For the first time in the past few months.....maybe, I should say, the past few years, I am beginning to see direction and purpose for me.

When I was a mother I went all out, didn't I? When the ones I gave birth to began to grow up and go to school I persuaded my husband to take in more. I was done giving birth, through no desire of my own, but I was not done raising children. Not by a long shot. I loved it. I loved everything about it. We didn't have a lot of money but I didn't need alot. We were not the parents who's children had the brand name jeans, the best treats in their lunch box or the shoes de jour. We gave them camp instead, braces where needed.....piano and flute lessons. I bought books when I could and a Commodore computer (remember those?) in the 80's because the school recommended it. There was little or no internet then. Internet wasn't the point. Learning to type and correctly was. My children did well for themselves, and if I do say so myself I think my husband and I had something to do with that. Were we perfect parents? God forbid I should lie. Of course not. We did what we knew how to do though. When we couldn't afford ice cream I made Wendy-style frosties out of evaporated milk and sugar. My mother-in-law told me how to do it. When there was 'nothing to do' I made "squash dough" and with clean hands they molded it into shapes and we baked it and put butter on it. Yum. Walking to the local drugstore, each with a quarter in hand, was a treat. That was at the end, just before penny candy became extinct......

Yeah, I threw myself into my kids.....not with as much money, or even imagination as some Moms. But I loved. I read to them, listened with joy to them practicing their instruments, and tried to make dinner nice even when I didn't have alot of money to spend. A tablecloth and candle with some pine cones around it can go a long way, right?

That was my "career". I didn't want another one. I never have. I still don't. I know that my mothering days are over but this working at a "real" job is just filling gaps. The job I'm at....if this is a REAL job....give me a FAKE one any day. I'll take raising Gabriel WAY over this. That is not an option and I know it. I also know that God is not calling me to taking care of children per se again either.

I'm not entirely positive what direction I am headed but I know it is not backwards. It is not sideways. It is straight ahead. I'm just a common housewife....I never claimed to be or wanted to be anything different. I think, no matter what else God gives me to do in this crazy, messed up, screwed up, on it's last legs planet, I will always consider myself to be just a "common housewife"...........the only difference now is that "the fast lane" has taken on new meaning. When I named my blog that it is because I was fasting, and strenuously, for several different reasons and my purpose in the blog was to write about that. After we got Gabriel for 18 months the fasting and the writing took a decided turn. Now my blog is more of a documentation, not of my thoughts but of my travels and my day to day life. "The fast lane" has taken on a whole new meaning for me now. I rarely fast, at least purposely, now (I've gone days without food in the recent past but it wasn't an intentional fast) and looking back on the past five months I realize what a crazy, mixed up time this has been for me and for those associated with me.

The hallmark of my past life was it's 'stability'. We may have had alot going on all the time, kids coming and going, etc. but we were very 'stable'. We stayed in one town, one house, etc. for 33 years. That kind of stability does NOT mark my life now and probably never will again. I believe that God is truly calling me to stay in the fast lane and keep moving ahead. I am going to do that, with the same passion and spirit that was demonstrated in my parenting. Here's to the future. Here's to hope. Here's to the fast lane.