Ch-Ch-Changes. . .

The weatherman indicated that big changes are coming this weekend.  That perhaps the end of summer has finally arrived and we will begin to feel the coming fall in our temperatures in just a few days.

I love fall. 

But not as much as Christmas.

I do love those changing and whirling, swirling leaves. 

Babies have come to the world--full of freshness and new.

And others have whispered goodbye to their loved ones for the last time.

My baby went to Kindergarten and my eldest baby is in third grade.

Who decided that was ok?

My husband is strumming his guitar on the back porch--and the Caedmon's Call song he's playing transports me back to the late 90s and I'm suddenly still the same young girl I was back then.   And he's the same boy.  And I knew the same girl I just emailed a few minutes ago, and somehow we're both older with children (and she's got another one on the way), but we're still the same age in my mind.

As if time moved sideways rather than forward.  

I love the way that time marches forward, even when my heart pleads with it to slow down at times.  

Things are changing around here as well.  The animals are behaving differently, the sun is hitting different parts of the house a little later in the mornings.  We are settling into new routines and new schedules.  We've added some activities and we are working on keeping it all together most days. 

I'm inhaling this new season.  I'm inhaling the changes and the promises they are bringing.  I'm breathing in this life--full of flavors and scents and spices and changes and love and emotions and joy, and hoping that my exhales are breathing life into the ones I love the most as well.