Beauty in the Mess ~ Edition 05.16.13

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Many people have asked me how our family is adjusting to the move and all of the transitions we have gone through, so let me give a little update here.

Things have gone so well. My husband really seems to enjoy his new job, although it’s been very overwhelming for him at times. He has had some anxiety with the transition (the first week especially), but over time has been able to relax and enjoy the new work environment. He is still in training, and sometime in the next week or two he will be done with a training schedule, and his shift will change by a few hours. This will, ultimately, be a better schedule for our family – as he will get home earlier in the day and it will be closer to what we were used to in the Army, but it will be yet another adjustment.

Ezra did very well with the move. He loves and thanks Jesus for “our new home” all the time and he has been extremely resilient. We have had NO sleeping problems – he’s been going to bed between 8-8:30PM and waking up about 6:50 every morning, just a few minutes before our alarm goes off to get Russ off for work! He has also made huge strides in potty training and is in big-boy underwear except for naps and nighttime, although he’s not accident-free yet. He did have about two weeks of a lot of tantrums which I attributed to “settling” into a new routine, on top of hitting a growth spurt, on top of hitting the more difficult stage of the months between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3, which is a difficult adjustment for any small child.

As for me, I’m so happy here. I love the area, all of the options for shopping – I love our apartment, which has proved to be much more roomy than I could have expected, even for downsizing! Our complex is quiet and our unit is on the back side of our building which offers shade and coolness from the heat. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve made a few new acquaintances and tried to immerse myself in the community as quickly as possible.

The biggest struggle for me, personally, is sheer exhaustion.  Continue reading →

One month home

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As of today, we have lived in our new home for exactly one month, and have been here in our new hometown just a few days beyond that.

In so many ways our life in Kentucky…our Army life…seems like a different lifetime ago. It feels like we have been here forever.

And other times it seems like it was just a few days ago that we were moving in.

It’s been a busy month…full of unpacking, getting out, and jumping into new things. I have close to 50 photos to share with all of you readers, so am going to try to catch up over the course of the next three (or so) posts over the next week or so.

So, here’s some of the things that have kept us busy:

Visiting LOTS of new parks.

01 park time Continue reading →

The chaos of moving and settling in

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The day that we moved into our new apartment was probably the most difficult and hectic day of the entire moving process.

We had hoped that the movers would deliver our household goods on Saturday, as Russ was supposed to start his new job on the following Monday. Unfortunately, they had some issues with their truck and had to take the weekend for repairs, which meant that Monday would also be the day our things arrived.

My mother-in-law was also still out of town, so I didn’t really have many options as far as local help.

It was all on me.

I tried to be resourceful. I found an hourly daycare close-by where I could send Ezra for the morning. The movers said they would arrive between 0800 and 1000. I knew that they were rarely on time, and Russ didn’t have to be at work until 1000, so I made the childcare reservation for 0900-1300–knowing that at least one of us could take the time to drop him off, even if the movers were there.

I dropped Ezra off at the daycare, saw Russ off to work, then sat down on the floor of our empty apartment and waited.

And waited. Continue reading →

The days in between

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We arrived in North Carolina six days before our household goods did.

It was a long six days. It was nice because we weren’t having to spend money for a hotel – we got to stay with my in-laws. But my mother-in-law was out of town, and her husband was working, so it was a little bit lonely during the days. We arrived around midnight on Tuesday night, and got the keys to our apartment on Thursday morning. But it was just an empty apartment.

I kept trying to find reasons to go over to our apartment–things like lining the shelves with shelf paper, buying toilet paper, and moving over some of the things we had brought with us in the cars. Continue reading →

The difference once choice could have made {some final thoughts on six years in the Army}

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It’s within an hour of midnight on the evening of our last official day in the Army. I just finished watching about three straight hours of science fiction television, and even at the lowest setting, this screen is too bright for my over-tired eyes.

I was lying in bed with the remnants of that last episode of Doctor Who swirling around in my head…of alternate realities and the way that one choice of one ordinary woman – the choice to turn right instead of left – impacted the entire universe. And then I remembered again that our last day was coming to a close.

My thoughts then went back to a pivotal moment in my life.

I was only 21.

Continue reading →

Saying goodbye and closing the door

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Our movers were gone, along with our household goods. Our landlady had just pulled away after inspecting our home. Ezra was asleep on the living room floor.

We made several trips in and out of the car putting all of our last-minute items in the car. We were ready to get on the road.

We woke Ezra up so that he could say goodbye to his next-door-neighbor friend Jaxson:

moving16 Continue reading →

Moving Days: garbage dumpsters, packing, pizza, goodbyes, magic erasers, and more

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Moving Day 1 dawned lovely, warm, and sunny. We woke up around 6am because the movers had said they would be there between 8 and 9 am. I was scurrying around trying to stuff all of our “do not pack” items into a closet so they wouldn’t get packed by the packers.

When the Army pays to move you from one location to another, you really have it easy. You don’t have to pack your boxes or worry about boxes falling off of the dolly. They do everything. The only thing you have to worry about is them packing stuff that you need to take with you. Continue reading →