our normal and different wednesday

normal: it's late Wednesday night and Ryan's just getting home from work

normal: Ryan looks good in his suit and tie, regardless of the late hour
normal: Jeni looks raggedy in her top-knot
normal: it's time for food again because we're both hungry
different: we photograph this seemingly insignificant occurrence of our not-so-flashy normal life

Last night's unexpected photo shoot of us simply eating cantaloupe together was the most spontaneous I've ever been with a camera, especially during our time thus far as just "Ryan and Jeni." As Ryan and I enjoyed our evening snack, I asked him if we could put the timer on the camera and "just take some pics?"

"Sure!" he said. And so we did. With the continuous timer set, we captured the normal fun that we have together which is why the pictures are neither pretty nor impressive, but they're real.

I think I wanted to document us for just a second in "normal life" because throughout the whole day I was feeling so different.

Examples:

Ryan bought his books for fall semester, and I didn't. For the first time in 14 years, I'm not starting school in late August because technically I'm no longer a student. I'm considered alumni...that's different.

Our OB gave us the very happy news that Olivia is making good progress toward delivery, but it hit me: Olivia is, um, really going to be here. Soon there will be another living, breathing, human around here with her own set of needs and dreams. AKA, I'm going to be "mom." That's going to be different.

It's still August and the leaves are already changing on our mountain - and they're changing quickly. Different.

Ryan and I will our mesh roles of husband-wife and father-mother. That will be wonderful, but we've never done that before, so that transition will be different.

But, then again, my heart said to my head as I thought about our pending changes, our simple life can still be pretty normal.

Examples:

Ryan will come home to us every day, which will be more exciting than Christmas morning. That feeling is oh so normal.

Even though I graduated, I haven't stopped learning. This summer has been largely spent satisfying many of my curiosities, and I have a lot more questions about how this works, how that works, how to do this, how to do that. I hope to always research my questions and learn new things. Life-long learning - for everyone, I think - is normal.

It's still August and I'm already wanting a little bit of Autumn around here: crisp air, beautiful color, apples, and pumpkin. Normal.

Olivia is already a part of our family. We know a little about her nature and we love love love her....adjusting to her the responsibility of satisfying her needs by us both as "mom and dad" will probably be much more normal than we think.

So serve us up some changes! We wouldn't grow otherwise. Yes, we'll take some big scoops of different flavors this season, but they'll be sprinkled with all that is not-so-flashy, normal, and wonderful about our life, and surely the whole mixture will end up tasting sweet.