Crunch Time

We are officially one month away from our moving date. We have three large rooms to paint, along with many other small projects, and that all has to be done before we can have pictures taken of the house so we can have it listed. Pictures should be taken 2-3 weeks before we move, so our house can be listed as a rental. Plus, the house must be clean for the pictures.

Did I mention that I still only have 24 hours each day, and I do need to sleep close to a 1/3 of those? I also work until June 15 and am wishing I would have set my final date a bit earlier.
And I really haven't even put much thought towards packing. that will come after the repairs and the pictures. Plus, I will have 1 1/2 weeks with nothing to do but pack. I think I can handle that.

I don't want to stress about this, but I do feel the weight upon me. I am hoping my stomach stays calm and can handle this. This morning, I was freaking out about what to wear, and it really had very little to do with my choice of clothing. My diet is sporadic at best, and I am holding onto the loss I managed by a thread. It's really too bad I couldn't learn that whole not-eating coping mechanism for stress.

One month. In some ways, it's so little time—time to fix, to clean, to pack, to say goodbye—and in other ways, it's so much time—time to feel stressed until we leave. I feel like, once we get to WI, we can finally relax. Of course, we'll have to unpack, get settled in, figure out work and school and church and...yeah, I really shouldn't let my mind go there. One thing at a time.

More Dinnertime Laughs

We're eating dinner tonight, talking about Domo.  Obie was naming each of us. Bob was the Dragon Domo. I go tto be the Pretty Princess Domo. I think Garrett was a Ghost Domo. Maddie wanted to know what she was, so Obie said, "You're just a harmless beast."

The Man

So we're talking together about the boys and girls in our house. Obie stated that there's 3 boys. I responded by affirming that I have my man and my two boys, to which Obie asked, "Am I the man?"

Refreshed

We went on a wonderful mini vacation as a family this past weekend. We drove out to Black canyon, about 5 hours west of here, to view the most breathtaking cliffs I have ever seen. We did a little hiking around there and then drove to our hotel in Montrose for the night.

The next morning, we drove back to Cotopaxi for our rafting trip. It was a little breezy when we arrived, and it started to rain. However, it cleared up by the time we headed out. We had a blast on the river. As Obie says, our favorite part was "the waves" (the rapids). We even splurged and bought all of the pictures that they took of us on the river. We spent the night at another hotel and leisurely drove back home the next morning.

It wasn't long, and it wasn't perfect, but the change of pace and recreational activities were exactly what I needed. And I think our family needed the time together bonding as well. It's been a rough few months, and we've got some busy weeks ahead of us. I hope this will hold us and keep us strong as we move forward.

A Good FB Post

You never know how popular you are until you place a good post on Facebook. What is my amazing post, you ask? Well, I dropped the bomb about our moving back to WI. We received a pretty positive response, although a few here are mourning our move. And really, this is part of my new effort to embrace the move and see the positive side of it.

I am now viewing this change as my ticket to re-write my life. What do I want to do with life? How do I want to spend my free time? Who do I want to hang out with? To be brutally honest, I currently have few friends and little interests besides work and school. I have no hobbies, unless you include my compulsive loom knitting effort to use up all my current yarn collection before we move. I have some people I like but no one I speak to or hang out with more than a couple times each month.

I am still in the process of contemplating who I want to become in my "new" life in WI. I am looking for work, which could determine a lot of my path. I would really like to score some writing jobs from home, but I don't feel very qualified to do so. Part of my interest is to be writing in general, which is partially why I am writing this post right now. I figure, the more I practice and get used to writing on a regular basis, the more likely I am to feel confident with my writing abilities and get scooped up for some freelance writing telecommuting.

While I have been feeling a little weary about how long I have left in school until I can actually use my degree, I do feel like God is giving me some direction as to what area in counseling I would like to pursue. I am developing a heart for crisis pregnancies, especially with teen mothers. There's a program through a school in Kenosha that serves teen moms, helping them through their pregnancy and teaching them how to be good mothers while helping them finishing their high school diplomas. I am really hoping that I can do my internship with them and possibly start a job with them in the future.

As for the rest of what to expect, I don't know yet. I am open to possibilities. I would like to get involved with music and hope to start learning more on my bass from Gordon. If I could work with the band at GLC, that would be great. I'd also like to get plugged into a small group right away so we can develop some Christian friendships with other couples.

As far a health matters, we're going to have a pool and a gym at our disposal when we move, so that seems like a given. I am currently on a "Slow-Carb Diet" on my own and seem to be doing well. I would love to be down to my goal weight before we leave CO. We'll see. I plan to continue eating better when we move. We're not taking much food with us, if any, so I will be starting with a clean slate with groceries. That should be kind of fun, if not a little expensive right off the bat.

We can't forget that we will be closer than we've been in years to family and old friends, so that alone should keep us busy, at least initially. Really, it will be a good thing to reconnect like that, and it is a primary goal in our moving that we be closer to family to be more available. How that all plays out, we shall see.

More Dinnertime Conservations

So tonight we're eating Chinese after a hard day's work around the house, and Obie busts out with the comment,"Daddy is not Santa. Santa is fat, and he's a stalker."