...before i sleep

Jack, Ana, and Ethan (Ana's fiancee)

Wow, time is flying by. I suppose I haven't been writing as much the last little while. Life is busy with 3 little kids at home, plus 1 extra a few days a week. I feel like we have been living in our swimsuits this month. The kids have had swim lessons and we've spent lots of time at the beach, the pool and playing in the sprinklers in the yard. I love it! But I keep forgetting to pull out the camera.

My thoughts are heavy the last few months, and I mostly keep it to myself. My eyes have been opened to the hurt and hardships of so many that I love, and I am reminded of a quote from The Lord of the Rings (the book): "The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands Love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."

In an effort to lighten my thoughts, I've been reading more poetry. Currently I have "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening" hanging above my sink to memorize while I wash dishes. I find it rather metaphorical for life right now. Whenever I have a busy day and my seemingly endless to-do list comes swirling through my mind, the last line pops into my head "... and miles to go before I sleep." I try to stop each day for a minute, "to watch [the] woods fill up with snow." Whether that be in quiet, solitary time for myself, or pausing to find joy and beauty and peace in my life and children.


Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.