I’m sitting in the sunshine drinking a cup of hot steamy coffee. I’m trying a new flavour of coffee creamer, pumpkin spice.

There is laundry piled up high in my basement, dirt on my kitchen floor and dirty dishes in my sink. They call out to me but I ignore them.

My handsome husband is at work. The thought of him makes me smile. Knowing he is out there keeps my back straight.

I have two children. One is taking a pee by the step. And the other took off their diaper, and is happily running naked around the yard.

They are making soup out of mud and there is a pile of wet rocks on my leg. They are making sure that I am well fed.

There are signs of life everywhere.

A mosquito is biting my right elbow. Raspberries hang from the bushes to my right. Forget me not’s display their little periwinkle blooms. Wasps buzz around making us feel nervous as birds fly overhead.

I become aware that simultaneously, in the horizontal line of time, I am both sitting here in this moment, and in the future breathing my last breath. With that in perspective I sink thankfully into the depths of the beautiful chaos. I set my social media down, and focus on my kids.

I am making the choice to close the gates of my mind off from the fear in the news, the comparisons of facebook, and the endless striving to complete the to-do list of house work. I easily forget that these are not things to live for, but rather tools in which I may utilize in living our best lives.

And now that I am a mother and wife my life is not my own. For we are like marbles in a jar that life shakes up, and it is impossible not to run in to each other. We are constantly affected by the forces that move us around.

Being a mother has brought out the worst in me while highlighting my best. It has shown me that true love abides in the midst of normal life, and that normal life is defined along the way. As I journey through my state of normal I hope that God smiles at me as I fall like sand through my own hourglass in time.