I don’t have a whole heckuva lot to share this week because currently I am

1. Completing a crossword every day
2. waiting for my baby niece to arrive
3. Packing, packing, packing.

If you saw my post from last year “Packing up the Pieces” you’re aware of how my sentimental heart has a hard time WITH A MOVE ACROSS TOWN. So imagine the inner turmoil when I’m leaving the entire STATE! To be fair, when I tell people I’m moving to Eugene everyone has said “Oh I love that place!” so if I have to leave Bellingham for another place Eugene seems like an alright substitution. Oh transition, such a lovely word for a tumultuous time! 

“Transition is the way that we all come to terms with change. Without transition, a change is mechanical, superficial empty. If transition does not occur…people end up back (mentally and emotionally) back where they started,”

Bill Bridges, The Way of Transition

Part of saying goodbye to Bellingham involves a bucket list. Which to be honest, I haven’t followed very well. Mostly because I put really tough hikes and lots of rich meals on the list. And I sorta forgot that eating healthy and not going on intense exercise trips is really good for me during transition. I’ve currently titled my to-do list on my iPhone “BIG ADVENTURE!!” I’m trying to re-brand transition so I reorient myself towards excitement, not panic.

Fun fact: calling hard things “Opportunities” and new things “Adventures” doesn’t make things any easier, but it shows therapy is working 😉

So anyways, my bucket list, included visiting Hovander Homestead Park in Ferndale. I grew up running around the antique tractors, trying to feed the goats, and terrified of the narrow steps on the observation tower. *still a little scared of the steps but I hide it better now*

This time, I took my 39 weeks pregnant sister to the Fragrance garden part of the park. You can smell, touch, and feel all these different plants and herbs (wooly lambs ear? Citrus mint? French tarragon??) so cool. and we came across the wall flower plant.

and I’ll admit I thought “Wallflower” was just a term somebody made up and not a real plant.

But here’s the thing guys, Wall Flowers are beautiful! They’re not shy, ugly, or unremarkable. They just like to grow connected to a wall or stake. They like having something supporting them. Something to root them (well, besides actual roots). A steady friend nearby to guide them.

Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
    my hope comes from him.
⁶ Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
    he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

Psalm 62: 5-6, NIV

I recently discovered how to use ClickList with Fred Meyer (Thanks for the tip Davielle) where you order online and then pick-up your groceries in the parking lot. and it has CHANGED my life. I meal plan for the week, select my groceries online, and then Jesse picks it up after work. BAM! DONE! #llifehack the only drawback, is that if they run out of an item, they substitute it with a similar item. So I order a small fillet of Salmon, and ended up with a fillet almost two feet long! So I invited family over to my house to enjoy dinner and they all brought delicious sides like summer salad, quinoa, and homemade chocolate chip cookies. We ate sitting out on the deck looking at the lake. And that made me really quite happy. To sit back and watch people I love enjoying good food, beautiful view, and just listening to their conversations. I was, a wall flower.

and I liked being a wall flower.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the compliments on my salmon recipe. But I didn’t need to be the center of attention. I enjoy creating things for the enjoyment of others. Food, writing, painting, any kind of art really. And that’s freeing to realize because it removes my own identity from the equation.

“It’s not the conscious changes made in their lives by men and women–a new job, a new town, a divorce–which really shape them, like the chapter headings in a biography, but a slow mutation of emotion, hidden, all-penetrative; [these inner changes are] something by which they are so taken up that the practical outward changes of their lives in the world, noted with surprise, scandal, or envy by others, pass almost unnoticed by themselves. ”

Nadine Gordimer, quoted in The Way of Transition by Bill Bridges

I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I can just live out the truth that I’m created with intention by a loving God. and that loving God is creative and he loves it when I live that out.

One thing God has spoken,
    two things I have heard:
“Power belongs to you, God,
¹²     and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”;

Psalm 62: 11 NIV