This House is Home

There are a lot of drawbacks to moving every couple of years.  You have to say goodbye to friends, you have to pack up your stuff - and then unpack it, you have to find new doctors, and dentists, and stores.  

But there are also some good things about moving a lot. You get to meet many new people, you get to dejunk your stuff, and you get to learn what you really value in a doctor, dentist, or store.  

One of my favorite things about moving is when the new house and new city starts feeling like home.  I love moving to a new city and learning how to navigate the streets.  I love the satisfaction of figuring out a place that felt so unfamiliar at first.  And I absolutely love when a new house feels like home.  In nearly every house we've ever lived in there has been an almost magical moment when I look around and feel love for every room and the people and things in it. 

I had that moment within a few weeks of moving into this house.  Lately I've begun to notice that the kids have had the moment too.  A few weeks ago the kids were playing with Legos and Lydia looked up at me.  She said, "Mom, this house feels like our Alabama House." She went on to explain that she felt a special feeling that she used to feel in Alabama. She was feeling at home. 

One of Derrick's favorite phrases right now is "This house is home."  He says it to me at least once a day. I don't know how much he remembers about our other homes, but I'm glad that he knows that this is home right now. 

I've been thinking a lot about the journey that led us here to Idaho. Back in November of 2016, On our last Sunday in Alabama, we sung the Hymn "Be Still My Soul" in sacrament meeting. It's Hymn # 124 in the LDS Hymn Book.  It's one of my favorite Hymns and the fact that we sang it before we left Alabama was a tender mercy to me. 

Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;

With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In ev’ry change he faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav’nly Friend

Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as he has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: The hour is hast’ning on

When we shall be forever with the Lord,

When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul: When change and tears are past,

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

I was in tears as I sang the words, "Thy God doth undertake, to guide the future as he has the past."

I thought of all the prayer and fasting we'd done to make it to Alabama and flight school. And I knew, absolutely knew, that our Heavenly Father had guided us on that journey.  And even though our time with the Army had come to an end I needed to remember that Heavenly Father was going to guide our future as he had our past.

Since we currently had no idea what that future looked like we did the best thing we could think of and moved in with Brandon's parents in Utah. They were very gracious to open up their home, and I'll be forever grateful for them, but this was not an easy time in my life.

Brandon had a few career prospects, but none of them seemed to work out. At the end of January he received the sad news that he had not been selected for the job that we'd had the most hope for.  That disappointment combined with the Federal Hiring freeze made me feel like Brandon would never find a job. 

What happened next is a great example of how Heavenly Father guided us toward the next step in our lives.  This happened a year ago yesterday and I wrote about it at the end of February last year.  I like what I wrote so much that I'm just going to quote from my own blog rather than try to re-tell it. 

I work up on Friday February 3rd with a feeling of sadness. I wondered if maybe we'd used up all our miracles back when Brandon was trying to get selected as a Warrant Officer. Who were we to expect to continue to be lucky? I started to think that it was time to face the music and just settle for whatever we could get.

At that moment a powerful thought came into my mind. I know that it was Heavenly Father telling me something through the Holy Ghost. The thought was, "miracles have not ceased."

This reminded me of two scriptures from the Book of Mormon:

Moroni 7:29 And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men.

and

Mormon 9:15 And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed, of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.

The thought and the scriptures gave me hope and comfort. I still had no idea what we were going to do, but I did know that miracles had not ceased. We hadn't used up all our miracles. There was no such thing as using too many miracles. We could still work to make our dreams come true.

That night Brandon and I sat down for a long talk about our plans for the future. Brandon made hot chocolate and we started talking. We didn't really have a set goal for the conversation other than to try to figure out something. At some point I tossed out the idea of becoming an Aircraft Mechanic. I brought it up because it seemed like 80% of the available aviation related jobs were mechanic jobs. I wondered if Brandon was interested in getting his A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) Certification so he could be a mechanic. I'd asked Brandon this question before and he'd never really responded one way or the other. But this time he said, "Yeah, I've kind of always wanted to get that certification."

And then we pulled out our phones to see if Google could tell us anything about what it took to get the certification. We learned Brandon's best bet was to go to a college. We learned that there were only two places in Utah where he could do it. One was the Salt Lake Community College. I was kind of okay with the idea of going there - even though I still didn't like the idea of living in the same area where I grew up and playing insane prices for housing.

The other school was Utah State University which elicited an immediate "oh heck no" from both of us. I may have also involuntarily shuddered. There was no way we were letting Utah State have one more dime of our money - even if the GI Bill was paying for it.

For a minute we seemed like we were back to square one. But Brandon said, "I wonder what we can find in Idaho." Now that may seem like a crazy thought, but you have to realize that Brandon and I have always liked Idaho. It's been at the very top of our list for where we want to live. We like the rural atmosphere. We like the low cost of living. We like that it's close to family. We like that it's pretty. We like that it's similar to Utah - but different enough to be interesting. So looking at options in Idaho made perfect sense.

Lo and behold Idaho State University in Pocatello Idaho had an amazing Airframe and Powerplant Certification Program. And suddenly we were excited about our plan and our future. For the first time in months we felt in control of our future again. We weren't waiting for the Army to make a decision, or some hiring manager to call us. We were making plans and we were able to act on them.

What's funny is that I could count on one had the number of times Brandon and I had ever been to Pocatello.  I remember going there once with my Grandma when I was a teenager and the only thing I remember doing was getting an oil change at Jiffy Lube.  Brandon had made a stop or two in Pocatello as a teenager as well. And when we were first married Brandon and I had gone on a random road trip to Pocatello and walked around the main street area. At that time we liked the city, but we never thought, "we should live here in 10 years."

And yet, even with that limited experience with Pocatello we felt certain we should move there.

It's been a year since we decided to move to Pocatello and it's been 6 months since we found our rental house. I haven't regretted our decision yet.  In fact I'm so very thankful that we followed the promptings that we received and came here to Pocatello. 

We love our home, we love Brandon's school program, we love the kids' schools, we love my job, we love our neighbors, and we love our ward members. 

Meeting and getting to know new people has been one of the sweetest parts of living here. One of the hardest things about our time back in Utah was how overlooked I felt. Since we were "temporary" people didn't go out of their way to befriend me. And, I'll admit, I wasn't really trying hard to find friends. 

One Sunday in Utah I was sitting by myself in Relief Society and we sang the song "We are all Enlisted."  The word enlisted reminded me of the Army which reminded me of all my wonderful Army Wife friends and that reminded me of how much I missed them and that made me cry.  And then I cried harder because I remembered the last time I'd cried in Relief Society had been back in Alabama and my dear friend Deb had been sitting next to me and put her arm around me. This time I was crying by myself in a room full of women who didn't know me.

Contrast that with what happened to me last week in Relief Society. We sang the song "Each Life That Touches Ours for Good."  This is hymn number 293.  As soon as I saw what song we were singing I knew I was in trouble.  If there is any song guaranteed to get me to cry it's this one. I have known so many wonderful people who I've had to say goodbye to over the years and this song makes me think of every single one of them. 

Each life that touches ours for good

Reflects thine own great mercy, Lord;

Thou sendest blessings from above

Thru words and deeds of those who love.

 What greater gift dost thou bestow,

What greater goodness can we know

Than Christlike friends, whose gentle ways

Strengthen our faith, enrich our days.

When such a friend from us departs,

We hold forever in our hearts

A sweet and hallowed memory,

Bringing us nearer, Lord, to thee.

For worthy friends whose lives proclaim

Devotion to the Savior's name,

Who bless our days with peace and love,

We praise thy goodness, Lord, above.

I couldn't even sing the first verse because I knew my voice would crack. By the third verse I was wiping away tears. But during the fourth verse a wonderful thing happened. I was sitting by my friend Charity. She noticed my emotional state and she put her arm around me.  It was exactly what I needed.  In that moment I knew that I'd found a place full of people as dear to me as the people I'd left in Alabama. In that moment I knew that God really had guided our future just as he had our past. 

I'm incredibly grateful that we were led here to Pocatello.  I don't know where we are going to be living next, but I'm so glad that we get to spend nearly 2 years in this home. 

* * * 

Okay, enough with the emotional stuff.  Let's talk about the regular things that have been happening in our home the past few weeks. 

Mostly we've been sick. Lydia had a bad cold, Veronica had a UTI, Derrick had a cold and slept a lot, Charlotte had a little cold, and I'm pretty certain I had the flu. I missed two days of work because I felt so sick.  So I didn't take any pictures that week.  And I basically forgot to take any pictures until last Friday.

This past week we've been doing better.  The kids had their 100th day of school on February 2nd.  I love the kids' elementary school because they keep days like this simple.  Instead of doing over the top things like dressing the kids like they are 100 years old, or making elaborate posters all we had to do was have the kids bring 100 of something.  Lydia chose to bring 100 pennies, and Charlotte wanted 100 marshmallows.  Easy Peesy.

They were also encouraged to wear a shirt with a number on it.  Charlotte has a shirt that says, "100% cute" which she LOVES.  So she was excited about that.  Lydia felt a little left out so we painted her a shirt with 100 on it.  (Brandon should get most of the credit for this since he made the stencil.) 

Lydia's teacher has started sending home simple math homework.  It's only one page and it's all a review so it's not very painful to do. (Last year in Utah we had this awful homework packet that was way too long for Kindergarteners and I hated it.) I love sitting down with Lydia to do her homework.  She's pretty good at it.  My favorite parts are the story problems.  It's fun to watch Lydia draw out the problem and solve it. 

 We had ice cream for dessert on Friday and I wanted to get a picture of the kids all in one place.

 I bought Derrick a subscription to Trains Magazine for Christmas and he got a new issue on Saturday.  He loves looking at the magazine with me.

We also got our latest kiwi crate and so the kids put that together on Saturday.  It was a claw that they could open and close with a string.  

Charlotte and Lydia set up a circus tent in the living room and put on shows with their stuffed animals.  Here's Nose doing a trick on a ball. 

The big news this week is that we finally joined the 21st century and got a flat screen TV.  Up until we moved away from Alabama we had a giant picture tube TV that we moved all over the country.  (We hung onto it for so long because we didn't have to worry about the kids breaking anything if they touched the screen.) We realized we didn't want to move it again and put it into storage so we got rid of it before we moved.  When we lived in the RV we had a computer monitor for a TV screen, and that's what we've been using ever since we moved into this house.  

We talked about getting a new TV for Christmas, but we didn't really have the money.  Brandon wanted to wait to get one at the Weber State University Surplus Store the next time we were in Utah.  But we weren't sure when that would be. 

Last week one of my co-workers asked me if we wanted her old TV that she no longer needed.  I said yes and we made plans to get it.  The kids were so excited when Brandon and I brought it into the house.  The first movie we watched was Ground Hog Day.  And another night Brandon and I stayed up late and watched Rogue One.  That was Brandon's birthday present, but he wanted to watch it after we had a new TV.

Oh and I have to add this here because it's so cute and I don't want to forget.  Veronica pronounces movies as "loobies." It's so cute (but don't tell her that because she hates being called cute.) Oh and another funny Veronica thing is how hard her name is to pronounce.  None of the kids can say it right.  She even calls herself, "Ronica."  Some of her friends at school call her "Mo-anica." Which is fitting since she loves Moana so much.  Lately Veronica has started calling all of us "Morecake" for some unexplained reason.  Derrick get's so made at her and says, "I'm Derrick! Not Morecake."  So anyway that's a glimpse into life with a 4 year old.  

Charlotte and Lydia found the GI Joes this morning so after church they sat down and played with those with Brandon.  These were Brandon's when he was a kid and he saved them for his kids. 

 I finally remembered to take a picture of a project I did back in January.  Charlotte and Lydia's old tutu swimming suits were completely worn out, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them in the trash.  They'd worn these suits for three summers and I loved them.  So I turned them into doll dresses.  I was able to make four dresses from two suits.  They are so cute.

And I guess that's all the pictures.  I'm trying to think of a cute way to end this but nothing is coming.  I guess we could do a call back to the beginning of this post and say that I'm glad we are making these memories in this home. 

I hope that where ever you are living it feel like home to you. 

Have a great week!