So Many Thoughts and Emotions: Part 1

Hello, blogger world friends!  Remember me?  I'm the one who used to post multiple times a week, or at least once a week had been my goal recently.  Life has gotten away from me and I haven't posted in what feels like ages.  Let me explain what has been happening and some of the thoughts filling my head.  Then maybe you will see why I haven't had time to post as much as I would like.  In no organized order:

Colleague's memorial: Last weekend I attended a memorial service for my colleague.  He was the one diagnosed with cancer this summer, and I was the one they called in to pick up his class.  I have thought about him all term long...how he was so close to retirement, how he had spent 30+ years teaching at this institution, etc.  He died before Thanksgiving, but his family just had the memorial last weekend.  He was active in the Quaker community, so it was a Quaker service.  Very interesting.  Everyone sat in a circle and there was no scheduled program.  Anyone who wanted to speak could just stand up and say something about him.  Then everyone had a moment of silence to meditate on the words that were spoken before the next person stood up.  It was nice, but I'll be honest, there was no hope.  A funeral is depressing for me to attend unless the person knew Christ.  There is hope in the power and resurrection of Christ to those that believe.  Without new life in Christ and the promise of time spent with him in heaven, things are just depressing.

Last day of teaching: Last Friday marked the end of my teaching career here and the end of my working for awhile.  It's such a weird thing.  I have been teaching at the same place for 9 (nine!) years.  That is the longest I've ever worked in one place before.  And I've loved it.  I've loved my students and what they've taught me, I've loved (most of) my colleagues, I've loved the academic setting I've taught in and all the opportunities and experiences it has afforded me.  My department already had a farewell party for me.  I just have to finish sorting through and cleaning out my office and packing the teaching books that I want to take with, and then I will be putting a close to that chapter of my life (permanently or for a while?  I don't know at this point).

Preparing the house to sell: We busted our buns to get our house ready to put on the market.  After we met with our realtor, I had a huge list of things I wanted us to do to get it ready to show.  We wanted to list our house that week after we met with her, but we didn't quite make our personal deadline as there was so much to do.  

We had professional carpet cleaners in to clean our carpets, and they turned out so amazing!  We only did the high traffic areas, hallways, and stairs because we had too much stuff in the other rooms, but I can't believe how much better they look.  DH and I were ready to just put a flooring allowance into our seller's contract because we thought they were in such bad shape.  We had rented carpet cleaners before and nothing really seemed to work.  Our realtor suggested we try a Chem-Dry franchise, and it was the best $120 we spent.  They pre-treated the worst areas (that was $20 extra...ooo, deal) and did an amazing job.  Their cleaning products are green-friendly and safe for kids, and the carpets were dry within just a few hours.  You almost can't tell that our cream-colored carpeting is 10 years old!  (And no, they did not pay me to advertise for them for free).

We also took all of our pictures off the walls, put most of our personal things (ie. knick knacks) away, and moved a bunch of furniture to the garage, so that our spaces looked bigger.  It was hard to put everything away because we didn't want to pack it since the moving company will do the packing, but we didn't want to leave it out cluttering up our house.  We'll just say it's a good thing all the space under our beds was open and we had extra shelves in our closets to fill!

We filled nail holes and did paint touch ups.  We bought some new blinds to replace ones that didn't match or looked worn.  We shoved a bunch of stuff into boxes and put in the crawl space.  I sold a few large items that we don't plan on moving.  Phew!  We were tired, exhausted, and physically drained by the time our house went up on the market.  And I was the slave driver behind all of it, which meant DH and I were often bickering because I was making him work on stuff in the evenings when he didn't want to (I didn't want to either).  I knew we would run out of time if I wasn't constantly hounding him, making him to-do lists, etc.

We did get our house on the market Dec. 7th (10 days after we met with our realtor for the first time!) I will count that as a success considering both DH and I were working during that time and taking care of R.  I will update you on the house in the next post (part 2) because there are so many things I'm still processing about that whole process.  Sorry to leave you in suspense;-)

Goodbyes: I hate saying goodbye.  I really do.  This weekend was a hard one: lots of goodbyes at church, with my work colleagues, etc.  One of the things I will miss most about the church we've been at here is the college group that I've helped out with.  Some of these young men and women are so strong in their faith.  It has been fun to be around many of them for multiple years in a row, and it's always nice to feel like God is using you to impact the lives of others.  It's kind of like they become our adoptive kids for awhile- asking DH and I for advice on things like dating, career choices, direction, etc.  And they have totally fallen in love with R.  You should see some of these college boys swoon over her.  It is precious.  Well, we had to say goodbye to the whole group on Sunday.  So, so sad.  Another chapter closes.

And because this post has already gotten longer than I expected, I'll close Part 1 and begin working on Part 2.