Thank you Jesus!!

My New Normal 3 Thank you Jesus!

So I went and got a job; subbing for a wonderful school district – the one we live in as well. I tried to get a teaching job and discovered that people with 12 years experience and a master’s degree are not likely to get hired because they cost too much. By subbing, I could back ease into the working world and let Sloane get used to daycare.

Before I even applied for the job, I made sure Sloane had good, experienced childcare. We hired (by verbal contract) a family friend who had watched other kids we know and they all love her. She was a smoking deal price wise and flexible with hours. It was a dream come true! I applied for the job, had an interview and was hired in less than a week (much, much faster than I imagined). Thank you Jesus!! I then called our childcare provider to let her know when we would be starting with her. She then told me she decided to retire and would not be able to watch Sloane. WHAT!! DO!! YOU!! MEAN??? I was screaming inside, but I was polite and wished her well, hung up, and had a mild panic attack. 

I called Matt, let him know and he gave me some wise advice, “Call my mom, she may know of someone who can help.” Mom did in fact know of someone and gave me the names of a few decent daycare centers. Under her advice and Matt’s I called a family/church friend who used to run an in-home day care who graciously agreed to watch Sloane until we could find something permanent. Thank you Jesus!!

Next came several hours of web searches, phone calls, and number crunching.  My heart was breaking when I would find a great place only to find out they opened later than we needed and closed way too early. We were put onto two waiting lists in our top two choices. Then a spot became available, then possibly another. Thank you Jesus!!

I seriously wanted to break down and cry several times this week, then I was reminded about what I prayed in the days before my interview, “God,  if you want me to have this job, have them make an offer, if not I will know.” They offered me the job 20 minutes into the interview.

If God was going to provide the job, HE would also help us find the best place for Sloane.

We are visiting both centers on Friday. If you have a chance, say a prayer for us, that the best place for Sloane has an opening. Thank you and thank you Jesus!!

My New Normal

The New Normal

I never considered myself  materialistic, sure, I like nice things and can tell the difference between a name brand a fake from a mile away, but me, materialistic? No way! I am a “good” Christian woman who hasn’t been to a mall in months, carry a backpack as a purse/diaper bag, and wear my shoes until they have no soles left. I have learned many things in the past two years, one of the biggest lessons has been “It is just stuff.” What follows is how I learned that lesson and what it is still teaching me today.

We have moved four times in the past two years. No, we are not nomads, world travelers, or eccentrics.  The funny thing is that we never planned on moving. When we moved into our house in 2008, we both said that we were not moving again. As the saying goes, “People Plan, God Laughs.” Fast forward two years, my husband Matt and I are both out of work and we needed to sell the house. Thus, the first move was to clear out our house to get it on the market while Matt looked for a job and I became a stay at home mom; we moved in with my in laws. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I married into a wonderful family that understands “life changes” better than any other group of people I know. My MIL made space for us in her home, we put most of our belongings into storage, fanned the rest out to family who had space to spare, and waited. That was late March. In May, Matt got a job. In South Carolina. You should know he travels for work, so having him work out of state is unusual. He leaves Monday morning and comes home Thursday night. We have had this set up since we met, it doesn’t make marriage any easier being apart four days a week, but, we know how to work with it.

 I am digressing… in June, Matt was able to work out a deal with his employer to move us to S.C. while he works there. They saved on travel expenses and we got to be together. We really like South Carolina, the weather is mild, the winter is not too bad (compared with MO winters), and the people are friendly. Matt was scheduled to be in S.C. for about a year. Around May, I started applying for jobs in MO. We moved back into my in laws in June, hoping I would find a teaching job. We have discovered that experience and education doesn’t always make you more desirable to employers.  We considered moving other places, prayed about it, and decided to stay in MO and I would continue to stay home with our daughter. So once again, we moved, into our newest home, a lovely townhouse.

Remember me telling you about putting our stuff into storage? We realized we had way too much stuff (we had a four bedroom house) than we could fit into our new place. So, we trekked down to the unit and started to sort out what we needed and what we didn’t. What did we find? We had lots of clothes we never wore, too many kitchen supplies, a few broken treasures and spiders. They seemed to love the dark space. We quickly learned to wear gloves when moving and unpacking boxes, just in case. To combat the spider infestation, yes, it was that bad, we used a bug fogger to be sure we were not moving any new tenants into our new home.

Then we found mold. Yes, mold. Turns out our unit had a bit of a moisture issue, and not in a good way. The thing about mold is that it doesn’t care what it grows on, as long as it can grow. Little did we know, this mold loved our stuff. As we sorted through box after box of things we thought we couldn’t live without (like my leather jacket), I started to find my self saying, “It’s just stuff, Kim, it is just stuff.” We had to throw away some pricey items, like two mattresses, box springs and a roll top desk. Matt took it all in stride, I think because he knew we wouldn’t have to move the stuff again, just find a dumpster for it all. 

As I started to unpack, knowing I would have to wash all the clothes because of the bug fogger, I found more mold and mildew. Once again, I found myself lugging boxes of clothes to the trash mumbling, “It is just stuff, it is just stuff…” We found mold inside dressers, on TV trays, in our daughter’s changing table. Now instead of a simple unpack from yet another move, I was going to be doing a full on scrub down of everything we owned. “It is just stuff…it is just stuff.”  

Matt didn’t get upset when we threw away his leather gloves, pairs of jeans, hats, and scarves. What got to him? His plasma TV, damaged in the move, rendered totally useless. When we discovered it had broken, he took a deep breath and said, “That hurts God.”  He wasn’t furious, just ticked off – as most men would be when their 42 inch plasma TV dies an unexpected death.

Two weeks after moving in the laundry is finally done (took two weeks to get it done), the furniture is scrubbed and vacuumed (spiders), and only two boxes remain unpacked. Do I anticipate throwing more stuff away? Yes. Am I used to those walks to the dumpster? No. Is it getting easier? Yes. It is becoming my new normal…