Hello Weekend

When we first announced we were leaving camp, someone made a comment that has stayed with me over these last few months. She said, “Good-byes are hard, but it sounds like there will be many wonderful ‘hellos’ in your future.”

It’s been hard to focus on the ‘hellos’ while we’ve been out here. I went down to the lake one night last week, and had a good cry as the sun was setting. So far, we’ve mostly been in the ‘good-bye’ part of this transition.

This weekend, however, I felt like I started to say ‘hello’ to some things.

1) Hello, House!

We spent a little time getting acquainted! Ben was painting trim boards this weekend, so we dropped him off at the new house before heading on to my parents’ for a couple of days.

The girls loved being there! They love their room.

And they loved running around all over the place, starting to make it familiar.

Whenever we go there, I just want to stay! But always too soon, Ben says it’s time to get going, and I have to tear myself away. Can’t wait until we just get to stay!

2) Hello, Family!

For five years, we’ve been far away from everything. Two hours is a very drivable distance, but we haven’t been able to just be there for stuff. This weekend, I felt like I was getting a taste of what it will be like to be there for the fun family stuff.

My sweet, very ambitious niece is putting on a fundraising bake sale next weekend, and we got to help in the cupcake assembly line.

We also got to do some relaxing at my parents’ house, and it was nice to have a break from boxes and packing.

3) Hello, Friends!

We spent some time with both new and old friends this weekend, and it was very good. I tend to be on the task-oriented side of things, so I find it a little hard to pull myself away from my to-do list and to-pack piles. But I’m always glad when I do!

I’ve felt a bit overwhelmed by all of the amazing people who are offering to help us move, or cook food for us, or take care of our girls, or whatever. We are surrounded by such wonderful people, and I am so thankful for them!

I’m feeling very blessed as we head into our last week at camp – ready to pack like mad, and ready to soak in the last beautiful moments here and there.

 

A Sneak Peak, and Some Thoughts on Packing…

Less than two weeks until moving day!

Oh, my goodness.

Ben’s been painting like crazy, and I think he’s very lucky to be able to spend so much time in our new house! He gets to see all the progress. If I were him, I would spend lots of time just basking, imagining the wonderful new life we will have.

He says he’s a bit too busy for that, looking up at the ceiling all day while he paints it white.

The other morning he sent me this picture, so I could also see how things are coming along:

See? Definite basking required. It is almost done!

And a packing update? I have decided there are a couple of advantages to having boxes piled all over our current home:

1) There is always a place to set your glass of water down beside you, no matter where you sit.

2) The girls love having new stuff to climb.

So…any packing tips anyone wants to send my way??!

How We’re Dealing With Transition (Since Everyone Is Asking)

It is 24 days until our new adventure begins.

I feel at peace about everything.

Funny, because generally I have not faced change with peace. I always feel excited about change, but every other time, I’ve also been filled to the brim with stress.

While I was packing today, I came across a little notebook I used five years ago when we were preparing to move to camp. In it, I recorded everything that stressed me out each day, so that I could pray over everything and try to surrender it to God.

My word, am I ever thankful it’s not five years ago.

(I actually laughed at some of the things I had written down.)

One issue I was apparently stressed about at the time was the amount of stuff we had, and what in the world we were going to do with it all.

Today, I sat there reading this, surrounded by mounds of stuff to pack….and it didn’t bother me in the least.

See, change is possible. God can still do miracles today!!

I was in a very different place in my life five years ago. I had recently had a miscarriage, I was dealing with the very worst of my health issues, and emotionally unstable might be the best words to describe that time of my life.

Oh, God is so good. These last five years have been years of gaining back health, being blessed with that long-desired baby, and learning a ton about myself and how I deal with emotions and stress.

It’s not like everything is perfect at our house these days. Moving is still a big transition. Anika has a lot of nightmares as she tries to find her own way through this all, and as far as Kaylia is concerned, I’ve decided there will be a much better time and place for potty training her.

Like when she’s seven.

And I’ve decided not to worry about it. (See? Look at how good I’m getting at not worrying about stuff.)

Instead, I try to keep up with the day-to-day stuff, and I pack a little, and we play and read books a little.

I do yoga daily, and try to eat the best I can. (I will not eat chips. I WILL NOT EAT CHIPS! Things go much better with my body when I do not eat chips, but…all I want are chips!)

So whether my attempts at handling things well are working, or there are tons of people praying for the sanity of our family, or God has just chosen to be extra gracious to us, we are doing fairly well with this whole transition thing. (Now that I said that, just watch me completely crash tomorrow…)

I feel like there are many thoughts and memories and goals for the future swirling around that somehow need to be expressed, and yet that takes time. And some of it is still marinating in my mind. We’ll see when it’s ready to come out.

But for now, the sun is shining, the pile of boxes packed is slowly growing, and life must still go on and be enjoyed, even if we’re moving…

Oh Weekend, How I Love You

Weekends are wonderful, yes?

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The weather was unbelievable, and it was so, so good to have Ben home for a day off. These days, most of his days off are spent going into the city to prepare for our big move, or he doesn’t take days off at all, to bank them up for the future when we know we’ll have to be gone from camp.

But Sunday was just a wonderful, relaxing, stay-at-home-all-day kind of a day.

There were pancakes in the morning.

(Kaylia wouldn’t show her face for the picture, so I got her under the table instead!)

There was a picnic in the living room.

There was reveling in the spring weather…

…and one last sled ride in the disappearing snow.

It was pretty much perfect.

On top of all that relaxing, Ben even had time for loading up all eight boxes of stuff I’ve purged in the last few weeks, to ship off to MCC. Yesss!

So pretty much, purging is the theme of my life, and you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about that this week. My new passion…

I’m working on a list of all my most practical purging tips and tricks, in case you’re wondering. In the meantime, I hope you had a most fabulous weekend.

The Million Dollar Questions: Some More Details About Our Move

Alright, so here’s the grand list of the questions we get asked a lot these days:

1) When are you moving?

2) What will Ben be doing?

3) What will you be doing?

4) Will you continue to homeschool Anika?

I thought it would be good to answer as many of these as I can. We don’t know exactly how everything will look once we move, but here’s what we’ve got so far:

1) We are moving at the end of April. Yes, that means missing summer out here, which I just don’t want to think about. It’s too painful. We wish we could stay for one more summer, but because of Ben’s job, we must leave in spring.

It might be for the best, anyway. I’d probably spend my whole summer crying.

2) Ben will be working for his dad, doing property development. He will be involved with general contracting on homes and condos. Yes, that’s a huge change from what we’ve been doing. See this post for my thoughts on why that’s a good thing.

3) Since Kaylia is only two, and not very independent, I don’t see my job description changing much when we move. However, I will be helping Ben with some business stuff, when I have time.

Also, we are talking about how moving back to civilization will make it easier for me to pursue my dream to speak publicly. Don’t know what will happen with that, but if you know of any ladies’ groups or youth and college age groups looking for a speaker, I am so all over that idea. Without looking desperate, of course. 😉

4) Homeschooling. Well, last Monday, I was undecided about what to do, and on Tuesday, we were totally going to continue homeschooling. On Wednesday, it became drastically obvious that public school was the only appropriate option, and on Thursday, I could have cried at the thought of not homeschooling anymore. Friday I was back to being undecided, and on the weekend I was too busy to think about it.

Apparently, this is a decision that I will make 52,000 times before the decision is actually made.

Ben will make it once, and lose no sleep over it.

That’s just how we do things around here.

So for now, the plan is to wait, pray, and see how things go. Homeschooling is what we know. We’ve done it for four years, and there are many, many wonderful things about it. I know that public school is wonderful, too. Up until this point, we’ve had no option. Now that we have an option, we are unsure of what we want to do.

We’ll answer this question later, too!

There, did I miss anything?

Why, yes I did. I missed sharing with you how much I am just loving the purging going on at our house right now. Moving is an excellent motivator for getting rid of stuff you really don’t want or need.

It is also great for finding things you didn’t know you had.

We have an angel costume?? Apparently we do. I’d completely forgotten about that one. Now Kaylia is obsessed with wearing her “crown”.

Horray for purging and packing! (Talk to me two months from now – I might be singing a different tune!)