Even good limbo is hard

So we came home from vacation, and I got all depressed.  It's always hard to come home from a fun road trip, but this time it seemed extra hard because I'm starting to feel a little stuck here in Alabama.  Don't get me wrong - for the most part I am still THRILLED that we get to stay here a little longer. A steady income, a nice home, and a good school are all great things and nothing to be sad about. But there is a part of me that is ready for what ever is next.  And there is an even bigger part of me that is starting to get a little worried about how we don't have a plan for what's next.  

Right now I look at my life where I'm not doing much, and Brandon isn't doing much, and I can't help but wonder if we are wasting our time.  Shouldn't we be doing something big and grand and amazing with all this free time?  Instead it just seems like we are in this weird holding pattern of waiting for Brandon's paperwork to come pack from HRC and looking for a new career.  

So I spent a few days or maybe a week and a half feeling out of sorts.  But yesterday I came to two realizations.  These ideas have been churning around in my head for a while, but they solidified yesterday.  

1.  We are doing important work right now, even if it's just the "boring" daily routine with out kids. 

2. This is a period of rest for us.  It's not a season of harvest or even of planting, but a season of laying fallow and recharging.  

Now I feel a little better about this weird limbo state that we are in for the next who knows how long.  Sure I'd like to be moving on with life, but for now it's time to just enjoy period of rest.

I didn't take many pictures since getting home from our trip, but I did take a few.  

First up is from the big Community Yard Sale.  This is one of those things that made me so happy that we are still living here.  I love yard sales that this one is a HUGE.  It's held on the festival fields on post and has stuff from at least 40 different families.  It's kind of my version of Black Friday.  

This year I decided it would be fun to take Charlotte and Lydia with me.  Then I had second thoughts. I wasn't sure if they could handle seeing so many things but only being able to buy a few things.  But then I thought that we might as well learn that lesson at a place where everything was relatively cheap.  So I brought them and it was really fun.  

We found some birthday presents and some other toys.  We also found a pre-lit Christmas tree for $6 which made everything worth it.  We spent $30 total and probably got over $100 worth of stuff.  It was a good time.  And the girls did really well with the fact that they couldn't buy everything.  (Though one of them was really upset that I wouldn't buy a toddler bed for her.)

When we got back home Veronica showed interest in some of the dolls that Charlotte and Lydia had found.  So I took her to the yard sale to see if there was anything she wanted. She has some birthday money, but I've been at a lose to know what to buy her.  (Honestly she really just likes to hold the cash) I tried showing her some Elsa Dolls that were still in their box but she pushed those away. So then we went to a booth where they were selling Snoopy stuff. Veronica loves Snoopy and she immediately chose a Snoopy doll dressed like Santa.  She also found a DVD of Charlie Brown Christmas.  I asked her if she wanted to look around for anything else and she said no and started heading to the car. 

 Back at home I worked on Lydia's Halloween Costume.  She's wanted to be a bat for several months and has had some pretty specific ideas for how the costume should look.  I'm glad I was able to fulfill her specifications.

 Last week was a surprisingly not-busy week.  Tuesday was pretty busy though. I've joined the Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC) group at Wings Chapel and I'm in a bible study group focusing on the book of Romans.  So I went to that on Tuesday.  Then that night my LDS Relief Society group had an activity.  It was a spa night and they had the cultural hall decorated like a fancy spa.  The Relief Society presidency gave foot and hand massages and then we all just ate yummy food and talked.  So much fun!

The kids had the fire department visit them at school.  Derrick came home wearing a fireman hat.  He was so excited about it.  Charlotte was pretty excited too.  She told me that she'd finally decided what she wanted to be for Halloween - a firefighter.  She'd previously wanted to be a mummy, a bat, a spider, a cow girl, a ballerina, a pirate, a queen, and probably a few more things.  I half expected her to change her mind about the Firefighter, but she hasn't yet.

 On Thursday I went to P-31 which is the outreach ministry for PWOC.  They met once a month and do a craft.  This month we made a pumpkin out of wine corks. It was kind of stressful to glue all those corks together, but it turned out really cute.

 Brandon trimmed up our tree in the front yard.  He put the branches in the side yard.  Charlotte found them and made a tepee out of them. She was so proud of herself. She said, "This is what you and Lindsey did in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard."  I couldn't believe that she remembered that from the summer of 2014.

 The kids played in there for a long time.

 We've been spending a lot of time in our back yard this week.  The weather is sooooooo nice right now.  I'm so glad we get to enjoy it.  I was really sad when I thought we'd miss the wonderful southern fall weather.  But instead we are here and we can finally go outside without over heating.  Derrick loves to go outside and play in our little sandy spot.

 He also likes to throw balls onto the roof and watch them roll back down.  He could spend an hour outside doing this.

Brandon  and I decided that one of the problems with this whole being stuck in limbo thing is that it doesn't feel like we are moving soon - even though moving is inevitable.  So we decided to start packing up some of our stuff.  We've been packing up decorations and books.  Brandon got out the dolly to move something heavy and he through it would be funny to give the kids a ride on it.

 The kids' school is really good at encouraging the kids to start learning to write along with reading.  Lydia loves to write and says she wants to be a writer and an artist.  (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree because career goals at the same age were to be an author and an illustrator.)

She wrote about our trip to the Smoky Mountains.  The picture is of her almost throwing up from all the twisty roads.   Her teacher encourages her to just write the letters she can hear so the spelling is a little screwy, but here is the translation.

I went to the smoky mountains. And roasted marshmallows and slept in a tent.  and I missed ms Martin. And I couldn't draw because the was no paper.  And then I could color.

Her teacher was so impressed by what Lydia wrote on her own.  She wanted her to keep it at school and read it to the principal the next day.  Well Lydia misunderstood what the teacher meant.  She thought she was in trouble.  She was so sad that she had to leave the story at school and she was so worried about reading it to the principal.  She was in tears about it when she got off the bus.  After I figured out what she was upset about I told her that she wasn't in trouble - she was actually doing really well.

When Lydia came home the next day she had a sticker that said, "The principal thinks I'm smart" and she was so proud of herself.  I'm pretty proud too.  I'm so glad that my little creative girl is learning new ways to express herself.


On Saturday Brandon and I spent a lot of time packing.  This is what part of our garage looks like now.

 And here is our kind of sad looking living room.  Its a really big deal for me to have packed up the pictures.  But seeing empty walls is helping me realize that we are eventually moving on with our lives.  And that helps me feel better.

We also went to the dollar store and Walmart to buy birthday/halloween stuff.  Brandon was supposed to be on a scout camp and I wasn't looking forward to going to those stores as the sole adult with four kids.  So I was actually relieved when Brandon started feeling sick and decided to skip the campout. (It's good he skipped it because he ended up needing to go to Instacare for reasons that shouldn't be made public.)

Anyway, we went to the dollar store and Veronica found another thing to buy with her birthday money.  It was ANOTHER dog.  (This makes the fourth birthday dog this year.) For being a dollar this dog was actually really high quality.  She named it doggy. 

 Back at home (and after Brandon got back from instacare) I made the hat for Lydia's costume.  She is so happy with her costume.  She pretends to fly everywhere.

 Today we decorated our front yard for Halloween. Lydia made another yarn web in our tree.

 And Charlotte and Brandon helped me with a web around the front door.  We brought the dead branches from the back yard and used them to make a scary entry way.  We have a black light in our porch light and that spider web looks pretty cool.

Tomorrow we kick off the first of the Birth-o-ween events.  Birth-o-ween will last a week this year and involve a Halloween Carnival, a Trunk or treat, possibly a fall carnival, a parade at school, birthday and Halloween treats at school, trick or treating in the neighborhood, a day off of school, and a princess themed birthday party.  Whew, it's going to be a week!  But at least I won't have time to dwell on the fact that we are stuck in limbo.