A typical Mother's Day when I was growing up included my Dad grilling steaks and us having a wonderful lunch feast. Maybe we'd rent a pontoon boat and go cruise the lake, lay in the sun, and swim till we were exhausted.

Yesterday it became apparent to me that I'm "not in Maryville anymore."

Granted, no kids for the Vanderburgs yet. So, I'm not a mother yet. I understand that. However, whenever that day comes, I hope my body gets treated differently than how it did yesterday.

We had been planning on doing a bike ride all week. Yesterday morning we woke up and hit the streets atop our two-wheeled death traps, hearts all a-flutter (Who am I kidding? My heart was all a-flutter at the thought of exercising. My sweet husband had already ridden the route 3 times this week, so he was fine).

So anyways, we hop on and off we go - down Capital (one of the busiest streets in Raleigh), cutting through the Hardee's parking lot, until we're on a road that is one long continuous up-hill climb. We detoured off that road and took a lovely little bike path that I will now call "The calm before the storm."

After the bike path was the final push, aka a really big hill. Ok, it wasn't that big, but for me, it was brutal. In fighting terms the trip was like this: jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, SUCKER PUNCH. Seriously.

The good news is that we were at the end, finally. We arrived at Starbucks, I downed some water, we read for a while, and when the gnawing hunger in my body finally got strong enough, we climbed back in the saddle. Fortunately, the return trip was a lot easier on my heart and lungs and legs, as it was mostly downhill. Unfortunately downhill=speed=jostling, which, to my already incredibly sore butt muscles/bones, was not so pleasant.

When we got home, I slaved over a hot stove for a long time and produced a delicious meal of chicken parmesan, parmesan asparagus, salad (not on the stove) and bruschetta. It was a lovely feast. A did clean up for me, since our dishwasher is broken and I hate hand-washing dishes.

You'd think it would be time for a rest after that, right? Nope. I then did a good old-fashioned butt-kicking kind of cleaning job - scrubbing toilets, bathtubs, floors, sweeping, shaking out rugs, vacuuming, organizing, etc. We have a friend of A's moving in with us today, so I wanted to make sure everything was spic and span for his arrival.

Thus, the brutal body day. I treated myself (after a horrible ending to The Amazing Race) to a hot bath and an early bedtime. *Bliss*

In all seriousness though, we may try to make the Sunday morning bike ride a regular thing. We tried the Saturday night service at our church and really liked it a lot, so we'll probably make Saturdays our day of rest and worship, thus enabling us to do more bike rides on Sundays. Since we want to be church planters, I think it will be really beneficial for us to be out in the community when most believers are in church - trying to form relationships with non-believers and getting me out of my legalistic mindset that "Sundays are for church and if you're not at church on Sunday mornings, you're a heathen." I apologize for thinking that. I repent.

Hope all of my lovely friends - mothers and mothers-to-be alike, had a fabulous day. Praise God for the gift mothers are, and I praise God that mothers are merely a reflection of the character of our heavenly Father.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." -James 1:17