A rough month

It's been a rough month for us. Lots of changes, lots of decisions, lots of pulling up by our bootstraps to get what we need done.

After several years of struggling to stay afloat financially with our house, we finally had to step away. It's been very painful in a lot of ways. We had big plans for our wonderful house. We loved the neighborhood. We wanted to finish the basement. The kids were established in their schools. I was finished with my Master's program through LaGrange College and anticipating getting a real job! But we just couldn't hang on anymore.

As is God's way, His timing is beautiful. Our church offered Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University right as we were trying to figure out what to do about the house. We decided to downsize and cut expenses to the best of our ability. We were already at pretty much bare bones with other expenses, but the class really helped us to get ourselves together and have FOUR garage sales over the course of the next month. This, in turn, helped us with the expense of moving. We are, in fact, still selling stuff through Craigslist. I finally was able to start subbing just a few weeks ago. And we found a much smaller townhouse to rent and are expecting to cut our utilities in half. Even though our rent is the same as our mortgage was, we will no longer be responsible to pay for anything if it breaks down. We do not have to keep up our yard; that is done for us. We are very close to the freeway for Keith's work and central to the entire county for wherever I'm subbing. The kids are adjusting to new schools, and Kathleen continues to homeschool.

We are thankful for God's provision yet again in a fast paced crazy world!

Now, if we can just get finished with the moving, I will be very happy. I can tell you all that when I packed up in a certain area of the house and take things away, I would come back and there would be MORE stuff to pack up than there was before. I tell you this is completely true. I cannot believe how long this process is taking. Part of the problem was that the house was a disaster when we moved. I had just finished 14 months straight of school and before that six months of a new baby and before that nine months of a pregnancy in which nothing of any productivity (aside from gestation) was accomplished! Now, I'm paying the piper. I have been throwing out bags and bags of trash and boxing up boxes and boxes of things to go to Goodwill (hoping that Goodwill will even want it). The garage at our old house is stuffed with things that need to go to Goodwill. And even as I unpack and put things away here at our townhouse, I am piling up trash and stuff to go to Goodwill. It's crazy!

In all of this, I'm supposed to be finishing up that online class to get my certification to teach at long last. But I'm not wanting to talk about that right now.

Instead, I will write about Thanksgiving. I am so looking forward especially to this Thanksgiving, as we will have our two college kids home for the first time since August! We all miss them so much! Maybe it's because of all the change, but I'm greatly looking forward to having all my chicks under the same roof once again, even though the roof is a different one. Can't wait to hear about their adventures!