So our first summer project is to remodel Destiny's room with new furniture, new curtains, and a mural on the wall. As we started today, one of the first things on the agenda was replacing her blinds. The one that was up had a couple slats broken. Destiny broke these slats when she was still in her crib. She would wake up, stand up, and pull on the blinds to look outside. After moving to her big girl bed, the window was always covered by either her headboard or then later her dresser so the broken slatted blinds kind of got forgotten about. After we moved her old furniture around to make room for her new bed that's coming tomorrow I saw those old broken, tattered blinds. I immediately kind of got teary eyed. It was like time froze for a moment and I could see my almost bald little toddler in that crib saying "look mama" as she pulled the blinds apart to see outside. I know, I know. She's still a little girl, only a few months away from being 9 years old. But it is so hard to believe that those broken blinds represented almost 7 years of sweet little memories.
Then after replacing the blind and having a sentimental moment Jason, Destiny and I were laying on her new mattress on the floor "trying it out". And immediately my mind went back to another distinct memory. The first year Jason and I were married we lived in married housing on the Emmanuel College campus. In January of our senior year we started working on our house to get it to livable conditions. The house basically had to be gutted. We did rewiring, re plumbing, had new windows put in, a new roof installed, central heating and air put in, and all new floors. Most of our things were still at our apartment. But we had started bringing a few things at a time. One was our second TV and DVD player to have background noise as we worked on the house. I remember sometime that winter we had come up to wait on the carpet guys to put in the carpet. The house, which didn't have any heating at the time, was FREEZING. So while we were waiting we cuddled up, trying to stay warm and watched The Tigger Movie on DVD. I told Jason that I had just had a dejavu moment and reminded him of that day. I said "that seems like just like yesterday" and he kindly reminded me that it was actually over 11 years ago.
How in the heck does time go by so fast? We are quickly approaching our mid-thirties and we have an almost double digit aged child. Life is SOOOOOO good and we are so blessed. But these sentimental moments today helped me to clarify my goals for the summer. So my number one goal for the summer is to relish in EVERY moment with my family. Every single memory, even the little ones tonight like watching Jason and Destiny play with lincoln logs, legos, and GI Joes together laughing and being silly. Life really is too short to not enjoy every minute of them. I'm afraid if I don't make myself slow down enough to enjoy all these little moments, that the next time I blink I'll be re-modeling Destiny's room as a spare bedroom because she is no longer home. And that......I can't even think about that without crying. LOL! So for now, carpe diem. That's my motto for the next 10 weeks or so. I encourage you to do the same!
