We Did It!

The move is over.  Actually, it's been over for some time.  We arrived in Virginia on August 1 and are slowly getting unpacked and settled.  Mark really enjoys the school he is teaching at and gets along great with his fellow teachers. There are several other new teachers in the biology department and that has helped -- they all pitch in to help each other out and they get along great.  He tells funny stories about their lunchtime conversations all the time.  I'm glad he's enjoying his new job.  Brie is doing great in middle school and is at the top of her class in pretty much every subject.  She has some really good teachers and a teacher or two who are not quite as good.  As seems to be the case every year, there is always one teacher that is problematic and this year is no exception.  But other than that I think she really likes her new school.  She is playing on the volleyball team and has fallen in love with the sport.  She seems to have a natural ability for it and really enjoys it.  I find that I prefer being a "volleyball mom" over a "soccer mom"...mostly since volleyball is played indoors so we don't have to worry about either roasting or freezing outdoors during her games!  Alyssa is at BYU and making the adjustment to being a college student.  We miss her terribly and the entire experience has not been without growing pains (for all of us) but we know that she will be successful.  She has a wonderful roommate and is close to lots of family, which is nice.  She has enjoyed the football games, even though the football season isn't having the win-loss outcome we would hope for.  My job is ok...I'm doing something different from anything I've ever done before and, truth be told, I'm not really loving my current rotation.  But in another 10 months or so I'll rotate into something else that is more similar to what I really love doing and all will be well.  I am learning a lot, and that's good.  I don't love my commute, though.  It would be fine if I could read on the bus but, sadly, I get motion sickness very easily and just can't do it.  So in the mornings I listen to uplifting music and on the way home I get my fill of show tunes and Broadway musicals.  :-)  I have to get up at 5 am and leave the house by 6 am and I get home just a few minutes after 6 pm.  As a result I am constantly and chronically tired and I miss having more time with my family.  But I have some great coworkers and it all manages to work out.

We are getting settled in our home and have finally finished buying furniture to fill it.  Now it's just a matter of getting pictures up on the walls and finding places to keep everything.  It's been a long time since we've had stairs in our home and going up and down stairs all the time is helping to keep us all in shape.

It is definitely fall here.  The trees are blazing with gorgeous red, orange, and yellow leaves.  The colors are so incredibly vibrant.  It won't be long until winter sets in, and "the locals" are telling us to expect a long, hard winter.  Apparently the Farmer's Almanac is calling for a long, hard winter and, according to at least one person, the incredible abundance of acorns all over the place mean it will be a long, hard winter.  We'll see if that turns out to be the case.  I am hoping it is not!  We need to buy winter coats and boots...we have found that our Georgia "winter" gear is really more appropriate for fall here.  There has already been one morning that we had to scrape frost/ice off the car windows.

One of the things I have made a tradition of since we moved here is going to the local farmer's market on Saturday mornings.  Yes, the produce is (usually) more expensive than the grocery store, but it is SO much better.  And we have tried so many new varieties of tomatoes!  I never knew there were so many kinds out there!  This week we are trying green zebra striped tomatoes (no, they're not green as in unripe -- they're green and fully ripe!).  One of our favorites is "chocolate tomatoes" (named that because of their color, not their flavor) as well as brandywine pink tomatoes.  We've had tie dye tomatoes which are yellow and pinkish/red on the outside *and* on the inside.  Lots and lots of varieties of tomatoes and my goal is to try them all.  :-)  Now that it's fall apples are in season and we have fallen in love with locally grown honeycrisp apples.  We've tried freshly made local mozzarella cheese (well, Mark and Brie tried it!) and Mark even tried (and loved) banana salsa.  Yes, salsa with bananas in it.  No one liked it but him.  LOL

We love our new ward at church.  People have been so warm and welcoming.  Mark is serving as a Primary teacher, Brie was just called as the Beehive class president and I am serving as a RS teacher and ward missionary.  I bet you never expected to see my name in conjunction with those titles!  LOL  Honestly, I never expected those callings (and didn't want them).  But I am finding that I appear to be slowly recovering from my "allergy" to Relief Society.  It helps that our ward has the most incredible RS President.  She is truly amazing and inspirational and I learn something from her every time I hear her speak or give a lesson.  If I can grow up to be even a little like Sis. Tagg I will consider myself to be a success.

My goal is to add blogging to my Sunday afternoon routine that currently includes working on dinner and indexing.  Hopefully I can be better about updating so you can all keep up-to-date on what's happening with us!

Door Knobs and Drawer Pulls and Hinges, Oh My!

An update on this week's adventures in moving preparations.... -Why is cabinet hardware so expensive? And why can't door hinges for cabinets be universal? Because changing out hinges is such a huge hassle (as we learned when Mark refinished the vanity in the master bathroom), we decided to leave the hinges as they are in the kitchen and just replace the cabinet door knobs and drawer pulls with something in some sort of antique bronze or hammered bronze or something that would go with the old looking hinges. It has been a real effort to find something that would work. Mark finally found something that will do. No what I would use if we were staying here, but at this point in time it's the best we can find. Cabinet hardware is SO expensive. It's crazy to pay that much for a cabinet door knob. -And speaking of door knobs, I wanted to change out all of our door knobs throughout the house to brushed nickel or satin nickel but the price for that was crazy, too -- $400 if we had purchased everything through eBay. At this point in time, with the discouraging price forecast for our honme, I'm just not able to spend $400 on door knobs. And, of course, switching out the door knobs would have meant also switching out the hinges.... -The dining room is now painted and looks like a generic dining room. We had a beautiful cranberry color on the bottom half of the walls. It is now gone. The girls' bathroom is now painted -- no more aqua blue. Now it's the same tan color the rest of the house will be. It looks so strange and impersonal to me. I am looking for a new light fixture for their bathroom. -Mark re-popcorned the ceiling in the master bathroom yesterday and he did a great job. It's nice being married to a handyman!! -We met with the realtor again and she has done a downward adjustment on what she thinks we can quickly sell the house for. We will be lucky to break even. I need to get in touch with the government relocation program office to ask more questions about closing costs and things like that. If it turns out that we're going to lose money if we sell, we will probably just try to rent the house for a while instead. *Sigh* -My husband is now unemployed. STRESS! We are hoping to hear very soon from one of the several school districts he has applied to. We know we are supposed to make this move and so I am trying hard to hold onto my faith and to hope and not get discouraged, but it is hard at times. The tears have flowed on more than one occasion. But we will press forward and hope and pray for the best. -I really need a trip to the beach but won't be able to do that until the house is on the market. I'm so in need of some beach time!

Remind Me Why I'm Doing This....?????

The next time I get the hare-brained idea to apply for a job that will require me to move my family 750 miles away, sell our home, start a new job, and look for a new job for my husband, please knock me over the head with a 2x4, because maybe -- just maybe -- that will knock some sense into me. Actually, I'm going to blame this one my Mark and Dad who seem to have really pushed the idea. Dad, are you trying to get rid of us? I am trying so hard to have faith but there are times, like this very moment, when it's so very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. As of May 30 my husband will be unemployed, since he is leaving a perfectly good, stable, secure teaching job so we can move. Not only is he leaving his teaching job, but giving up the opportunity to be head boys basketball coach at the school where he teaches -- something he has wanted to be as long as I have known him. I am having a pessimistic moment. We have SO much work to do to get this house ready to sell. We have SO much work to do to get this house ready for my in-laws' visit -- and they arrive tomorrow. No sleep for me tonight. I have been having some health issues and saw my orthopedic surgeon today to get some test results. They don't look good. In the big scheme of things it's not horrific, but right now it's just not good. I will be seeing a rheumatologist in the near future, I suppose, for further testing and hopefully a diagnosis. Rheumatoid arthritis is a definite possibility, along with other joint problems. My husband does not have a job where we are going. We have moved like this before -- with him not having a job lined up before we moved -- and it worked out fine, as he is wont to remind me regularly as I have these pessimistic moments. But I would feel so much better about things if the school district there would at least call and schedule an interview for him. Just something to give me a little hope on that front. Alyssa is graduating from high school on Saturday. And the tears are already starting. I'm not ready for this. I haven't done enough to prepare her for the real world. I haven't done enough to prepare her to live on her own. I'm stressed about paying for the expenses that her scholarships won't cover (but in good news, she received another $1000 scholarship this week). There is so much to do right now, and just not enough time to get it done. Although I am continually blessed with answered prayers, the one prayer that has not been answered is my prayer for more hours in a day, less need for sleep, and more strength and energy to do the things that really, truly must be done ASAP. Oh, and did I mention that I have to speak in church on Sunday? And haven't had a chance to start writing my talk yet? And that I'm also playing the piano for seminary graduation Sunday night, where Alyssa will be singing in a group number? Yeah, I think it will be rather difficult to see the sheet music through the tears. Here's a word of advice -- just leave well enough alone. Maybe "good enough" is just that -- good enough. But on the other hand, there is a huge world of adventure out there just waiting for us...if we can just manage to hold on long enough to get there.

Projects for this Weekend....

Now that it looks like our move date is more official (we will leave here on or about July 29 or 30), it is really time to get to work on preparing for this move. The biggest job is getting the house ready to sell. Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am for a husband who is truly a handy man? There are very few home repairs that he cannot do. Evidence: He fixed our broken dryer a couple of weeks ago and he is now waiting on a part to fix our broken washer. He has spent countless hours stripping and preparing our bathroom ceiling to be re-popcorned. He has been working in the yard and on all sorts of other little projects. He stripped and painted the vanity in our master bathroom. We are going to be painting several rooms in the house and he can do that...we are going to put down new flooring in the kitchen and he can do that. It's so nice to be able to save money on those kinds of things! We are meeting with a realtor tomorrow to talk about what we need to do to get the house ready to go on the market. We already know we need to clean, paint, put in a new kitchen floor and countertops, declutter, get as much stuff out of the house as possible, and spruce up the flower beds and things like that. But we want the realtor to give us suggestions on paint colors and any other "quick fixes" we can do (inexpensively) to get the house ready to go on the market. We can't put the house on the market until I have my PCS orders, and that could be the end of next week. We won't have everything done by then, obviously, but we are hoping to at least get a good start. A huge blessing in our lives -- my sister Melissa and her husband Bryan. They're coming here in early June and have promised to spend lots of their time helping us with the house. We are so grateful that they are willing to give up some of their summer vacation time to help us! So the projects for tonight and tomorrow morning are as follows: -Clean the kitchen, clear the counters and top of the stove, and around the computer desk. -Clean the living room, dining room, hallway, and bathrooms, including dusting and vacuuming really well. -Pick up the girls' bedrooms (easier said than done for Alyssa since she's in New York City for a few days! I think I'll just put everything on her floor in a big box and she can deal with it when she gets home.) -Pick up our bedroom. Also on the list for this weekend -- addressing Alyssa's graduation announcements and getting those in the mail. And submitting some job applications online for Alyssa. We have got to find that girl a job! Here's hoping we have a productive weekend!