All of this isolation and "social distancing" is for the most part business as usual for Tim and me, hermits that we are. We don't really like people.🤣 Kidding, sort of. But we did have some things that we were looking forward to, that are either cancelled already or not looking good. Delaney was very sad to find out her band field trip to Busch Gardens, scheduled to happen in April, has been cancelled. She, along with the rest of band, had also been working hard preparing for performances that won't be happening after all. Soccer season was just getting underway, and without it, it's hard for the kids not having the motivation to get outside and get moving. Now we are back to just pushing them out the back door when it's nice out. The Bridge Run 10K that Tim and I were supposed to participate in at the end of this month, is a no-go. We were (and maybe, possibly still are) looking forward to meeting my parents in Asheville for part of spring break, and touring the Biltmore. The DoD is banning all travel outside of the local area for active duty and families, but we are keeping our hotel reservation until the last possible minute. Oh, and it's our anniversary today, and I guess I'll be waiting to see what Tim cooks up for me for dinner, because we will not be going out. (And we had just started to spread our wings a little bit, now that we have a child or two old enough to put in charge for a couple hours.)
And now for the catching up...
I think that last time I talked about our plans here, it was about Tim retiring and us moving to his hometown in Massachusetts. About a couple months ago, we had a change of heart. He is still retiring, but we are staying here. It was not a decision we made easily. It was more like a feeling in my gut that I tried to ignore. But then one night Tim broached the subject, telling me he was really struggling with the decision to move, and that unleashed a torrent of everything I'd been holding back, and how long I'd been feeling like our months here were a long, sad goodbye. The closer the time came, the more I felt we belonged here, but I prayed for God to change my mind if this was not meant to be. Tim was quite a bit taken aback after hearing everything I had to say, and then he said, "Well, it would have been nice if you'd told me this a couple years ago." I know, but I didn't know then! The days surrounding the decision were ones of turmoil and lots of tears.
Tim and I always knew it would be hard to figure out what to do after the Marine Corps, so we just kept putting off making decisions until it was impossible to any longer. We knew it would be hard, but we really had no idea. It felt like groping around blind. This past winter, we came thisclose to purchasing a home in Grafton, Massachusetts, and the only reason it didn't work out was because of some unpermitted work that had been done in the basement, that made it too risky for us. After that fell through, we thought we'd put the househunting on hold because we had no desire to go through this process of trying to figure it all out from so far away. It's too big of a decision, and we are chronic overthinkers. How many more plane tickets were we going to buy so Tim could go see for himself if a place was really where we wanted to live? His parents had room for us to live a few months if need be. Our new plan was just to do nothing and wait till we go there. In that lull, we found ourselves asking again and again, why would we want to leave here? North Carolina feels like home, the kids are settled and happy, the winter is cold enough here on some days... And you know the rest.
We're moving just a couple miles down the road to a subdivision that has many more younger families with kids than our current neighborhood has, and Joey's going to be riding circles around our own cul-de-sac. The closing is scheduled for April 1, and then we'll spend a couple months making it the way we want it before we move in sometime late June. Delaney and Annie will be attending the same middle school that Delaney currently is, and Joey will be going to the same preschool for one more year. Timmy is going to have to switch elementary schools, and he seems to be taking that in stride. We're hoping that the change will mean him having more friends he can see both at home and at school. Having three siblings is great, but he is kind of a middle child here, and he could really use some boys his own age to run around with. We know one family there already: someone I was in a bible study with years ago has three kids who are the same ages as my first three. Two of them are boys, and one plays soccer with Timmy.
Annie went on her first overnight field trip about a month ago. It was a couple nights at Sound to Sea at the Outer Banks with the rest of 5th grade. We spent a whole week talking about what she should pack. When Joey and I picked her up afterward, she had so much to say. She had sustained a lot of little bumps and scratches, bumping into things as they had walked around in the dark. But she'd had a great time. I think her favorite thing about the experience was the food. She talked about the food for two days. (A girl after my own heart.) Within hours of the buses' return, I received a text alerting me that one of the mothers had found lice in her daughter's hair. I had already checked Annie's hair, but now I treated it as a precaution, and let her suitcase sit in the laundry room for three days before opening it. Maybe one day I'll talk about our experience with lice this school year, but it's still too fresh, and I'm just not ready. We dodged it this time, though.
This little boy just loves throwing rocks and pine cones in the river, and he could do it all day. Sometimes he gets me one so we can throw ours in at the same time.
Early this week, photographers came to take pictures of the house that we are renting now, for the sale listing. Later that night, the owner texted us to thank us because she'd seen the photos and they were beautiful. She said she knows how hard it is to keep a house clean with kids around. It was so nice to get that acknowledgment, and I told her so. It may not be our house, but I have loved it like my own, and I for sure take pride in how the pictures turned out.
We had one good weekend of soccer games before everything ground to a halt.
She can still be annoying sometimes. Just yesterday she had one of Tim's flipflops, and she trotted off with it to the dining room, her preferred spot when she's in the mood to destroy something. (Those flipflops had been through two deployments and I should have just let her put them out of their misery!) She still does not know how to act around people besides us. But as she grows out of puppyhood, I like Willsy more and more. I love the way she positions herself just so, in the shaft of sunlight. I love how she sits and stares at me with those ears twitching this way and that, and how she wants to follow me if she hears me pick up my rosary in the afternoon and thinks I'm headed to the porch. She's a good doggo, and even though Tim doesn't admit it, he likes her too. He's the one who always makes sure she gets a little something in her bowl every night after dinner.
The middle school Battle of the Books competition was a couple weeks ago at the community college up the road. Delaney ran over to me and said, "Look, it's Daddy!" It took me a weirdly long time to finally notice he was on that poster and then I laughed. Tim's battalion adopted an elementary school about a year ago, and that picture was originally on the school district's Facebook page. He's famous!
We now have many more hours in the day for brother shenanigans.
Annie made green pancakes for lunch today.
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| My sister Anna texted us this picture of John-Paul and Rosie after Robert returned victorious from the grocery store. Not a minute too soon, it looks like.🤣 |
In the car yesterday, I heard R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It," and it's been stuck in my head since. I found myself singing it as I cleaned up the kitchen, and the kids were laughing at me. Tim is at work today, still touching all the doorknobs, no doubt. It should go without saying, but I am praying that everybody stays well and that this madness is over soon.
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