I made soup.

I never wanted to be a person who felt like their real life was just the weekends, but here I am. Late Thursday night I stopped at the store on my way home for the ingredients for Cabbage Patch, then yesterday I put on a t-shirt and a soft pair of jeans and spent the whole morning at home making a real meal.

There’s almost no point in cooking for one person; often it’s a couple of scrambled eggs or a quick turkey wrap or a bowl of cereal. But cutting and stirring and tending that soup was satisfying. Something about working with things that earthy and hearty: cabbage, onions, celery…

Anyway, it was homey.

Things are going pretty well in general; I can’t complain. I like my work and I’m learning a lot – it’s not so easy that it’s boring and not so hard that it feels too big. Lee Ann is the best; there’s a lot of grace and good humor in the air there.

And I do see the boys. I pick them up from school one day a week, and I’m at the house at some point over the weekend usually too. I babysat last night, and before Chris and Jennifer left Jennifer stopped the boys for a second and was like, “What’s gotten into you? Whenever Aunt Jaime is here you all of a sudden turn into crazy people…” Well, maybe. I don’t know about the boys, but being around them is actually the most sane I get to be all week; when I see them there’s just a pure relief at getting to drop all pretense and completely be myself. I know them; they know me. But anyway it’s just when I first get there that we’re all riled up, then the crazy sorts itself out into some brilliant game or imaginary world that we’re all in together.

Yesterday was the 29th and I sat on my bed in the sun and read Psalms and Proverbs. Sometimes I skip 119 because there’s so much of it, but yesterday I had time and I took it.

Your statutes have been my songs
in the house of my sojourning.

There’s structure and certainty and safety there, in the statutes, in the house; there’s movement and creation and freedom too, in the songs and the sojourning. Life with God has both.

I’m getting to know some people. Last weekend on Friday Lee Ann’s family and I had Indian food and watched a movie together, then last Saturday several of us from church met at someone’s house and made a charcuterie board. This Friday night after work two couples and I had a little game night. And then this morning at church I ended up at the communion table in the back with just the Browns, and it was so small and real and, besides thinking of Jesus and his church, I realized how much I like them. Good people. There are good people here.

So that’s what I’m doing in general, living a small life, working with my hands, getting to know people, playing with little kids, trying to find the balance between the need for both home and adventure,

and making soup.