Incognito.

So...this past week, my Love and I have been in Massachusettes.
It was a super, super - like really super - last minute plan...but we're spontaneous like that, so it worked.

All along, the plan has been for him to go away for a week of training for his new job, and for me to take the Hoolies and go up to my Mama's while he was away.  On Friday evening, he walked through the door and said:  "My boss told me I should bring you guys!  It's a nice hotel, there's a king-sized bed, and there's a pool.  So, what do you think?"

Well...if you know my Mama, she's already got the grand plans in the works for a week with her grandbabies, so I knew that was going to fly about as well as a sack of bricks.  And while Kev's meals are covered by the company, our three small garbage disposals would not have been...and that would have added up rather quickly.  Plus, with every child that I am pregnant with, Mom always wants us to get away for a "Baby-moon" of sorts before he/she arrives...."because you aren't going to be able to do that for a long time after she gets here, Honey..."  so says my Mama.

So....I gave a her a quick call and said:  "Hey Mom!  What do you think about - instead of ME and the Hoolies coming up for a few days...it just being the Hoolies?"  I'm real awesome like that sometimes.  For my Valentine's Day gift, Mom gave me several days away with my husband at a hotel....and for my Mom's birthday gift (which also happens to fall on Valentine's Day, by the way), I gave her three small children.

That right there deserves a "Daughter of the Year" Award.

But, in typical Mom fashion, she thought the idea was "splendid."  We were going to get our Baby-Moon after all....and so we all flew into high gear.  We spent the day Saturday shoveling ourselves out of a blizzard, all the while trying to get three Littles packed to head up North, get Kev ready for a business trip, get our animals all in order, and get me ready to travel with Him.  Slightly nuts-o, but that's how we roll sometimes.  We met up with my parents at a halfway point on Sunday to hand over the precious cargo, and then bright and early Monday morning, Kevy, me, and my Mama Guilt - well, we three headed toward Boston.

Crazy.
And for three full days and two partial ones...aside from one time when I took myself to the movies...I did not leave my hotel.....rarely did I even leave my room, for that matter...

A text I sent my cousin, Jodi.  This was big for me.  I don't do things like this by myself, usually.
This was a week-end of fully embracing "alone time!"

See?  It's true.  I was all by myself.  And then a guy walked in, so I texted her that I hoped I wouldn't get murdered.  But then two old ladies walked in, so I felt a whole lot safer...

Oh man.
It. Was. Heaven.
The whole week, really.

Kev left for training around 8:00 in the morning, and other than a small break or two throughout the day when he would sneak me up goodies from his sessions, we didn't see each other again until after 5:00.  And at least twice a day he would ask me if I was bored up there "all by myself."

My stash of goods.

B.C.?  Before children?  The old Amy?
After one day of being by myself in a room, I would have gone crazy, and Kev knows that Amy well, so he was worried.

I scrapbook only once a year.  It's the only time I EVER touch anything to do with pictures.  So TWO times this year?  Ah-mazing...

But A.C.?  The almost nine years older Amy?
Never once in those nine years have I had more than an afternoon of silence - or one full day, at best - where I have been able to be still.  And silent.  And alone.  And not at my own house, either.  This was different.  Had I had a week at home, it would have been a completely different story.  I would have killed the chaos, and I would have cleaned it and organized it from top to bottom.  I would have been a whirling dervish - never stopping. 

But at a hotel?  There's only so much of one little room that one can organize and clean before one is finished...and then has all the time in the world on their hands to do with whatever they wish.

Some of my "entertainment." ~ Info on bees, gardening, schooling ideas for Jesse, & purity stuff for Kaden.

So, this honestly, was amazing.
It really felt like holy, sacred time.

I wrote.  I read.  I went to the gym every morning.  I took baths in the middle of the day...just because I could, and I knew I wouldn't be interrupted.  I planned my garden.  I scrapbooked.  I drank my coffee while it was hot.  I watched something other than cartoons on the t.v.  I stayed up past 8:00 at night, because I knew I could sleep in until I felt like getting up.  I rejoiced in not washing a single dish, and in not cooking one iota of a meal, in not ironing a single shirt, and in not washing one blessed load of laundry for all the live long week.  And I did a whole lot of sitting on my rumpadoodledoo.

Garden dreams.  Whether this happens or not with our newest addition arriving at prime planting time remains to be seen.  One can still dream...

You know, really wild and crazy things like that...
It was divine, really.

And I had quality devotions which have felt very rare as of late.  Sometimes they tend to consist of "read while I blow dry my hair," or "get in a few verses while I'm on the potty."  I find it kind of hard to hear the Lord that way.  I find it easy to lose my way...

I guess that's what those few days were for me.
Some real time away to clear the noise and to hear His voice.
To do a little bit of assessing and re-assessing.
And to maybe fill back up a little bit, so that I could have more to pour out when I got home.

It was a luxury for sure...and definitely not "the norm."  And I would never want it for my normal life...I am so used to the full and the busy...the messy and the crazy.  It's "who" I have grown into and "what" I have become.  That is the life that I love...and the life that I honestly crave after having a few days away from it.

But, for those few days away, I am so very thankful. 
It was spontaneous and it was fun.  Kev and I went out every night after training and ate at a different place.  We ordered in.  We played Cribbage and we had some great quality time.

And my days alone for me were like my perfect version of a spa retreat.
It's amazing how one changes after kids.  It's the little things that feel like such huge gifts.
How a bath mid-day can feel so glamorous.
Or an entire cup of coffee drank while still piping hot is such a luxury.
Or hours on end - of silence and "still" - can be so rejuvenating.

But, this is the stage of life that I am in, right now -- and it truly is my most favorite, by far -- and I would not change it for the world.  I really do embrace it fully.  It's just that it sometimes takes me stepping away for a bit, to realize how much I have really changed from the "who" that I was so many years ago.  Spread out far more thinly than I ever have been in my entire life....but having love that spreads that much more thickly than I ever knew possible.

Helllooooo 28 weeks...and that blasted M&M poking straight out...

Living the chaos...but also knowing that I am living the dream right along with it.
Days of crazy messy....and others of utter monotony.....but days that I know are holy and sacred.
An unending season of never-stopping and always moving...but one that I know - in my heart of hearts, I know - will just as suddenly come to a screeching halt one day not too very far away.

And so, I am reminded once again - to slow, and to see.
To stop and to really, really hear what my Loves are saying.
To worry a little less, and to play a little more.

And to know that the season of mid-day baths, and piping hot coffee.... of reading "just for fun" and of sleeping in once again..... it will all come back again some day not too far off.  In the blink of an eye, we will be in another "season" - another "chapter."  But, until that time.....I want to live in this moment...and thrive in this season.  And take the get-away gifts when they come my way as just that -- gifts to be savored and surprises to be thankful for -- but not something to be mourned when it becomes just a rare pleasure as opposed to a part of the daily norm.

Because then it wouldn't be as special, anyway.
We wouldn't treasure it as something so sacred, as much.
We wouldn't savor it so well - if it was the usual, daily special.

And I think that's probably how I'll feel once my kids are grown and gone.
That's probably how I will wish that I always viewed this season of "right now" in my life.
Sacred.  Holy.  Fleeting.  A gift.
Because that's really what this stage of life is.....

Something that despite all of the messes and the madness -- a season to be savored.
And a life to be fully lived...