1.  KB: “What are these?”
Me: “They are called cassette tapes. We put music and stuff on them before there were cds.”
KB: “Bubba says you guys lived back in the olden days. . . .like 1999 or something.”
Me: silence

2. After packing glasses serving pieces in bubble wrap and taping boxes shut for almost an hour, KB says, “What do you say we wrap it up and go to Chick-fil-a for dinner? (Do you see what I did there? Wrap it up?”

3. I was looking online at schools in Ft. Collins and trying to make sense of all I saw. KB walked in and started looking over my shoulder. . .
KB: They are all wearing the same clothes. Does that school have uniforms?
Me: Let’s see if there is a dress code in their handbook. Oh, it says that everyone wears khaki or navy on the bottom and you have to pick from four colors for your shirt. That’s not too bad. . . you get to pick from FOUR colors. Let’s read it out loud.”

I begin to read and it says that girls must wear solid socks and brown shoes and the solid color shirts. Then it reads, “Tops may not have stripes, prints, designs of any sort or size, or logos. No writing, drawing, or depiction is allowed on any top.” I barely make it past “designs of any sort” and KB interrupts with, “Mom – that school is NOT FOR US. I would rather do home school that give up stripes and dots.”

I have come to expect that when major things are happening in my life the blog will be bare. I retreat into my head except for bursts of verbal processing directed to the nearest dear friend. This year has been marked by major thing after major thing and so there are few words on the blog and so many words in my head. I have decided to bump the near and dear requirements and try a little “verbal” processing here.

In honor of my love for lists, I will list the major things of 2014:
1. Honey loses his job.
2. I start working full-time instead of part-time.
3. Daddy has a heart attack.
4. Honey doesn’t get job he was in love with.
5. Daddy has a stroke.
6. Daddy dies.
7. Regan moves away.
8. Deadlines for fall start passing.
9. Honey’s new job requires moving.

To sum up. . . according to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, I scored 404 and ” have a high or very high risk of becoming ill in the near future.” Ya think? I’m feeling a bit sick right now!

I’m over Honey losing his job . . . I am thankful we have been released from our commitment there. I say I am over it but I can’t fully move on because my Honey still hurts and is working through the hurt. I oscillate between hurt and anger while asking the Lord what is His plan and WHEN is His time for healing.

My daddy died. I just can’t get my head around it; don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. The sound of my Facetime app makes my heart drop and tears come to my eyes in Pavlovian style. The most random things make me tear and the journey from tear to weeping isn’t even a hop, skip, or jump away. I didn’t know such sadness existed and I struggle with thinking that surely I am just being dramatic. Just this weekend I considered that I didn’t even talk to daddy every day, but the reality that now I CAN’T is just so heavy. . . so sad. And when my little boy sees me cry and says, “I miss Pop too”, aah! I just can’t stand it.

Then number six started pressing in and my heart proved that it had the capacity to ache even more. The truth that our life would look radically different come this fall was . . . unsettling. I love the schools my kids attend and the tender care they show for my babies’ hearts is humbling. KDS has shown me what it means to come alongside a parent in the educating of a child and it is a lesson I hope to carry with me forever. Promise has worked with our Little to point her to Jesus and teach her to potty and our family life will be forever changed by the diligence, love, and care of the faculty at that precious school. I want KB to play soccer with her little friends again!! I want my son to be challenged to think and given the tools throughout the day to see this world with a Biblical worldview. I want Little to have a year under the tutelage of Brittany Hartloge and to see what she can accomplish in an environment of high structure and high expectation. I loved working down the hall from my baby and getting hugs and kisses on the way to lunch. Man! What a gift and treasure last year was. I had to come to a place of realization that these things would be different and there is no grace in my imagination as I considered what different would be like.

Now Honey has taken a job in Colorado. I kept saying that I hadn’t invested emotionally before he got an offer, but that was just a lie. The day he told me he was flying out to meet with the organization’s leaders I hit the internet and checked out the schools, therapy options, housing market, and weather patterns. The actual offer came last Thursday and Friday morning I told my boss/pastor that we would be moving.

In the five days since then I have had at least two legitimate panic attacks. My brother made a crack about me pressuring myself to do this perfectly but that’s not it at all. It’s trying to figure out how to do it at all. . .

From the job offer we thought we had three weeks (four, if we pushed it) to find housing, schools, a moving company and get to Ft.  Collins.  Now we have two . . . and yesterday we found out the school our kids will probably attend is the one in the city that starts two weeks earlier than the others. . . so, control freak/ have your ducks in a row Becky is having to adjust once again and accept that my kids will probably miss the first week.

Yesterday a friend told me that I would look back on this past seven months and shake my head, sigh, and see a bigger picture.  I’m not convinced.

Side note. . . Honey has risen to the occasion and is making phone calls and plans.  After seven months of no job, he is loving having a defined list to work on.  I am still at work all day and so dealing with Little’s placement, asking questions of schools for Bubs and KB, and calling about houses has fallen in great part to him.  It’s funny how often I think of a detail and mention it to him and he has already dealt with it.  Such a blessing in the midst of such blah.

If you are reading this. . . PLEASE PRAY.  Pray for our family. Pray for details about our move.  Pray for my sense of humor.  Pray that the Lord would preserve my joy. In this process there is too much for me to process and I feel unanchored.