for leaving it.

 It's hard to explain what it is that I love so much about it here. I think it's a million things. It's that I had my first child here. I became a mother here. The park up the street is where I walked when I was in labor. 

We struggled through law school here. We have grown so much through that struggle. Personally and together in our marriage. 

We made the most amazing friends here. Friends that become family and make you feel whole. Friends that you need and they need you. And it feels so nice to be needed. My sister and her family live here and I adore that. I'm only twelve minutes away. That'll never happen again.

 It's so amazingly beautiful here. The kind of beautiful you can't imagine unless you've experienced it. The weather is my kind of perfect. The spring is beyond words, I feel close to heaven on a sunny spring day here. I feel Heavenly Father's love for me through nature and beautiful days. Both abound here. I feel like He sends those days just for me. I want Jackson to grow up running around in a backyard full of grass and nature. I want him to climb trees. I want to BBQ in the backyard during the summer. None of that happens in Vegas. I know because there is no grass to sit in and no trees to climb and it's too hot to be outside in the summer. 

I became who I am right now here. What if that all goes away when I leave? What if I take more steps back than I do forward? People are different in the South than they are out West. I grew up out West and I pretty much only knew white Christians. I don't want that. I want to be surrounded by people who are different than me. I want to be pushed to see things differently than is comfortable for me. I especially want Jackson to grow up with people who are different from him. I want him to learn to be truly kind. Not just to his friends at a play date, because that's easy, but kind to people with different beliefs or colored skin or a different kind of family than ours. I want him to see people who are poor and homeless and decide to be kind and to share. (I know that there are poor and homeless people out West, maybe it's just that it's more obvious to me here, or that we don't live in a super nice part of town because we are poor students :)

I'm coming back to how beautiful it is here. I can't adequately express it but I want to keep trying. My heart feels at peace when I look outside here. I feel calm. And I often struggle to feel calm. I've made a lot of growth in that area of my life since moving here. Again, what if I lose that when I leave? 

"Bloom where you are planted". That saying was engraved in my head as a girl growing up by my mother. I know it's true. I know it's an eternal truth. And I will. I will bloom in the sandy, dry, hot, desert, darnit it all, I will. But it will be hard. And it was easy here. Here in Tennessee it was easy to bloom into a full and vibrant flower. 

Maybe when I bloom in Vegas I'll be a cactus. Cactus bloom every spring. They are hardy and strong. It's pretty amazing that they stay green in the desert. Maybe I do want to be a cactus after all.