do it yourself

the days are getting closer to when we make our big trip up north to move into our tiny old house. i'm so excited about having our own place with yard, deck, and basement. it will be so much fun to fix up little things here and there, too. our landlord is letting us paint whatever we want, which is WELL needed. it has a few kinks and quirks here and there, but with a little TLC and our own stuff in there, i think it will end up to be quite charming.

our new place has inspired us to create some new projects. so this last weekend, i made a headboard for our bed. SO much cheaper than an actual bed, and quite creative..which i love. it was dad's idea, of course, but i picked out the apholstery fabric, etc. we all helped put it together and it turned out pretty stinkin' awesome. SO easy, now that i know how to do it. and i paid less than $60 for the whole project! it will look great against our newly painted walls in our Indiana bedroom. we all felt pretty HGTVish when we were finished. I'll put up pictures when we get up there and it's all put together.

well, this week has been a lot of sitting in the office, wondering what i should be doing. i feel like i'd be more productive at home, trying to wrap things up for the move. nonetheless, i have to finish out my time here and do my best. (that's why i'm blogging....?)

cheers.

on the road again...

so now that it's official that we're moving to Anderson, it's been a crazy few days trying to think of everything we need to get done between now and then. we only have a few weeks left in Yorktown, and we haven't even started packing. oh wait, i put all my cookbooks and our DVD's in a box. that counts. i'm dreading having to move, since it feels like we JUST did it and this time, it's not as easy as moving in/out of college, where all you do is make sure your stuff is somewhat secure in several laundry baskets, and usually fold up your bedding and stick it in the passenger seat next to you. now, we have actual furniture to load, dishes to protect, etc. AND it's going to be february. in indiana.

my parents and sarah are coming up with us to help make the trip, since we'll be driving our 2 vehicles plus a Uhaul. it will take us at least 12 hours, the usual length of the trip without anything to slow you down. like weather. or Uhauls. or little sisters with unbelievably tiny bladders.

i'm having a blockage of creative posting abilities at the moment, so i'll just give you a brief update on life as it is right now:

we just returned from a short weekend in Indiana for the final congregational vote: passed.
tim's parents have offered to start painting our new house for us before we arrive: awesome.
my littlest sister has been accepted to college and is turning 18 in less than a week: weird.
i'm preparing myself for job hunting again, which includes applying to schools: hopefully not as bad as i think.

oh yeah, and we're going to start looking for a puppy to add to our family, now that we have a place that will be great for a dog. how excited am i!?

more like escape TO endless Mellencamp

so we're moving to Anderson, Indiana.

there, i said it. now those readers who have been wondering why the last few posts have been so vague or unsure...there. make sense?

it's been a long process of lightly treading on ground since we didn't even hold any "for sure" decisions for us. we were at a place in life where we had no idea what the next two months would look like. we had two very real scenarios in our heads, and we gave it all to God to let him turn the pages.

the last several months have been like reading a VERY slow Choose Your Own Adventure book....and we were sitting in God's lap as He was reading our story. when we got to the part where we had to choose the next part of the story...we look up at Him. and He looks down at us. and before we know it, the next chapter started out setting the stage with, "Indiana. February. Youth ministry."

to tell you the truth, it's a great sigh of relief and a huge whirlwind of emotions all in the same box. we moved back to Virginia and feels like we've been holding our breath the whole time, trying to figure out what we REALLY want to do with our lives. we've loved Virginia, and I wouldn't trade our time here for the world...there are so many things we've learned about each other and ourselves in the last several months.

i learned that i don't like being in children's ministry as much as i thought i would. in turn, i realized how much i have missed teaching. tim's learned that his desire for being in youth ministry has rekindled and being the wise man he is, took his time before plunging into the after-college ministry search in order to avoid a lot of mistakes. i've learned i have the most supportive husband in the world, moving back without hesitation to my home town and working a city job so that i could figure out if my dreams were real. i've learned to respect tim more than ever for being careful and wise in his decisions about ministry. i now know for a fact that he wouldn't dare make a move in any direction without being certain that it would be something he would be passionate about and that his family would be happy.

i know that God has things in store for us up north that will stretch us and may even make us doubt why we chose this chapter. but we're most excited about being somewhere that's "ours". our own church family, our own town, our own new house, our own new jobs. those are all new exciting things but, being an army brat my whole life, i know better.


Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
-Arnold Bennett