What a To Do

This post might be a bit of a downer.  I'm trying to stay awake so that I can talk to my husband at regular intervals and make sure he's staying awake.  Covering half the country in a night is not easy.  I've only done it once, back when I was a foolish, impractical college student.  And I wasn't alone in the car.

So where are we in the moving process?  Our stuff arrived on Wednesday, and I think we've got about half of it unpacked.  So we've been rinsing off the dishes and stacking the books and, perhaps most importantly, figuring out where everything should go.

I've noticed this every time we move house, but sometimes our house and our lives heretofore aren't compatible at first.  For instance, Seth's espresso machine doesn't fit in any of our cupboards.  On the other hand, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the shelves in the main bathroom.  We don't have that many towels, and we don't buy that much toilet paper.  In our last house we had cupboards that were so high, I literally needed a step ladder to put things in and out of them, so we got a step ladder.  When life drops a house in your lap, you adjust.  I think with each house, our ideas of how to live have expanded.  Life just sort of oozes into the new space and makes it its own. And right now, the ooze is taking the form of boxes piled everywhere and living half functionally with the stuff that we have unpacked to date.  I would love to find my clothes hangers and the bolts for Annika's bedframe.

In the middle of all this chaos (and I don't like chaos.  My idea of feng shui is being able to walk through a dark room without stubbing my toes.), Seth had to fly back to Oregon for another part of his ordination process.  Ordination in the Christian Reformed Church has four parts: a degree from a recognized seminary, a group of CRC churches (Called a classis) willing to support and mentor you, a sermon preached before representatives of the classis in a church setting, and an intense question-and-answer session by the classis, just to make sure you know your stuff.  After all of this, the church and its elders gather around you, lay hands on you, and commend you to God's work.   Seth has joked that it was easier to get a top secret military clearance to run a nuclear reactor than it is to get ordained in the CRC church.  At this point, I'm inclined to agree with him because we are on part 4: the intense, all day question-and-answer session in front of classical deputies and synodical delegates, halfway across the country, tomorrow, and at this semi-final stage in his ordination, . . . well, let me break it down for you.

Seth is being supported by a classis that is made up of churches in Washington and Oregon, churches where we both grew up.  These people have been with us since our childhoods.  But they are now halfway across the country from us, and video conference apparently doesn't work in this situation.  Since Seth can't fully do his job until he is ordained,  this step in his process should all happen as soon as possible.  Delegates from other churches and  from our overarching body (called a synod) are flying in to be present for his examination on Saturday and then flying back to their own churches to do their duties for Sunday.  Therefore, there is no rescheduling of this appointment.  Everyone who needs to be there, needs to be there.

We got to our new home last Friday, and this Friday (today), Seth had been planning to fly back to Oregon to be examined.  Flying across two time zones and leaving your wife and daughter to unpack your belongings a week after you get into your new house is not ideal, but we've done it before.  When he got out of the Navy, we literally moved into our apartment a weekend before he had to fly to Taiwan for a month of training for his new job, and I had to drive back to our old house and load up the rest of our belongings myself.  When we moved into our Michigan house, I had to start work the same day that we took possession of our house and so was there for none of the unpacking. Old hat; totally been there, done that.

However this time isn't going as smoothly as those other times.  For starters, his flight this morning was canceled, and then the flight they put him on was delayed and delayed until he would have missed any connecting flight that left today.  The earliest connecting flight they could get him on would have left Minneapolis at 11 am CST tomorrow, about 9:00 am PST, the same time that all the delegates would be assembling in Oregon for the express purpose of getting him ordained.  The airport could find him a flight in Bozeman, Montana, that would get to Portland at 9:30 am PST.  However, they couldn't find him a flight to Bozeman.  So my courageous husband is driving a rental car from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Bozeman, Montana, tonight because the show must go on.

I'm going to be frank.  I don't like this.  I like it less than the first day of a deployment.  At least when he left on his submarine, I knew he was surrounded by people as capable as he is.  Now  he's out there alone.   I know as many people are praying for Seth now as prayed for us as we drove across the country a week ago.  I also know that the weather is much better this week than it was last week.  I know God wants us to be doing His work here, and I know my husband is a very capable driver.  And when all of this is over, and he's safely back in Minnesota, I know this weekend will seem like a moment, a tiny blip on the radar screen of life. It's not chemo, which a good friend of mine is undergoing right now.  It's not divorce.  My daughter isn't sick.  Nobody's dying.  I still really don't like this.  

And nobody said I had to.  I cried this afternoon when Seth told me what he was going to do.  If you know me, you know that tears don't often run down my face.  I sniffled a bit when we left our families back on the West Coast.  I sniffled a bit when we left our friends in Michigan.  I never managed to cry when Seth was deployed, even though it probably would have been good for me.  But I sobbed today (albeit silently) when I called one of our good friends in Portland to update them on Seth's plans, and she prayed for me.

- - -

And that's where I left it.  Seth made it safely to Portland and stood his examination.  I went to bed around 11:30 because I couldn't do Seth any more good.  I think I slept a little before Seth texted me that he had arrived, but not much.  I can see God's fingerprints all over this, but I am far too tired to try to make sense out of it right now.

Time for a break

This is what Sabbath looks like.  

Actually, that's what my living room looks like, but I am taking no steps to fix it.  Because Sabbath means that not only am I free to take a break from work, but my house is also free to be in disarray.  We assembled our couch yesterday.  We did not get the boxes out of the living room.  That's okay.  The job of collapsing those boxes is a simple one.  It would probably take about thirty minutes, but I'm not going to do it today.  Today, I honestly feel like I have earned a break.  The only job that's going to get done is laundry because most of our clothes smell like car exhaust.

It is Sunday, and we are in Chandler, Minnesota. We got here Friday evening  after a week of grueling wind and snow pushing us along the I-90..  My mom's cousin commented on my facebook post, "Stay safe.  You really did pick the worst week to go." We made it from Sunnyside, Washington, to out here in four days and managed to work in pre-algebra, novel studies, and a little bit of economics ("Hey, Annika, what do you think  the state of Montana exports?"  "Trees and cows?"  "Yep, pretty much. Minerals too most likely.").  The weather was nasty.  A lot of trucks were in the ditch.  ("Annika, that is what we call a jack-knifed trailer.")  But we are here now, and that is something to be grateful for.

Gratitude is a funny thing.  We often don't use it when it is most appropriate.  Let me list all the things I specifically have to be grateful for right now.  

• Seth has a job, and it only took him two months out of graduate school to get it.  Some graduates wait two years for a job these days.  
• The job comes with a house that is the biggest house I have lived in since I graduated from college.  
• Seth, Annika, and I were literally prayed across the country this week. It was dangerous out there, and we are safe. 
• The furniture that we ordered got here at the earliest possible moment, a week after we ordered it, and was waiting for us in the garage.  
• We found winter coats for Seth and Annika at the mall on our way to dinner. 
•  Wonderful people from our congregation opened their home to us so we didn't have to sleep on air mattresses the first couple of nights.  
• Those same wonderful people also stocked our fridge and made us fudge brownies.
• And we have new phones.  (Our old mobile company doesn't have coverage out here.) 

 Did I wake up feeling grateful this morning?  No, to be perfectly honest, I did not.  

• See, I didn't sleep well, and I woke up a little under the weather.  
• And the truck that was supposed to deliver our belongings (furniture, beds, pots and pans) broke down before they could bring us our boxes.  
• There was more work to do on Monday, and I wasn't sure how it was gong to get done.

That's about it.  Gratitude -- kaphooey!  Over night, the sense of wonder and comfort vanished, and I felt like I shouldn't have to go through this.  I was tired, doggone it, and I wanted to be done.  And that's what Sabbath is for.  "On the seventh day, God rested."  God doesn't get tired, and He's never under the weather.  But He rested on the seventh day.  As I am learning, rest is good.  It's not just good for me.  It's good.  And I have the feeling that I will be much more able to handle tomorrow and all its boxes tomorrow when I'm supposed to. 

Notifications from Limbo: Funny how much difference a continent makes.

Here we are, sitting pretty in my parents' basement.  Boo is doing long division, something of a bane to her "skip the details" soul.  I am finishing what I began a couple of weeks ago: moving blog#1.

The following was originally written on August 15th.  Published without pictures at the moment because I can't find them.

One week in to our cross country road trip, and we took a break in Iowa to catch our breath, get the laundry done, and visit some with family.  I have a hard time believing that we are already and yet only a week out of Grand Rapids.  I'm tired, but I think that's because we spent this afternoon out on the water.

  When we cross the country (this is the fourth time for Seth and me), we always reserve our campsites ahead of time so we have a schedule. We put in four hours of driving Thursday night, minus losing the cat at Cadillac, to get to St. Ignace, and two hours the next morning to get to Munising. The first leg of our trip took us right along the coast of Lake Michigan, with a couple of views of Lake Superior and Lake Huron going over the Mackinac Bridge.  I can now say that the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is as beautiful as I have always heard that it is.  Somehow, it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was still gorgeous.  Flat, green, lots of low lying ground with ponds and streams:  I can totally see why Dutch immigrants would settle there.  We had nothing but blue skies and breezes while we were in the U.P.

 Sometimes the breezes were a little too strong.  We didn't get to see the Pictured Rocks because of a small craft advisory.  We were disappointed because we couldn't wait for the wind to die down.  We had to be on the road again the next day.  Still, we managed to have a good time with the time we had.  They have some good ice cream in Munising, and wood fired pizza is always a treat.

Then we took off for a long drive: 7 hours (including lunch breaks) to the Wisconsin Dells.  And here vacation really began.  We had three nights reserved at the Dells (the KOA won't make shorter reservations), and anyone who has been to the Dells lately can tell you that there is no way anyone can take in all that there is to see in two days.  Luckily for us, we are not the world's biggest tourists.  Annika hates waterslides, crowds, and big risks like rope courses.  That shortened the list of activities considerably.  We went on a DUKW ride, because you have to do a DUKW ride at the Dells.  That's like the original attraction there.  Annika and Seth got to see two-headed crocodiles and really big pythons at the reptile gardens.  And we did a submarine themed escape room.  That, plus hunting all over southcentral Wisconsin for a replacement cookstove, was enough activity for us, though we wouldn't mind coming back and exploring the more natural features of the Dells.  That is some seriously gorgeous territory out there.

The only real downside to the Dells was that it rained all three days that we were there.  Every evening, around 5 pm, just as we wanted to get the campfire started, it would start to rain.  So we ate under the canopy and went to bed early.  Not that we minded.  Being a tourist is tiring.

After the Dells, we put in another long day of driving, and got Spirit Lake, IA, where Seth's grandpa was waiting for us.  Many people don't know that Iowa has its own tiny "great lakes," five conjoined lakes that have some of the clearest water in the country.  We took our little inflatable boat out West Okoboji and had a picnic in the middle of the lake.  I thought we were going to get doused by some threatening clouds, but they moved southeast.  We also went out on a pontoon boat with Seth's uncle and grandfather, and Annika got a chance to drive.

Hello, World!

It's been a while, hasn't it?
I just looked at my saved drafts, and the last time I put one together was the end of the 2018 school year, looking forward to summer vacation.  Now, being halfway through summer of 2019, I feel a little silly starting all over again.

But starting all over again is the name of the game.  Seth is done with seminary.  Our house is all but sold.  The trailer is getting packed.  And Boogaloo and I are in the process of purging the belongings that we don't need.  A week from today, we will be heading west, slowly west.  Seth does not at present have a call, though he has a couple of lookers.  We are at a point of endless possibilities, or so I keep telling myself.

I find myself craving mountains and waterfalls.  Michigan has waterfalls enough, I suppose.  I haven't really had a chance to visit them.  But mountains, towering rock cliffs, snow peaks on the horizon -- I didn't realize how much these were a part of my DNA until we started talking about going back to them.  I have this odd ache right below my throat that says, "Take me west.  Take me west.  What are you waiting for?"

Well, we're waiting for all those interminable little details that come between here and there -- moving pod, cleaning house, signing papers, canceling utilities.  I'd like to be profound about this.  Half-baked connections to the Christian life are trying to come out through my fingers.  But honestly, if I tried to make a metaphor now, I think I'd be doing both this life and the next a disservice.  This life is more than just tedious necessities that stand between us and home.  It is good and necessary work.  Maybe that's how I need to start seeing this week, as good and necessary work.  At any rate, I have boxes to load.

Hoping you all are well.

Experimenting with Mardi Gras

And now, a break from the Should Be's for a bit of Lenten humor.  Joke's on us. 

We aren't doing a traditional Lent this year.  Seth was going to give up alcohol, and I resolved to journal more.  So far, general success. 

But then Seth's gym announced that they were going to sponsor a Whole 30 support group during the month of March in an effort to encourage healthy eating, and we signed up.  For those of you not familiar with Whole 30, it takes all the grains, sugars, legumes, dairy products, and preservatives out of your diet for 30 days (no cheating).  More meat and vegetables, clarified butter (whatever that is), nuts, coconuts, olives (ew!).  It's going to be an adventure. 

So over the past week, we've been having a mini-carnival of sorts to clear out our kitchen.  We are not big into sugars, but we love our dairy products.  We also had a fair amount of grains in the snack cupboard (but only the best kinds of grains, you understand).  And sugar hides in the strangest places.  And it all had to go, either into a big bag which is going to get buried in the storage room downstairs or into a giveaway box or into the garbage can. 

Now I didn't live through the Great Depression, but I was raised by people who appreciate the value of a dollar.  I don't throw food away.  Doesn't happen.  So I looked at the bread in the cupboard and the big bag of chocolate chips above the stove and the coffee creamer in the fridge, and I thought, "These are all open.  We can't give them away.  We've got to eat them."  From there, this attitude kicked in where we realized that there were going to be a whole bunch of things that we can't have for a month -- pizza, pancakes, lattes, french toast.  In addition to that, today is Boogaloo's 10th birthday, so I made her the most decadent chocolate peanut butter cake I could to use up our sugar supplies (didn't succeed).  I daresay these last three days have been the least healthy food-wise of the entire year.  And I don't feel so good. 

In fact, I think I'm going to be sick.  Literally.  This isn't healthy. 

Usually, we are pretty conscientious about how we eat.  A salad every night and the leftovers in our smoothie for breakfast.  Fruits and veggies are our biggest expenditure.  We eat pretty simply.  We don't usually go out of our way to find sugar or grease, but this weekend, for some reason, we did.  Before this weekend, I was pretty confident that our transition into a whole foods diet wouldn't be that hard because we wouldn't have a lot to purge from our systems.  After this weekend, however, I am not so sure.  I think the mental consciousness that we are giving up something is as hard to fight against as the actual desire for the thing itself. 

This is funny to me because we are Calvinists, and Calvinists are the people who were ridiculed for having "Lent all year round."  We don't do Mardis Gras.  The wildness of carnival isn't part of our system.  But just because we don't  indulge religiously doesn't mean we aren't human. 

Funny how hard it is to give things up.  I'll post later on this month about how Whole 30 is going.  #notexactlylent