Yesterday

We're leaving this morning for a super quick, super impromptu trip to SLC this weekend for Craig's niece's wedding tomorrow.  As I ran around yesterday trying to finish a few things before this trip, I tried once again to look for the hand of the Lord in my life, and honestly, I couldn't find anything but busy-ness.  

This trip wasn't on the schedule a month ago.  It's sandwiched between a whole crapton of Craig's trips and a whole other crapton of stuff that needs to be done here in the next two weeks before we leave.  Repair people coming in and out to fix little things, appraisers, moving companies giving us estimates, last rounds of doctor visits for the kids, and the usual end of the school year stuff...

But last night when I fell into bed, and looked back on the whole day, I realized there were actually so many blessings that had come and that I had overlooked in my mad rush to pack and finish everything:

• Signs of Life.  Even the tiniest ones are enough to breathe life back into me.  
• Non-Overwhelmedness.  Like not at all.  Maybe because it's quick and because I've made this trip to Utah about 400 times before.  Or maybe because I haven't had enough time to stress out about it.  Or because I'm not flying by myself.  Whatever the reason, how grateful I am for a stress-free 24 hours before I get on a plane.
• Craig's companion pass.  That was half the reason we did this.  Because of his ridiculous travel schedule last year, he qualifies for a free companion pass, which means I fly free with him wherever he goes.  Yep.  Whenever he gets on a plane, if I want to go to that place, too, I can.  Free.  So I did this time.  
• Youth Conference.  We're leaving the kids here.  McKay is staying with a friend for the weekend which he is thrilled about.  But the girls are staying by themselves.  And the only reason we would even consider doing that is because they have Stake Youth Conference tonight from 6:45pm - 10:30pm and all day tomorrow from 9:00am - 10:00pm.  Church doesn't start until 1:00 on Sunday, so all we had to do was arrange rides for them everywhere, and they will be happily and spiritually occupied the entire time we're gone.  
• Amazon Prime.  I need to take some pictures on this trip.  Like there's a specific CSM assignment and everything, but my new camera bag is way too flimsy and I needed one of those cool, padded, shock proof, waterproof liner inserts to go in it so my lenses don't shift around in flight.  And I needed it um...yesterday.  Oh, how I love Amazon Prime.  You can accidentally procrastinate stuff and it still gets here in time.  
• Non-Theft-y Neighbors.  So I could see on the tracking portion of my email from Amazon that my camera bag insert thing had been delivered at 12:30 to "on or around my front porch" so when I got home at 2:30 I fully expected to see it "on or around my front porch," but it wasn't there.  By 7:00 when there was still nothing and McKay had checked all the neighbors' front porches, I was starting to get discouraged and also starting to think the worst of my neighbors who have never in the 5 1/2 years we've lived here ever given me any reason to think they would take something from "on or around my front porch."  But then at 8:00 the doorbell rang!  I could see through the glass that it was someone tall!  But I opened the door and it was just Joy, our little cutie pie neighbor from down the street, coming over to visit the girls. But then she handed me an Amazon box and said, "Oh here, I think this came to our house by mistake." (They're 314 and we're 414.)  And she wouldn't have even brought the box down last night except she wanted Emma to straighten her hair for a choir thing today and she happened to see THUNELL on the box that was sitting in her entryway.   Hooray! for last minute deliveries and for hope restored in honest neighborhoods.  
• My camera equipment is now safely and happily and snuggly tucked inside its new camera bag and isn't going to shift anywhere on this flight.

The Lord is in very definitely in the details of our lives...He just sometimes thinks it's nice to wait until later in the day to manifest it.  

OK that's it...because I totally have to jump in a car now and get on a plane.  

How grateful I am for the opportunity to see this beautiful girl get married in the temple tomorrow and be sealed by her grandfather.  The hand of the Lord will be apparent in all of our lives this weekend, for sure.