Quick Takes (32) and Trying to "Fear Not"

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Hello everyone!  Remember me?  It seems that I and my blog have fallen off the face of the earth.  I certainly feel like I've lost some of my readers and regular blogging groove.  And yet I still don't feel settled and ready for regular blogging again.  Perhaps it's sleep deprivation, mild depression, lack of a regular routine, being overwhelmed, or something else.  I keep hoping this will change, but so far no luck.

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We all survived the big move fairly well.  It worked really well for R and I to travel 500 miles with DH in the car over 2 days.  It gave us a chance to all leave town together, be sad together, and to spend some time cruising through the mountains (and saying goodbye to the Rockies) and reflecting back and looking ahead.  Plus, we also got to have a fun blogger meet up with this lovely blogger.  She's every bit as adventurous and outgoing in person as she is on her blog.  Thanks for making the drive to see us, M!  I survived my first solo flight with squirmy, wiggly R.  That was fun- not so much.  Thankfully, God placed understanding women in the seats next to me and gave on time flights, for my girl was awake for 5 or 6 hours straight!  DH had great driving weather and made the rest of the trip (1,500 miles) in 2 1/2 days.  That part of moving went as smoothly as we could have asked for.

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The moving company, on the other hand, left much room for improvement.  They packed us up in -9 degree temps!  Talk about chilly day.  R and I hung out upstairs in the master bath and bedroom for most of the time since it was warmest there.  She napped great in her playpen in the bathroom.  The movers did a good job packing everything up, but when it came to load the truck the next day, they did not put down any home protection as requested and got muddy footprints every where in our house (our carpeting is a light beige).  Not cool.  I even asked them at the beginning to put down floor coverings.  So, we had muddy foot prints in every single room of the house and dinged up doorframes and marks on the wall.  I was livid!  Thankfully, the moving company agreed to have carpet cleaners come in and clean it all after we had moved out.  Still, it was infuriating because we had our house so clean and taken care of to sell it and the muddy carpets could have been prevented.

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Once R and I had arrived in our new state, we got the keys to our rental house and discovered there was no fridge included!  We sold ours with our house as is customary there and I failed to get a list of all appliances included.  I assumed a fridge would be standard in a rental home.  I was not happy.  Thankfully, a family at church was getting rid of theirs, so we only had to go 3 days without a fridge!

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This weather in the South is going to take awhile to get used to.  It's been 50s and 60s all week and rainy...hardly mid-January weather like I'm used to.  I can't decide if I like it yet or just miss winter with snow.  Time will tell, I suppose.

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I'm currently waiting for the in-laws to arrive this evening; our first house guests in our new state.  Should be fun to see them and I know they're dying to see how R has grown.  Last time they saw her was her baptism at 5 weeks old!  We're also waiting for my car to arrive. That is the last piece of the moving puzzle.  We shipped it on Jan. 2nd.  Not sure why it's taking so long.

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Bible verse challenge.  On the 15th I picked another verse, but before I share which one, let me give a little background info.  Throughout the whole move process, God has continually (almost daily it seems) affirmed the move and His ability to provide what we need.  Whether it's a fridge, internet service, or even a TV, we continue to have just the right people offer what we need or don't have.  I continue to be amazed by the clarity that I seem to think He is acting with.  And the outpouring of love and support by church people has been like none that we've received before.  Maybe there really is something to southern hospitality.

All this sounds great, right?  The one thing that has crept up the most (probably Satan trying to steal my joy from the above good things) is my fear of my physical safety.  This house we are renting is old and needs updating.  The exterior doors (all 5 of them plus another to the garage) seem so old and flimsy that I feel like I could kick one in if I tried.  It's a ranch home with tons of space, which is great, but the basement creeps me out.  It walks out to a private, wooded backyard, and none of that part is visible to neighbors.  I feel like it's just a break in waiting to happen.  It's so weird to me that I can't stop thinking about someone breaking in.  The neighborhood is nice and well established, the neighbors we've met so far are nice, and there's nothing that should lead me to think it would be an area burglars would target.  But we are in a big metro area, so of course the crime is going to be higher than our previous town.  I've just never had such a strong sense of fear about someone breaking in before.  It's bizarre to me.  We have taken steps to make it more secure, but I still worry.  Maybe because I'm home all day with R, maybe because it's a new home and location, maybe because Satan wants me not to be thinking about God's goodness.

Anyways, I chose my verse to speak directly to that fear:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

It's a long one, which made me not want to do it, but I think it'll be good to have a long verse to try and turn my thoughts to things from God!

Speaking of long...this is quite the long quick takes.  Maybe I should start calling them long takes if this keeps up!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Singing A New Song

So many thoughts and so little time to process them.  I'll do my best here though since this is a good outlet for me to start processing where I've been and where I'm going.

I'm participating in this lovely lady's Scripture memory challenge for 2013, and it serves as the basis for some of the thoughts I'm processing about the New Year, the move, etc.  The idea is to choose a Bible verse to memorize on the 1st and 15th of the month.  I participated in this challenge back in 2011 and it was such a good thing for me.  I didn't retain all 24 verses that I memorized, but I did remember more than I knew at the beginning of the year.  It was a good exercise to practice filling my mind with spiritual thoughts from God rather than complaints, worries, etc.  And since I feel this blog has become somewhat of a downer lately with all my sad posts about moving (such has been my life too), this challenge came at a good time.


The verse I chose for the first two weeks of January is: "Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth." Psalm 96:1 NIV 

It's a short verse, but it's sort of going to become my theme verse for the year, I think.  With the start of the New Year, I always have ideas of what I hope to accomplish and how I hope to live.  With the move coming so quickly after the New Year, it is so vividly clear to me that 2012 marks the closing of the chapter of my life in the Mountain West and 2013 marks the opening of a new chapter in the Southeast.  It's still quite hard and emotional for me to think about basically starting our life over, and yet it's what I know God is asking of me/us.  I feel like "my song" is changing with the move.  All of the areas I was previously involved in- work, church, campus ministry, women's Bible study, etc. (all of the things that made up "my song") are going to change.  And while I can look at the change with much sadness as I have been lately, I can also embrace the change and look to the Lord to provide me with a new song. 

So I love the "new song" idea, but I also love the singing part as well.  Singing is filled with such joy and that's what I hope to convey to people in the new place as well as my family and those around me.  I'll admit I don't think it's going to be easy, but I'm going to try and sing my "new song."  And I love a short verse because the first part of January is crazy: we shipped my car out of the big city on Wednesday, movers packed up our house yesterday, they are loading the moving truck today in the bitter cold (negative temps...brr), tomorrow we pull out of our beautiful mountain valley for the last time (I'm already tearing up thinking about it), R and I are taking our time riding to Denver with DH, R and I then fly to our new town and hang out with her Godparents while DH drives 3 more days.  Our stuff will arrive a day or two after DH and then the fun continues as we begin to get settled into our rental home for the next 6 months or so.  So a short verse is good for me.  Plus, I've already been reciting it over and over, so I know it was the right choice.

I may be MIA for awhile until we get an internet connection set up at the new place.  I expect to be back to sporadic blogging by mid-January.  Just in time to share my January 15th verse with y'all, right;-)

So Many Thoughts and Emotions: Part 2

Well, this isn't necessarily the last post of the year that I had in mind, but since I've been working to finish the 2nd part of my update post, here goes:

Back here I had posted the beginnings of my emotions surrounding a multitude of topics.  I had left you hanging on the house, so Part 2 will mainly be about the house.  To recap- we busted our buns getting the house ready for the market and in showing condition.  And we priced it to sell.  We hoped we wouldn't have to spend months of continuing to pay the mortgage here while we paid rent (or a 2nd mortgage) in our new location.  To do that, our realtor researched the prices of homes in our area that had recently sold and compared them with the size of ours.  We priced our home a little higher than what she recommended, but we wanted some wiggle room for negotiating.  We also figured out the worst case scenario as far as the maximum of all the fees we would have to pay, if the buyers requested we pay closing costs, what we still owe on our mortgage, etc.  DH and I hoped we would come out ahead enough that we would have 20% to put down on a new home.  As we ran the worst case scenario numbers, we quickly realized that we would come out at almost exactly that 20% figure we were hoping for!  Thank you, Lord.  I do not think that was a coincidence.

So our house goes on the market December 7th- not exactly prime time to sell a house, but it was the best we could do.  DH still continues to freak out a bit about the stress of selling the house.  "Normally high stress me" is calm, cool, and collected about selling the house.  I continue to reassure him that God will take care of the house.  Evidently, it is easy for me to trust God with huge things that are out of my control (except for IF).  I even wrote in my journal before our house went on the market about my confidence (or foolishness and naivety to some) of how quickly God was going to sell our house.  I thought I could just feel it working out.

I breathe a huge sigh of relief when our house finally does go up on the market because it's a little hard to sell a house if it isn't on the market.  And yet I quickly realize that I am exhausted and not excited about waking up every day and making sure the house is in "show" condition in case we get a phone call from our realtor.

The photographer comes Friday afternoon to take professional pictures of our house (our house went up on the market with just one exterior photo) and I tell DH it's too bad the pictures won't be uploaded until Monday.  We'll probably have showings of people who wouldn't be interested if they could see the interior of our home (we have lots of colorful, painted walls).  Sure enough...we get a phone call Friday afternoon saying we have a showing scheduled Saturday afternoon.  Let the fun begin.

We vacate our home and head to DH's office because, of course, R wants to take a nap while we need to be out of the house.  We bring work to do at his office and before R even wakes up from her nap, we have a phone call and an offer on the house! Less than 45 minutes after the showing we have a reasonable offer!  I wasn't surprised (see confidence in God comment above) and yet I was.  Wow.  God really was going to sell our house in a weekend.

We met with our realtor and discussed the offer.  Since it was the 1st showing and the 1st offer, we decided to do a counter offer.  But DH and I would have been happy with the original offer...it was a little less than we asked, but they covered closing costs, making us come out ahead of our worst case scenario!   The coolest part for me was seeing the names of the buyers on the paperwork we had to sign and realizing that most likely they were international students or adults connected with the institution I taught at (based on where they were pre-approved for a loan).  I only had their names to go by, but I figured they were either Ethiopian or Arabic.  What a way for me to come full circle.  I moved out here in Jan. 2004 to go to graduate school and teach ESL.  And here I am leaving almost exactly 9 years later after having taught ESL for nearly my whole time here.  I love that we sold our house to an international couple!  I almost started crying in front of our realtor when I realized that.  That turned out even better than I expected in so many ways.

We sent a counter over Sat. night and by Sun. afternoon they had accepted!  We sold our house with 1 showing and 1 day on the market.  God's hand was clearly all over that.  Who sells their house that quickly in December in this market?  Apparently, God does that for us.  Everyone we talked to was simply stunned by the news of our house selling so rapidly.  I thoroughly enjoyed giving God credit for the amazing work He had done.  There was no other way to explain it than God, and even those non-believers/non-church attenders around me had to admit they were amazed (and hopefully saw my testimony to God).

Talk about a huge, majorly big obstacle falling by the wayside.  God continued to pave the way for our move and clearly showed us it was time to move and confirmed the decision we had made.  That was a relief.  I can't even imagine the stress of a cross-country move if one of us was regretting the decision or feeling we made the wrong decision.

Selling the house quickly meant we could put up some Christmas decorations and could live a little in our house, not having to worry about a potential showing every single day.  It was nice to have a few personal items out for Advent and Christmas.  It wasn't the same as years past, but at least we had a teeny tiny tree (the 3ft kind that goes in an entryway) that R could stare at and we could take pictures of her by.  I called it our twig tree.  And even having a twig tree was ok with me.

Throughout the whole process, I found it ironic at how calm I was and how stress DH was. He usually is the one who is always so calm and relaxed and I am the one spazzing around worrying like a crazy fool.  He was the calm one throughout our years of IF.  He'd reassure me and say he just knew we would have our own child one day.  It's funny how our roles were reversed and I was the one calmly telling him not to worry about our house selling because I just knew it would sell without a problem.

So...the house is under contract.  We've completed the home inspection and all of the little things they wanted us to fix.  The appraiser came today.  We just have to wait on the buyer's financing and we will have sold our home.  Thanks be to God for showing His power in such a clear and mighty way!

And with that we close the 2012 year out and almost simultaneously close this chapter in our lives.  2012 has been good to us...house renovations, preparations for Baby PPIW's arrival, the birth of R, lots of family visits, several trips to other states, and the selling of our house.  Of course there have been challenges with the decision to move and other issues, but it seems 2012 was a lot kinder to us than previous years.  Probably because it was in 2012 that we officially said goodbye to IF.  Who knows what the future holds regarding my health and our family size, but we can no longer call ourselves IF with the birth of R in 2012.  And with that we look to 2013 with excitement, anticipation, and a little bit of fear.  Goodbye, 2012. 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!  I pray your celebrations of our Savior's birth were filled with the wonder, joy, and peace that only He can bring.

It was sort of a different Christmas for us; a Christmas of firsts and lasts.  It was simply beautiful outside yesterday...blue skies and sun reflecting on all of the snow we had gotten Christmas Eve.  The trees were covered with the fresh dusting and it looked beautiful.  What a way for God to send us out in His magnificent style.

-R's 1st Christmas.  What a joy it was to see her experience the lights, Christmas hymns at church, and the presents.  She's old enough (almost 8 months now) that she was able to take it all in, observing everything around her.  My favorite was watching her play with her Little People nativity set.  It has long been a dream of mine to have a little one to play with that set.  It may sound funny, but every Christmas I would see that nativity in the store and want to buy it for our child.  Christmas after Christmas would go by and I wouldn't buy it because we were still IF.  Finally, last year I bought it while we were pregnant in anticipation of what I imagined would be coming the following Christmas.  My heart is so happy as I watch her play with baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

-Our last Christmas here.  All of the joy and excitement of having R experience her 1st Christmas was tempered with the sadness of knowing this was also our last Christmas here.  Our last white Christmas, our last Christmas in this home and this town, our last time celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services with our church family- people that really are almost like our own families.  I cried yesterday as we were leaving church, knowing it was the last time we would worship in that building and with those people for some time (sure we will come back and visit one day, but things will never be the same).

And yet through it all, I tried to remember our faith in Christ....the thing that unites us as a family of three and unites us as a body of believers...no matter where we live or where we celebrate Christmas!

And throughout all our celebrations of firsts and lasts, those of you waiting were especially on my heart and mind and in my prayers.  I pray especially that one day soon you will be able to experience the joy of Christmas as seen through the eyes of your child.

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.

When God says, "Move!"

I don't know about you, but I like to be comfortable.  I like my routine.  I like familiar places.  I feel like lately we have just gotten into a routine with R, and I like how comfortable that is.  Less than 2 weeks of teaching left, and then I was planning on taking some time off from working because it's been too hard for me to juggle work and being a mom, and I've felt guilty about DH rearranging his work schedule to watch her.

I was looking forward to time off, to getting ready for the Advent season, and to celebrating our 1st Christmas as a family of three.  All of those things will still take place, but they will not be as I envisioned them to be.  You see, God is calling us to leave our comfort zones and head to the unknown.  Both DH and I felt God clearly showed us it was time for us to leave our home of 9+ years and have him accept the job offer to the Southeast.  As much as we both tried to run away from the job, God continued to place it before us and take away all the obstacles I was feeling ("But I can't move," God.  "I don't have time to pack up a whole house."  Guess what what clearly written in the job offer?...they will hire a moving company to come and pack up our house for us.  It's as if God was saying, "Trust me, PPIW, I know your fears and worries and I have them covered.")

I'm thankful that it was clear to both of us and that we were on the same page, but I'm not exactly sure why there and why now.  I'm trying to trust Him with it all, but we all know I'm not the best in the trust department.  Just look back on some of my posts during IF and then pregnancy.  I had a hard time fully trusting God.  I know He will orchestrate all of the details regarding selling our house here, providing a new place for us to live there (probably renting first, then buying a home after this one sells), getting all of our things moved cross country, etc. 

But just because I know that in my head doesn't make it easy to deal with in my heart.  Some days I do better than others, and overall, I was doing really good trusting until Monday.  We met with a realtor to talk about putting our house on the market, and that's when I think the move really hit me.  Sure there were tears when DH made the announcement we were moving and when I notified my department at work.  Yes, there have been tears driving around town when I realize we'll be leaving the mountains and scenery that we love.  There are tears when I look around R's room and remember all the work and love put into preparing it for her arrival.

I'm such a sentimental person, it's hard to think about leaving our first home- the place that holds so many memories, and yet, I know it's only a home filled with material possessions.  We get to take the memories (and photos of them) with us.  I know we will probably come back and visit this town again some time in the future to show R where she was born, but coming back, everyone and everything (including us) will be different.  Life as we know it...comfortable, content, happy life here in this town will not exist again.  Yes, we will become comfortable in the new place.  I'm sure of it, but right now, it's just that...a new, unknown, unfamiliar place.  And that's the scary part to me and the part that's shaking my trust.  I have to keep reminding myself that the way was made clear to us.  We're not doubting the decision made; I'm just dealing with the reality of transition.

It wasn't until we talked about everything we need to do to get our house ready to put on the market, and then started doing it, that the tears came in full force.  Taking down all of our photos, our wall hangings, our crosses (because crosses, wine, and coffee pots could be a turn off to a potential Mormon buyer, according to our realtor), etc. takes our personal connection out of the house.  I've cried for 3 days in a row as I look around at the bare walls; it just looks so lifeless.  And I guess that's sort of how I feel a little bit- like some of my joy has been sucked out, and I'm trying to turn my emotions off so I don't have to feel sad any more.  Did I mention Advent is my favorite season and I'm not even sure we'll be able to set up our tree or nativity sets?  How I was looking forward to R's 1st Christmas pictures by our tree.

If I stop to think about all that needs to be done (get our house ready to go on the market, sell our house, look for a new place to live, celebrate Advent and Christmas some how, finish my job, say our goodbyes, etc.) it is extremely overwhelming- especially considering we only have 4-5 weeks left here!  Talk about insane, huh?  If you want a sure fire way to induce stress, just decide to move and then have to do it in a total of 6-7 weeks with an almost 7 month old who seems to be constantly teething (ie. extra clingy and needy).  No wonder why my milk supply seems to be inadequate for R and she has been extra fussy because of my stress.  Still, I don't know how to be relaxed about it all.

Things will be so different; I know the adjustment will take time and the next several months will be hard.  I'm giving myself 6-12 months before I expect to feel settled in a new place.  If it happens before that time- fantastic.  I'll gladly take it.  But just the logistics of having to rent an apartment for awhile and then look for a home to buy will take time.  Oh, and Lent starts extra early this year (mid-February), which means DH will be busy through the end of March when Easter is.

I heard this song on the radio last week, and two lines just keep running through my head: I wish I knew how all my fears and all my questions are gonna play out in a world I can't control and To you my future is a memory cause you're already there.

Things are SO out of my control right now; I think that's one of the reasons for my major angst.  I don't like being pushed so far out of my comfort zone, but I do know my faith will only be made stronger because of this.  I cannot rely on my own wisdom or strength; truly it is God who will bring this all together.

And then the 2nd line- the idea of my future being God's memory is really cool.  He already knows where we will live, how we will get settled, etc.  Now I just need to trust Him, wait, and be patient for it to all play out.  Easier said then done, right?  Trust.  Wait.  Patience.

"Already There" by Casting Crowns.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from my little turkey to you!

Lots to be thankful for this year, but I still can't help thinking back to those Thanksgivings that were hard...the one soon after our 1st miscarriage, the one at the beginning of our IF journey, the one before my PCOS diagnosis, etc.  For those of you that find it hard to be thankful this year, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he IS good; his love endures forever."  Psalm 107:1 (emphasis mine)