Ideals to Life

It has been just shy of a month since I last posted and I find myself a little unsure as to where to begin. Winds of Change have been blowing through the life of my little family. I’m very tired, but peaceful and happy with the direction in which we are moving.

To preface a little bit, my husband quit his full time job back in November and began to work for himself. It is a change that has been on our hearts for a long time and, while everything didn’t unfold exactly like we had originally planned (it never does), the change has been a great one for him and our family. He has done really well for himself and I am so proud of him. I also really love having him work from home, as do our kids. It has been a great change for our family.

The working transition was one we expected to happen about the time we made an out-of-state move that has been on our hearts for more than a year and a half now. However, after six months on the market last year, our house didn’t sell. As we approached the holidays, we felt led to temporarily take the house off the market and focus on making the initial transition with Scott’s work while we are still here in Tennessee. What followed was a couple of quiet months of rest here. I didn’t have to stress about keeping the house clean, we spent time with friends, and focused on Scott’s work transition and on our family. Looking back, we needed that to prepare us for what was ahead.

A little over a month ago (the same time that I stopped blogging), we relisted our house with a new realtor and a fresh start. We were optimistic that it would sell quickly this time, but we were unprepared for the whirlwind of the next two weeks. In 15 days, we had 14 showings, 1 open house, 2 offers, and 1 contract. With showings nearly every day, and two on others, my life became about survival. It was absolutely wonderful to have Scott around this time to help with that last 30 minute mad-dash cleanup (and even just for moral support), but it also really interrupted his work routine.

To make things even more interesting, we found out the day after we relisted the house that we are unexpectedly pregnant! We love having babies, so we were excited. But to be honest, the timing was a little hard. Pregnancies are hard for me. I am very sick during the first trimester and beyond (with Kaelynn, it was 18 weeks) and even after that, pregnancy usually isn’t a walk in the park for me. I knew that going through my first trimester while selling our house and moving would make it even more of an adventure. So we just prayed that the house would sell quickly and I spent time resting when I could between cleaning and showings.

The real excitement about the pregnancy has come since we had our first ultrasound this week. We saw the baby moving and it had a good, steady heartbeat! I am about 9 weeks along now and am due during the first half of October. Samuel is beyond excited and talks constantly about the baby or kisses my tummy. Kaelynn is a little too young to really understand what is happening. She adores babies, though, and I have no doubt that she will love being a big sister.

Back to our move, our current closing date put us moving mid April. I will confess to you that I have not yet packed a single box. I think the reason is a mixture of disbelief and nausea. I have a tentative plan for packing, but I can never seem to get past doing the laundry.

That said, we are really excited about this move, this new beginning for our family, the possibilities in front of us, and the new life growing inside of me. The Winds of Change are blowing and we feel God’s presence around us.