A Day in Hong Kong

We are fully alive and well on this side of the globe! Jetlag is a doozey, but not unmanageable. I doubt I'll be saying that on the way home! Going the other direction is notorious for taking a good two weeks to switch the body back!

We had to fly in on Thursday/Friday due to the best rates...which gave us the entire day on Saturday to sightsee around Hong Kong. Can you guess where our girls wanted to go??

Did you say Disneyland??? Or did you say, "Huh? There's a Hong Kong Disney!?!"

YES!! And what a most perfect and wonderful day we had there!!!!

In order to get ourselves there, we chose the adventure of the subway! We had to change trains 3 times, but it really was so simple. A great system to get around...and make friends!

And that is exactly what we did when a bouncing boy of four years old and his jubilant mother came into our cab other second train. They were meant to be our friends and we delighted in their company immediately! Ever meet someone and you realize your happy factor just shot thru the roof because of being with them? Within 3 minutes we were all bursting at the seems with laughter and love for these two!

They seemed to love us back too, evem the sweet mom, Sunni, asked if we would give her Chinese son an American name! Jensi immediately named him Will. Sunni beamed. Then tried hard to learn to pronounce it. They a visiting from Shanghai and had very understandable Mandarin. Although it was killing the girls to not be able to understand adorable Will's questions!!

A Time to Rest (or else!)

It seems unlikely that NOW it would be time to rest.

But it is.

I have been burning the candle at BOTH ENDS for quite some time now.

My body demands that I rest.

Unfortunately, I haven't been the best at heeding the warning signs...

...and so I crash and burn.

(In the form of getting sick.)

This time though, it wasn't a quick 24 hour thing. It's been longer.

(Just TRY to keep me down longer!!! GRRRR)

But that's is EXACTLY what God has been doing. Not allowing me to just bounce back.

Each day I wake up thinking, "A shower will make me feel better!"

I get out feeling the same and realize,

"No, no, a shower just makes you WET!"

Now I am indeed making progress each day, but as a busy mom of almost 6, it's not nearly the speedy recovery I am expecting!

It's slow and demands long naps each day. Long hours of sleep at night.

I do think there is a lesson here.

My husband  put words to it today for me: "We all appreciate what you do, but you MUST TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Stop doing the work of three people!"

I live intensely. It's REALLY hard to figure out how to dial it back!

But I'm learning that I. SIMPLY. MUST.

I must build margins around the edges of my life. Plan in pauses. Stop pushing myself so hard.

A time is coming VERY SOON when I will need to be cocooning with a new child and all outside activities will cease. It will be time to hold, cuddle, weep, and simple be Momma.

Breathe.

In...

....Out.

We may leave for China in 3 1/2 weeks. 

There is SO MUCH STRESS associated with that above statement! And yet I must not allow myself to get uptight. I must keep on breathing and take it slowly. I need to pace myself and trust God with the finances that are not yet in.

He's got this.

It's my job to trust Him.

And that's the easy part. He's got the hard part. And He can handle it!

So here I sit less than a month out of meeting my newest son. It appears that although there are many things undone, funds un-raised and empty suitcases...that I've got things the way they need to be.

Praying I can stay this way.

Breathe in.  Breathe out. In. Out. In. Out.