What next?

Thoughts on the future...

The drive isn't fun. Why is the speed limit on 294 fifty-five if everyone insists on 75, 85, and, I swear, 100?? I white knuckled the steering wheel for a while. Horrifying for one who doesn't like to drive!

We looked at four houses. Three of them were FILTHY. I work so hard to keep our home clean for showings (absolutely spotless next to what we saw!) and these people let their homes collect inches of dust and cobwebs and bugs...oh, the bugs.

Why hasn't our house sold yet?? It's so clean!!!

That's the rant.

Good stuff? Well, it was pretty. Lots of nature preserves and walking/biking paths. Lots of stores people here often drool over (Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, etc). Lots of neighborhoods that look nice. Plenty of decent schools, even if we're still a bit confused on how districts work.

It'll be ok. Maybe even great. In the meantime, I'm still working on the idea of leaving home. I still can't say I'm excited for this change. On the other hand, I am extremely ready to have my little family back together. I'll take the change for that!

HUGE changes

We are moving to Illinois.

Just typing that is surreal.

Nathan’s job wasn’t going well. He started a job search a while back that led him out of state. He got several offers (because he is awesome at his job) and then he got a really good offer. And we are moving.

To say we’re not super excited about this is an understatement. We wanted to stay. We grew up here. We love our house that we’ve only been in a little over a year. We wanted to raise our son here. Our families and friends are here and we are very content with the familiarity of this place. This is home.

The immediate challenges this poses are a little overwhelming. We have to repaint our kitchen and keep Andrew from destroying the walls with food. Well-timed sippy cup drops are brutal! Then we have to put our beautiful home on the market and pray it sells quickly. Nathan needs a place to stay near his new job. We’ll be apart until our house sells. We need to buy a new house in an area where we are already finding school districts to be difficult.

I need to quit my job. I love my job so much. It makes me sad. :( On a happy note, I get to stay there till the house sells. (Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, grandparents!!) I will not look for another job in Illinois. I’ll get to be a stay-at-home mom after all. I hope to get back into a library in the years ahead, when daycare won’t be so necessary.

There are positives. The final sale of this house will be one of them, as it will lift a huge financial burden. We both think the new job will relieve some of the stress we’ve experienced as a family. I’ll get to decorate a home without the threat of a move hanging over it. I have no idea what God has planned for us in Illinois, but this good job for Nathan is already a blessing.

 It’s just going to be hard to leave this place. It is home in a way that feels woven into the very fiber of my being. That sounds intense, but it’s true.

Matthew 6:25-27
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

pffft

Some days, I seriously wonder how I keep myself and my child alive. Clothed. Fed. Mostly clean.

Today is such a day. I’m exhausted. We’ve been battling colds and assorted sicknesses for months now. I think one of us catches something every other week. Not kidding. It’s starting to wear me down. Nap scheduling has gotten all messed up. Clingy-ness is at an all-time high. I can’t do anything without a tiny person holding on to my leg and screaming because I’m not holding him. And to top it all off, some huge changes are looming on the horizon for our family. Details of that are for a future post, but I include it because it has contributed to the stress.

As I was watching said tiny person play (without fussing!) earlier today, I was thinking about how we’ve all three been little puddles of misery in the past few months.

Really, we do not have it that bad. Basic blessings include food, clothing, and shelter. On a daily basis. My husband and I both have jobs. We might be sick, but we are not desperately ill. We have a lot and then some. I don’t know why that can be hard to remember in the midst of hardship that is, in all truthfulness, pretty minor.

And now to go find something for this headache. I am blessed to have access to helpful medicine. :)

what sleep is not

About three months ago, we made plans to go to a concert and have Andrew spend the night with his grandparents.

To say I was looking forward to it is an understatement. I was literally hanging onto it as a beacon of hope for the future, and not because I was excited about the concert. 

I was excited to sleep in. No baby on Saturday morning to wake me up at 5:30 or 6 in the AM. Waking up on my own. Lounging in bed. A lazy morning of breakfast with a good book on my own time. I was more excited for that than I was for Christmas.

I used it to get through hard days.

If we had a particularly fussy day… “Two months till I can sleep in.”

If I was really tired or stressed… “Three weeks till I can sleep in.”

When we all caught colds… “Soon, I can sleep in.”

And then, the night before the concert, we got a phone call. Grandma was sick and could no longer take the baby for the night. 

I was CRUSHED. (Disclaimer- I’m not at all upset with grandma. I felt awful that she got sick.)

We still got to go to the concert, thanks to Andrew’s other wonderful grandma coming over to watch him and put him to bed, but my dreams of a quiet, restful morning were in pieces.

Yes, it was that dramatic to me at the time. And boy, did I feel stupid. I had put my hopes in something so temporary. It was just one morning. I wrapped so much hope and emotion into one morning that would have come and gone in the blink of an eye. I know better, or I thought I did.

Psalm 62:5 “Yes my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.”

Isaiah 49:23 “…those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Real hope does not come from a morning of sleeping in. It comes from God. 

My challenge in the coming months is to remember that!

um, yeah...

Two things:

1. We got day care! Praise God, it worked out! 

2. The rest of this post might be a little hokey. It’s not like me to care about such things, but darn it, they’ve been on my mind!

Boy Meets World is revamping with Girl Meets World. Told you! 

Okay. Back in the 90s, I watched that show every week, from the time it started until the series finale. I was a fan of the early years (I was also ages 11 through 14 in those early years) and less of a fan in the later years. The relationship created for Cory and Topanga is one that I have often read about or heard about as the “perfect” relationship.

Really, I’m not making that up. This seems to be a sentiment held by people around my age who also grew up watching the show. It makes sense- Childhood friends who fall in love, go through hard times, overcome the difficulties to get married, and face the future together as a team. Classic love story. 

What bothers me is that it was SO CORNY. Oh. My. Gosh. So corny. “But,” one might argue, “you still watched it!” Well, yeah, I did, and I don’t even think I could explain why I still watched it (I was young? My friends watched it? The Feeny call?), but most episodes made me cringe once Cory and Topanga became a couple. Their relationship seemed so over done with really phony, overly emotional dialogue. 

Am I the only one who thought they were so fake? Does it even matter?? Not at all! It was a television show!! It’s just that so many people have been talking about it lately and it has been on my mind. So there you go. End of post.

daycare!

Here we go.

Daycare is supposed to start soon. Originally, we intended to begin last summer, but a few things changed and we decided to hold off until December. I made sure via two different people that our down payment would hold us a spot in December. I was told it would both times…so after calling just now, I found out that we got a bit lost in their system. They might be able to provide a spot in December. Might. I only have an hour till they’re supposed to call and let me know for sure, but yikes!!!

I’m about 90 percent sure that it’ll all work out, but if they can’t take us we’ll be in a scramble to find another place. 

I suppose I'll be back soon with an update...

three thoughts

Nothing groundbreaking here

It’s just new mommy stuff to me

1. There is never enough time

I had so much time before baby. I would get bored. I had so much time that the house was always pretty clean, I could read multiple books in a week, I could watch movies, I could get stuff done in a manner that freed my time up to the point where…well, where I would be bored.

Now, I have time between the periods of happiness and fussiness. I have time during naps, which tend to be short. I have about four choices during these times – eat, shower, clean/run errands, or relax. Relaxing usually means no shower or no cleaning/errands. Or both, in which case I try to make sure it’s a day when nothing else is planned. OR, I can get up early and do some of those things before baby wakes up. That’s hard…I like sleep.

I can’t say I miss the boredom. It was boring. I do miss alone time, though!

2. Other moms

It’s so important to find them and build relationships with them! They understand! They make you feel less crazy! I’m so blessed to have some friends with kids. I also joined a MOPS group. It just started, but I think it might be one of the best things I’ll ever do.  

3. Working

I feel kind of spoiled because I enjoy my job so much. If I didn’t work, I don’t think I’d leave the house very often. I don’t think I’d see people outside of family very often. I think I’d probably have time to be bored again. It’s good I kept my job, even if I do find myself envying stay at home moms sometimes.

I hear another short nap coming to an end. Until next time!