This morning as I eased my car up the pot-holed under-construction main drag, in a dreary chilly drizzle more appropriate for November than May, my brain still reeling from the usual pre-work chaos, I felt exhausted and sad.

Most work days are just fine. I truly enjoy "sharing" Elizabeth with her day care...I can't quite explain it. And work is going well, too. But today seemed endless. I was itchy to go home and unfortunately had an assessment scheduled for the end of the day, and it ended up being delayed by about an hour so I didn't get to Elizabeth until almost 5:00.

Post-bedtimes are always the craziest times of the day, sometimes more so than the mornings. Every night I wash the bottles I pumped into during the day, and usually the rest of the dishes are waiting for me too. (Despite how exhausted I might be, I always do the dishes and clean up the kitchen each night, to maintain some pocket of sanity in the house.) I make her bottles and our lunches for the next day. Sometimes there's laundry to fold or put away. At times I pump one more time before I go to bed, too.

And what's getting lost in the chaos of the days? Exercise, and more seriously, sleep. Here I am right now, in fact, at 10:15 PM, totally beat but trying to eek out just a little alone time to keep up with this blog when I should have made myself get to bed a half hour ago.

Will I ever get our disastrous home office in order? Or our basement? How about my hobbies, writing and scrapbooking?

I keep thinking about the story in the Bible, about Jesus feeding the 5,000 starving people with two fish and five loaves of bread. By the grace of God, the resources were stretched to provide. God's grace is providing for me, too, in that I haven't yet lost my sanity. Little gifts here and there, like if Elizabeth takes a catnap after dinner so I can clean up at 7:00 instead of at 9:30 when I'm falling over on my feet. Like earlier this week when I got home a bit early, so I ran home for 15 minutes before picking her up and got several small tasks done.

Prayer is sustaining me right now. It is so hard, but it's getting me through. My baby is happy, healthy, and safe, and for now, that is enough.