Creating A Joyful Place

    I remember it well.....the day my husband said "that's it, we'll face bankruptcy or what have you but for now we need you at home taking care of your mother and our children"  ...and I thought he meant financial bankruptcy..
  Somehow it never occured to me to come home.   I enjoyed teaching, though my personality and lack of organizational skills made it an infinite challenge at times....to those of us who do not deal in details gradebooks can be a true challenge....however the actual teaching I loved and the interaction with the students as they developed.
    Coming home at first wasn't much differnt for me, it was still a hurried, frenzied pace of strive to cover it all  with mom and with children at home and going to bed exhausted.  Stresses with principals had changed to the stress of watching one's mother die up close and personal....with someone who woud not allow alot of personal involvement in the process.  My mother was an amazing woman, even in death, but moreover she was a private woman, even in death.  Almost three years have passed from that experience, yet those months are pristinely crisp in my mind....weeks of moments where I thought we'd share something of her dying, but realizing later she didn't wish to....and simply taking care of what had to be done without interfering with her desire to live life as usual until she didn't.
     About the time I recovered from the blow of her death, my husband left for Iraq for a half year.  As a stepmom/mom of four I had my hands full, add to that a 17 miles commute to one of their schools and now homeschooling another, it was a full year.   I learned more about life outside the classroom and working world, though I worked about six jobs to make up for the one paycheck I was no longer earning. However paychecks of the heart were indeed being paid as I grew closer to the children, they could rely more upon me for comfort things such as cookies and time alone on bad days, that before I could not have been there for since I was still at school.
     The next year brought so many changes with Mom gone, my Dad and I had a peculiar rebirth in our relationship.  I was perhaps the convenient choice, and I tried to be helpful and yet allow him to grow into independence at home.  He grew indeed and added a new wife by the end of the year.  ...which sent me to home again more full time, except when, of course both of them needed something.
     Money was always a precarious thing as we learned to deal with one income. We managed to pay off most of what we owed the first two years and dh even managed to buy a truck on year three....his first new one ever.  By year three step parenting was beginning to fall out of the category for scariest thing ever back to this is now the norm.....a new norm that involved daily at least one child having complete disregard for you if not outright resentment over your presence in his life....yet emotionally so needy that you had to love him for he so needed to be loved.
     Year five brought another trip to a foreign country.  Dh was in Kuwait and I was in the foreign world of boys in high school participating in ball and band. That meant three nights a week somewhere between the other two nights a week in church...and two to recover and wash everything they dirtied. Oh My Gosh. The times were good and hard and everything in between. We took them and viewed them much as a girls group followes a band...squealing and ahhhing at their achievements.
   This year we've moved to a new territory....a new state some 8 hours from our last home, leaving the rural home for a city urban one and finding out that indeed it is very expensive to live in the city. The mortgage isn't the issue, its the cost of literally eating.....and then the assumptions that city kids have that they must "do" weekly....movies....time out with friends....dinners out....that our children won't be doing....or at least not often....its a simple equation. We cannot afford it. One is old enough to work and earn his way, unfortunately he cannot over his school schedule if he is to graduate, the other not old enough to do it. The littlest one in reverie that there are girls on the same street to bike, befriend and enjoy.
    Coming home......three years into it now, heading into my fourth.....what I am fighting is not financial bankruptcy, but bankruptcy of my goals, my dreams, my desires for adult life......or am I?  Has it all been pushed aside or has it simply somehow been realigned as to what it is I want now....
    That is the focus for me this week, this year.....redefining what I view success as....what I define as meaningful existence.....who I will choose to be loyal to....who I will choose to continue reaching out to and be a part of their lives.....what I will define as enjoyable.....reasonable....required......or what will be set aside as no longer a part of my personal pictorial of musts in life.

   
   

The email said "you are in fact, the top candidate Mr Berry, however at this time management has removed the position from our hire list."

essentially....you're a good man Charlie Brown, but no thanks.

There is more out there and now we will join hundreds of others facing downsizing and wait to see what God has in store.

  Home again home again. Jiggidy jagged. I am exhausted and saddened that we still have a waiting period on the move/not to move. 
  It is so hard to know what is right for our family....we have pretty much agreed that it is time to return to the city or at least nearer it.......but it is a serious decision. We want to vest our life somewhere for a long time....the choices are endless...nearer family, nearer better jobs, nearer debt freedom if we go more rural, nearer.......
  Do we long for what doesn't exist or does it exist only if we go to it? Our world is happy here if isolated, but are we allowing the children the best situation to allow for them to have a good start?
   Dh is hurting, his shoulder messed up.  I am hurting, but more on regrets of my past than present misfortune.  I feel I cost our family so much by my choices 15 years ago.
  and then the reality is that my life has almost everything perfect in the big picture of the world.....

tiredness.

It changes perspectives

and makes the world a darker place.

   The week has been amazingly hard.  We have had so much change in so little time.  The house, as if cued, groaned with the news that it may be sold.  I am not a good mechanic, yet everything has required me to do so. ...I still have a bathtub that won't drain, a sink that squirts water like a waterworks show and a light on in the van I have no idea what means.
    Personally I am thrilled at the prospect of Texas again, yet I know how much is on the line financially if we have to go and the house isn't sold or rented out. We've done this with the OK house and I know just how costly it is to own two.   My teaching license is indeed Master teacher and lifetime in four areas. I checked with the agency this week to verify its still "on go" if I need to work.
    The children surprise me with unanimous agreement to want to move and to pray for it.  They are resilient yet sad too.  We just spent four years getting our lives together financially and this move threatens to put us back to square one again.
   Les was so thrilled with the care package from Bruce and Ann. That made his day and I am thankful for that too.  So much is awful there, anything that brightens his day helps.
   Today I am wiped out physically and emotionally. I hope that the day brings rest and a new start tomorrow. The children are all home this week, we will come to Dallas next weekend during Chase's birthday weekend and hopefully have a better grip on the housing market.
 

  The weekend was long.  I had company all day Friday and Saturday, I left the house at 6 this morning, delivered Father's Day to two grandfather's, one stepgrandfather and one ex inlaw grandfather enroute to Oklahoma with my oldest son....the drove 12 hours today and came home to company again (unexpectedly) and dinner for 7 .  i just wanted to collapse.  I installed 3 window units after the upstairs units failed and the wait for a unit is over a month in our rural area.  What another hard experience for me to learn on a fast term curve....
    The electric fence isn't holding in the lab, so tomorrow I have to reset it lower.  LJ didn't follow directions by me, so its frustrating to know it could have been done right the first time if he'd of listened.
  i have 4 child free days coming up. its time.

I may end up driving to McKinney to pick up a bed enroute to Tulsa.   another ebay find if I win it.  The closest to it is $500 and this one is $55 so far!

its late and I'm exhausted.  Happy Father's Day to everyone

  One can never underestimate the ongoing amounts of laundry 3 children and two of their friends generate.

   Its our anniversary.  Five years to be exact.  Five years into a third marriage no one thought was wise....perhaps not even me....but has returned the most precious five years of my life. The happiest, the everpresent companionship, the loyalty, the joy, the partnering in ways I never knew existed.  I am thankful  One of the most meaningful moments when my mom, on her dying day....told my husband how much she loved him for who he had allowed me to become...and who he was as a man..
   I am alone at home today with the children.  He is in Kuwait.  It is difficult to know that he is there today.

   Yesterday was not a red letter day. The upstairs unit died.  Full blown cardiac and its not recoverable.  The repairman said we were lucky it didn't burn down the house. Its 99 degrees here already today.   Money, as always, is a concern as the estimate for replacement is two thousand or more, but worse than that, timelines say at least a week to get it done.  A month from now, there would be no issue, but we have yet to receive a paycheck since his deployment.  The children will leave on the 20th, but for 7 days we will camp downstairs...

     The dogs think that the downstairs campout has ties to groupies gathering to watch the midnight zing races they happen to participate in and the knowledge gives them flights of fancy faster than their usual....

    Son2 arrived home from basketball camp in Missouri only alert long enough to tell us he had an amazing time and then passed out from exhaustion of 20 games in 3.5 days.....a smile on his face.....

  Son1 took his first after dark drive into the next town to go to his youth directors home......and felt so grown.

    It is a long week for me.  The house mourns for my husband, the sink gave up its washer.....the bathroom needed a new washer.....this horrid a/c situation......a weed eater broke its plug in sadness for his departure.....I, a non mechanical wife, am having to slug through the internet to repair what I can or live without for five more months.

 Its hard to live without a kitchen sink.

This weekend lonely, had hoped to be somewhere else doing something else....but it didn't work out that way.



    
   
    
   

   Yesterday was long and cumberson waiting to hear that Dh had landed safely then hearing in his voice how exhausted he was and the conditions were less than our previous experience.  eighteen hours of wait for 45 seconds of sound.
    Children's library is tomorrow and I've got the day lined out. Today I rest.  Mondays are usually work and clean days at the house, but I'm all in this morning after being up until 2 again and then awoken at 4:30 by a second 30 second phone call...  the children are asleep so i have finished my rounds of work online and can return to bed. 
  The boys (two puppies) are quite the fellows and don't understand why I am tired, for they are ready to play.
The backyard intrigues them with its birds, garden and occasional bunny...
 however this morning their romp will have to be shortened and quietly back inside where they may dream of bunnies, squirrels and assorted flowers that they always take time to sniff.
   Another neighbor died Saturday.  We live in a virtual geriatric ward.  How sad for us to lose another grand lady.  My daughter visits with all of them daily and will particularly be saddened over this one. She had the joy of driving her golf cart daily to get the mail with her downtown.  A precious friendship between 90 and 10 year old girls.
    Son2 is enjoying basketball camp and has called in to say the all important food line is indeed excellent which had weighed heavily on his 13 year old mind.
.....
such are life's important things.....

Current Mood: tired

    My husband is flying into Kuwait today as a member of the DCMA DoD group.  While this is not our first overseas jaunt, its the first I've felt uneasy about.  I believe that we're to be where we are in the Middle East for reasons that few agree with, but its simple for Dh and I,....its his belief that we are needed there, that his superior has asked him there, and we are tremendously in belief that its something he is to do.  
     Church was quiet today.  We attend a sleep little United Methodist church that has more 80+ year olds than young people. There is a wealth of life lessons in every Sunday mornings discussions in this Sunday school, much less the lesson.  Today we celebrated a 92 year old's return after his first trip ever to the hospital for a minor surgury. He told us like a boy home from his first camp experience of the wonders and marvels of being a patient in a modern hospital, a place he'd never visited much less been a party to.  We are thankful for the care and its success.
     The children play quietly and I am quietly fighting the thoughts that something is wrong, for Dh has not called in and its several hours past check in time...

Edit 1:27....he's safely there!  Praise God....now the real work begins!

     We have a joint blog on xanga where our family life is very open to those enquiring minds who want to know, but this place, this is my space, my thoughts, my paths.....such as they are.
   Where else will you be able to find me?  This rural town is a long long way from anywhere but its path has definately led me to somewhere in a happy marriage, good mothering and enough laundry to make me a gold medalist.  This journey to me is always changing, from teacher to mother to divorced single mom to remarried with stepchildren....and I am thankful for all its lessons....and hope to continue to learn.
    The scene as we find it?  Forty two, working from home, three still in the nest, 17, 14, 11...one on her own in Oklahoma. at 22.  Dear husband newly deployed for round two in the war, this time to Kuwait.  He's not military, he's government which narrows down to taxes, six month hitches and alot less protection on him to fend for himself.
Four dogs, 1 cat and a host of neighborhood children who come daily to the mom who stays at home to work, but manages to always say come on, we'll manage.... and has unending koolaide by the basketball goal.
     Today's excitement is that Son2 is leaving for Basketball camp to Missouri, a mere 9 hours away. He's excited for the trip as are we...for the small one has ideas that brothers just don't fit into.  While son1 will still be here, he works so that leaves the girls alone for the evenings and for that we are both excited.  Later today we pick up yet another new family member, a new black and white kitten, to go with the now two black and white puppies.....what exactly are we thinking?  We also have the big dogs, two labs who live in the backyard in the jungle of their own imaginings.  Its a zoo I say, but truly, you're only little once and she's at the stage that still thinks pets are her world and I'm all about indulging that in this small town, for they are the best friends available most days.
     Farmers market is open today, so its time to enjoy the fresh fair until our own small garden is ready for the picking.
Have an awesome Saturday
Sweets
Here are a few of the couch potatoes at our house (can you say tv at home after 4 years of not?)


That's them, the three ath ome....not to mention the two dogs in the backyard doing jail time over tearing up the garden...
  Sadie and Caleb can commiserate with Paris....its not the luxorious deck with regular hand feedings from the children grilling  they prefer....

Current Mood: cheerful