I'm no longer a slave to fear.

I am a child of God.

When I was 7 or 8 years old I went down to the lake with my dad and my sister and he prepared to dunk us in the lake.  Cristin went first, because she's older.  He baptized her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and she came up screaming.  She had stepped on a nasty, square staple, and my grandpa had to pull it out of her foot with pliers.  Needless to say, there was no way I was getting in that lake.  I eventually was baptized a short time later (I honestly don't have a clue how long) in a nice, heated, baptismal at my grandparents' church.

A lot has happened since I was 7 or 8.  I am not the child I was then.  I am not the person I was just a few years ago.  I remember when I was making some poor decisions not all that long ago, my father said "this isn't like you", and I responded "yes it is.  I have done this over and over again.  This is who I am."  I realized later how blessed I was that God kept me from being known for my sins.  I grew up in a very small town, and everyone knew my family.  It would have been the most natural thing in the world for me to be known as Pastor Cline's Daughter Who Always Does [Insert Current Sin(s) Here].  But God saved me from that, and my father saw me the way God does: for who I was created to be.

Fast forward about 4 years.  I got married, moved to Texas, did some great things, did some less great things, met people who touched my life in many ways, had a friend die, experienced multiple minor mental breakdowns, moved to Bend, started a whole new life again, got new jobs, quit one of them, met more people who are still changing my life, bought a house, bought some mountain bikes...I could go on and on.

"Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first;" Revelation 2:5

This morning in church, I was listening to our pastor, Randy, talk about baptism.  Today was Father's House's annual baptism.  Everyone gathers at the park, eats burgers and hangs out, and then they go baptize a whole bunch of people in the middle of the Deschutes River.  Randy was talking about how we are called to be baptized; baptism is an outward sign of our repentance.  He said something about how there are people here who have been baptized in the past, but they are ready to repent, to turn away from whatever is going on in their lives, and do this again.  I literally thought "maybe next year.  There are things I need to deal with first."  Really mature, right?  I took communion, and I prayed that God would help me fix these things, but I wasn't totally honest about it.  I knew I wasn't ready to let go of those things.  Honestly...well, I'm a work in progress.  But I re-realized something today as I watched Randy baptize 20-something people in the Deschutes River: four years ago my father didn't just see past my poor choices, he saw me for who I really am.  I don't have to be a slave to fear, because I am a child of God.

I was sitting on a blanket at Tumalo State Park, eating cookies and listening to people plink on the guitar, when Randy walked by and said "hey Rianna, do I need to dunk you today?" then he laughed and walked away.  But he wasn't too surprised when, as he was looking around and walking back in from the river, I dropped my phone on the bank and splashed out to meet him.  He smiled, asked me what the story was, and said "I had a feeling this needed to happen."

Baptism isn't something we do after we have fixed our lives, it's the beginning, the declaration that we are ready to turn around, let go, and act like the people we are.  So I got baptized today.  I am ready be honest with myself, and with God.  It won't be easy, but it will be better than being selfish.  I am ready to not be a slave to fear, anymore.  I am letting go of my fear that I am defined by my sin; I am letting go of my fear of what the people around me will think; I am letting go of my fear of not being in control of my life.

Amen.

Central Oregon Part Two: Homeowners

Why hello there!  It's only been 7 months....For the record, I do have at least 4 posts started that never made the cut, so I haven't been completely ignoring my chronicles, but things have been hectic.  Let me give you a quick snapshot of my life:

Yes. I was collecting eggs in heels and a pencil skirt, because sometimes the different parts of life get blurry.

At this moment I am sitting on my front porch, eating a tortilla smeared with refried beans and watching the sun set behind the mountains.

Life could be so much worse.

In the seven months since we have spoken, a lot has happened.  I took a second job at a daycare, because I wasn't working much and I love kids and it happened to work out perfectly.  I worked there for 5 months.  I started out at a couple hours in the mornings, and then I started going back in the evenings as well, sandwiching my time at the office.  Then I got busy, and I didn't like rushing myself out of the office every day, so I went back to just working mornings.  Then I started opening for them, and then we kept getting busy, and by the time I quit (two weeks ago), I was working 6-9:15 at the daycare, and then 9:30-6 or 7 at the office; I was drinking coffee every day in between just to keep my eyes open; I had zero patience with the children, and not much brain power to be of any use at the office (which was why it was taking me till 6 or 7 every night to get my work done); I was nauseated for 3 days straight, there at the end, and I had a constant pain in my neck and shoulders to the point where it hurt to swallow.  It was time to make a change.  So I quit the daycare, and sold my soul to the law firm, which is another story in and of itself.

Jesse took a job, took another job before even starting the first one, left that job for the job he was planning to take when we first moved here, and is currently working in the mornings for Justin and the evenings at Nosler.

When I was working both jobs, I was getting up at 4:30 and he was coming home at 11, and we would literally go days without seeing each other conscious and/or in the light of day.  Now, thank goodness, he gets home a little earlier, and I get up an hour later, and it doesn't kill me to stay up until he gets home, and he's actually awake when I leave, and it is much better.  Like I said, life could be so much worse.

The coolest dude in the world got to come share some of our life with us last week!  Long story short, my Uncle Chris is working over on this side of the mountain, and came to stay with us for a few days, and we spent our evenings sitting out on my front porch, watching the sun set behind the mountains, and face timing everyone we know.

Wait, what was that?  My front porch?  When did I get one of those???

Goodness, a lot sure has happened.

I won't try to sort through the details of how God gave us our house; honestly, it was confusing, and it gets mixed up in so many other stories, so let's just say that He provided, and it is everything we need.  It's a 3 bedroom mobile home, nothing fancy, on 4.5 acres of dirt and rocks and scrub brush outside of Redmond.  It's a half hour drive to get to work, but it came with a dozen chickens and a trampoline and two baby apple trees.  Also a cat, but we ignore him in the hopes that he'll go away.

We had 20 people over the Saturday before July 4th, and about half of them stayed all weekend.  It made the place feel like home.  I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be able to have my family in my house.  Call me crazy, but that's something I've been dreaming about for years.  Maybe soon I'll get it together and give you a better picture of that weekend.  It was beautiful.  Homemade bread and smores and hiking and sparklers and alligators, and watching my siblings grow up in front of my very eyes.

There are so many more things to say....ahhhh!!  But it's 9:00, and it's my bedtime, because I got distracted watching people dance on youtube....but I am just going to post this, even though it isn't finished, because it must be done!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

Room for Improvement

"I rarely make the same mistake twice."

I have boldly proclaimed this many times in my life, and it might even be true.  Unfortunately, there are so, so many mistakes I still have yet to make!  I was feeling fairly despondent the other day, and told my dear husband "someday I will figure all this out and be done making all these mistakes".  I have had a lot of slip-ups lately.  From little things like not letting the ice cream freeze long enough, to bigger things like putting something on the calendar in the wrong year and having to spend a day scrambling to make up for it, to important things like running my mouth and not thinking about the way my words will affect the people I love.  The move to Bend has been one huge opportunity for me to make all kinds of new blunders.  In Texas we had a routine, and I knew where I fit into it, and it worked.  I had found my role and I was rollin' with it.  Now I have so many new roles to figure out, and have to make them all fit together....it's been an adventure.

Yet, with adventurous as it has been, there isn't a whole lot for me to share with you.  I go to work every day, come home, make dinner, and go to bed.  Then I start all over again.  There are little things that make me laugh, other things that make me cry, some things that make me take deep breaths and count to 10 (or 10 times about a thousand).  It is the beginning of a new year, though, and with that comes all the usual things...Ponderings and recollections of the past year, aspirations to somehow make this year "better", to be "better" and do "better".  For example, Jesse was bragging the other day about all the great things he was able to do in high school, and how in-shape he was, which has obviously resulted in new fitness goals for me.  Fitness goals, period, really.  I'm not one for "fitness goals".  That is a phrase I have never used before.  

But anyway, goal for 2016:
 superman planks!

I honestly have no idea if that is what they are actually called, but I'ma be able to do them, whatever they are!  As an early step I've started adding some weights into my morning mini-workouts.  Not anything beastly (I will never be a "weight-lifter"), just adding some 10-15 lbs to my regular shennanigans.  Here we are a week into this process:

Jesse has also started something resembling an exercise routine.  He may grumpify at me for revealing this on the interwebs, but I gotta talk about him some time, right?  The Clarks have a stationary bike in the living room, and Jesse's current habits have him hopping on every evening for a little bit.  We've been plotting all the mountains we're going to climb this summer, so it may have something to do with that.

We have been somewhat lacking in the job department, which has been frustrating, especially since we are living in someone else's house and feeling a little bit like lazy moochers.  However, Jesse is supposed to be starting a full-time job on Monday, and Bryan is attempting to take the steps to get me on actual payroll, and I've started looking for a second job as well, so hopefully we will be gainfully employed adults contributing to society again soon!  Maybe we'll even get our own living arrangements.  How crazy would that be?

Fully unimportant side-note: I definitely just typed "arraignments" instead of "arrangements" just now.  That's a word which is new to my vocabulary, but has clearly pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.  I typed it a lot today.  Lots of checklists.

New living arrangements will definitely be welcome, for while there is room for improvement in many places of our life right now, there is no more room in this house for much of anything.  Our life has been spreading out and taking over the entire place.  I know I am capable of living with fewer material possessions (obviously, since half of them are in boxes in the woodshed), and I am tempted to throw so much stuff away...but I really enjoy having all the multiple yoga mats and foam rollers and resistance bands and crap that are filling up an entire corner of the room!  I'm trying to think of other examples, and realize I don't even know what I have.  I have a food dehydrator in the back bedroom, but I actually use that every week or two to dry bananas so I can take them to work and not leave banana peels in the trash can I never empty.

Anyway, I could ramble on all night about bananas and yoga and all the frustrations I have with myself and all the improvements I would make if I was omnipotent, but instead I will recall something I read this morning:

"The thing molded will not say to the molder 'why did you make me like this,' will it?  Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?"            Romans 9:20-21

I suppose from that I can ask So What?  And then answer myself: There will always be room for improvement, but in the long run, I should not aspire to fill any role but the one(s) God has intended me for.  There is no use getting my knickers in a bunch when I am not a body builder, or when my brain takes longer to process things than I would like, or when I am an introvert.  I am, however, an assistant and a roommate and a sister and a daughter.  These are all roles I have been given and can improve on.  I am also a wife, and that is a role I ought to be working actively to fill in a godly manner and be the crown of my husband (Proverbs 12:4).

And with that in mind, I will fetch my husband a bowl of ice cream and go to sleep.  At 6:30 pm.  Yay old people!

Have a very Smarky Christmas!

Ladies and Gentlemen, drum roll please!

I present to you the 2015 Clark-Smith (Smark?) Christmas monument extraordinaire!  This is no average evergreen, folks.  This Christmas tree, this symbol of the season, is classic, yet classy; bold, yet unimposing; you absolutely cannot look upon this tree and not smile.  

Without further ado, feast your eyes!

Yes, this is our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, and if you think it's rough now, you should have seen it out in the driveway, all bare and pathetic!  When we took in this little tree, it was unloved and unwanted.  The people giving it to us tried to convince us we didn't want it.  But hey!  Free stuff?  Bring it on, man.  We broke out all the decorations, unpacked all the lights, waited in anticipation for our Tree...!  And then we got this and we honestly weren't sure if it was even worth it.  And then an idea popped into my head.  This tree needs popcorn.  I spent...quite a bit of time and created quite the mess stringing popcorn, and it was totally worth it.  A few tiny candy canes, some sparkly balls for good measure, and viola!  We have a Christmas Tree.

But Christmas didn't stop there.  Christy and I carried it over to the office where I spent most of Sunday putting together a wreath (and driving all over Bend trying to find the things I needed for it).  I may have caused marital strife by buying pinecones, but it needed them!!  If I had been home I would have picked up some pinecones out of the yard, but I did not have access to pinecones at the office, and I needed pine cones, and I needed them right that second because we had to get it done before Bryan came back from Portland.  We aren't sure how Bryan feels about Christmas yet...but I have a feeling we're about to find out.  Hopefully he takes it well, because if he doesn't like Christmas, it's going to be a very sad month.  For him.  I already have the garland ready to go over my little doorway; I'm going to bring it in sometime this week and put it up when he's not around.  Christmas is gonna happen, whether he likes it or not.

Merry Christmas, From the Smark Household!

Accepting change as an INFJ

Introverted-iNtuitive-Feeling-Judging

I had the opportunity to have not just one, but TWO conversations about personality types this week!  That was fabulous.  A lot of good things have happened this week.  We are settling in to the Clark residence, and starting to work out all the little things which have to be figured out when you suddenly move in with another couple and have to make your lives mesh.  I love having people around, and Justin and Christy are wonderful people, and I am already so enjoying having another woman to talk to and commiserate with!  But, as much as I love people, I am still an introvert, and I am still exhausted.  Right now I am actually alone in the house, just me and Buck, sitting in the super comfy chair I have claimed for my own, and it is a relief.
We are living in someone else's house, I am making dinner in someone else's kitchen.  I am trying to live with two people I don't know very well, and work for someone I don't know at all.  I am adjusting to a new place, and new roads, and new expectations, and new jargon, and it's a lot of new, and I am honestly doing so much better than I anticipated, but.....my BP was still higher than it has been in months, and I had to go meet my new boss and you could see my heartbeat through the two scarves I was wearing.  That's no joke.  However, I survived, I ate lunch, I even ordered food all on my own, I agreed with everything he said.....and then I tried to find my way home without using the GPS (I was feeling confident), and stop at Fred Meyer to get coke, a laundry hamper, and "some food".  I am not good at getting "some food".  It was a very stressed Rianna who wandered around trying to figure out how to buy food to cook dinner for people whose eating habits she did not fully understand.  It's like being a newlywed all over again.  Christy's trying to eat healthy, and so is Justin, but he wants meat and vegetables, and Jesse wants anything but vegetables, but everyone will eat whatever I cook, because they're polite, so I won't even really know if they like it or not!
Finally left Fred Meyer.
Got in the car and realized I had forgotten the coke and the hamper, which were the two things Jesse (who was locked out of the house because I had the keys) asked me to get.
Stopped at WalMart, made it out again, ran into my grandma in the parking lot!  Crazy.  And nice, but again, I'm socializing in the parking lot at WalMart, and Jesse's asking when I will be home, and wanting to talk about my job, and stress!
Long story short, I got home, talked to Jesse, both of us got upset, he talked to Justin, Justin talked to Christy, Justin talked to me, Christy came in and we had a family meeting, and by the end of the night, after everyone had talked to everyone, and I had cried more than was necessary, lo and behold it all worked out just fine!  But it took a lot of talking, and a lot of figuring, and a lot of remembering that my life is not my own, and everything I do now no longer affects just me, but also my husband and now these other people we have in our life as well.  Which is, well, stressful.
So there's one day in Bend down!  Go us!  The next morning I went to work.  The night before, of course, I was up half the night trying to figure out what to wear, because, obviously, that's the most important thing to be thinking about.  I got myself dressed in the morning (Jesse's comment: "you're wearing those shoes?"), and I went to work.  That was good.  I got there, I went inside, I sat down at my makeshift desk (meaning Bryan set up a computer and scanner for me on the other end of his desk), and started scanning stuff.  I can do that.  Yes!  It was remarkably quiet...we hardly talked, once we all settled into whatever we were doing, and at one point Bryan did this weird double take thing, because apparently my computer monitor was at just the right height to make it look like I was staring at him.  Which I wasn't.  Then Christy and I went to lunch while Bryan had a meeting, and I explained to her why I dislike making restaurant choices, and she explained to me why she avoids making restaurant choices.  We stopped by an art gallery, and went back to work.
Then Bryan had me do real work that was actually important and I messed it up and he was way too nice about it, and I have been beating myself up about it ever since.  I didn't sleep last night because I kept thinking about writing letters, and when I did sleep I dreamed about ruining people's lives by messing up legal paperwork.  But that's getting ahead on the stress timeline.  First we have to mention

that someone called Christy and invited them to dinner (Christy said "we have people living with us now, did you know that?" and "we haven't really discussed how the four of us are going to do things.  Do we have our own lives, or do we do things together?  Are we all expected to be home for dinner every night?").  Justin ended up accepting for all of us and we went straight from work to a busy restaurant with two more strangers, which is....stress.  I ate my ceasar salad in silence, and I felt as though I had been socializing all day long, but I hadn't!  I sat in near silence with two people, and it exhausted me.
I was so happy to get home, and put on my fuzzy pants, and curl up in the big round chair and finish watching Star Wars...I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to that.  I kept looking at my phone thinking I wanted to text someone to tell them how introvert-exhausted I was, but I didn't want to have to carry on a conversation after that; just wanted to tell someone.
The boys were tinkering in the shop, so Christy and I ended up sitting in the living room and talking for an hour (at least) about everything and it was good.  It was just the right amount of socializing, and I was able to feed my introversion by being cuddled up in my PJ's, but still feel like I was being fed by having another person to actually talk to, who didn't expect small talk or witty comebacks.

All in all, thank heaven it's the weekend, and I have the house to myself and a comfy chair and sourdough bread rising on the woodstove, and I am truly blessed, no matter how stressed.

Back to our roots.

Greetings from Oregon! We are not quite settled yet, and still on the road, but we have made it to the Great Pacific Northwest; hallelujah, praise be! 

We picked up Frank and Vee in Dallas super early Thursday morning, and I had a nice nap in the back of the Subaru at 5am because their flight was delayed for two hours. The plan was to head home, finish packing, pick up the truck on Friday, and be on the road Saturday morning. Instead, the UHaul guy let us pick up the truck Thursday afternoon, so while I was teaching my last class at party planet, Jimmy Moreno came over and helped Jesse and his dad load the big stuff.  By the time I got home, half the place was loaded up.  We tossed the last of the random stuff in boxes (that’s the absolute worst part of moving, trying to figure out how to pack the last random odds and ends.  I wanted to just throw it away.), and curled up in our sleeping bags for the night.  We came into that apartment sleeping on the floor, and we spent our last night there on the floor.  It was fitting.

The next morning we finished the loading (I really got out of most of the work. I should call my in-laws more often!), cleaned everything up, turned in the keys, scarfed some “pig pigs” from the donut place, and were on the road at 10 am.

We ate a lot of PB&J

That first day was long.  Our plan was to get to Denver, Co., and by golly, we made it!  But if we hadn’t booked the hotel ahead of time we probably would have stopped sooner.  We had one last meal in Texas, and introduced the parents to fried pickles.  They were quite delicious; possibly better than the first time I had them. 

Deep fried pickles

Have you ever driven through Oklahoma?  Holy goodness.  Apparently there are jokes about the roads in OK, and while I’ve never heard them, I believe every one of them.  It was instantaneous.  As soon as we crossed the border it was like driving on a sidewalk, with periodically spaced seams and bumpy lumpies.  About halfway through the strip the lines on the road went away, and it was dark, and sketchy, and no fun at all.  Then all of a sudden we hit this massive bump; it was like driving right through a ditch in the middle of the road!  We were a little surprised, and then started laughing about how when we got to the end there would probably be a jump you have to go over to be able to leave the state.  The door’s gotta hit you on the way out.  Then Jesse said “Hey, it’s nice to have lines on the road again!”  We looked at the gps and realized that last bump had been on the state line, and it was night and day difference between Oklahoma and Colorado!  Except it was still night.  But you catch my drift.

It was a long haul, and we had forgotten about the time difference, so 11 was actually midnight, and we were all happy to climb into beds with fabulous comforters!  I thought Vee was going to sneak one out in her suitcase. 

Unfortunately, I made a poor hotel choice and failed to make sure it had a continental breakfast, so we got a later start than we intended, due to having to go to IHOP.

 

Side note: Jesse just said “I don’t regret it that much”, referring to his marriage and subsequent collapse of all his hopes and dreams. Yay me!

Originally the plan was to make it all the way to Payette, ID, where Jesse’s uncle John lives, on the second day, but because we had an extra day, due to picking up the uhaul on Thursday, we decided to circle the wagons in Twin Falls.  That hotel was an excellent choice; there was a dutch brothers across the street!  Oh, coffee gods, thank you for smiling upon my life after two years of abandonment!  Pumpkin eggnog lattes have never tasted so good!

We spend the third day in Payette, watching John process a deer and eating pizza.  It’s super appetizing, I tell ya.  Uncle John is pretty good people.  I know Jesse is greatly looking forward to being close(ish) to John again, and going hunting and doing all that good, manly stuff.

Monday morning brought us across the river where we stopped at a gas station and people were there pumping our gas!  I had been planning to take a picture doing a handstand in front of the Oregon sign this entire trip, so imagine my horror when I realized we had crossed into Oregon and I didn’t even realize it!  I was slightly devastated.  Thankfully, the border was still only about a block away, so after stopping for more dutch bros, Vee and I went back across the river, turned around, and found the Oregon sign!  It was so much smaller than I had anticipated, and it was at the end of a bridge, and there was a wall, and it was super not the way I had envisioned.  However, we made it happen.  Kinda.

Finally, 1 pm found us in Bend, OR!  We threw all our junk in the corner of Justin’s shop.  And his spare bedroom.  And his guest bedroom.  And the refrigerator he bought for us.  Then all four of us piled in the Subaru, and here we are.  Driving little back roads winding alongside the river, watching fall leaves peeking out of the evergreens flash by the window, on our way back to Colton.  Three more hours in the car today, three tomorrow will take us to Elkton, and three more on Wednesday to get us back to Bend, our new home, sweet home. 

Hopefully Jesse will have an interview with Nosler Thursday or Friday, and I should be meeting with Bryan on Monday.  Once jobs are in place we can start looking for a house of our own, and preparing for Sarah to come live with us!  Christy said we will call a family meeting to reevaluate the housing situation in a month.

And you’re all caught up!  I’m sure it’s going to be difficult for me to transition out of teacher mode…I will miss all of my Texas family and the life we shared, but I know God has a plan bigger than even Texas.

Mama, I'm coming home!

Oh my goosey!  In 17 days we will be in a U-Haul, on our way to Bend, Oregon.  I’m sure this is old news to anyone reading this, but I gotta document it anyway, right? 

Side note, my Pandora is a total teenage girl right now, and my fake eyelash has suddenly decided to start stabbing me.  My life….!

Anyway.  On Sunday we were totally grilled by our pastor about why we’re going home, and it surprised me a little bit.  You’d think, of all people, he would understand when we say “It’s time; God is taking us home”, but apparently that wasn't enough.  Maybe he feels a responsibility to make sure we aren't just doing whatever the heck we want and saying it’s because God told us to.  So we started running through the story, though there really isn't much of one, because we have no plans.  God said go, so we’re going.  Stepping out in faith.  Abram-ing it.  All that good stuff. 

We have always known we would go home eventually, and over the last 6 months or so we knew it would be sooner than we originally had assumed.  Things weren't going quite as smoothly here as they had been; my dance team fizzled out, everyone we moved here with moved back, Jesse was feeling stuck in a job rut, my new position was not what I expected it to be, Jesse’s grandma passed away, my grandma was in the hospital a couple of times….It started piling up, and when we went home for Granny’s memorial service we knew it was over.  I stood in the church with my siblings and dreamed of us cruising down to The Ranch with spray paint to stake our claims on the pieces of land where we will build our tiny homes and live together in perfect familial harmony.  We schemed to find nice, only slightly crazy people who would be willing to live in our commune and provide spouses for our future children.  We laughed at Bubba and the candy that was “SO GOOD!”  We cried at the funeral of a woman none of us knew well and many of us had never met because we are learning life is as fleeting as it is beautiful.  Someday we will all be together in the commune that is our eternal home, I know, but that doesn't make being apart any easier while we are here.

Long story short, we will not fly back for another funeral; we will be there for the life which comes before.

As soon as we got home Jesse asked me to run the numbers and figure out how long we could make it in Oregon on one income (since I would have to quit my job and had no idea how long it would take me to find one).  We looked at our bank accounts and decided the safe thing to do would be to stay here till June, which had been our most recent plan.  We knew we couldn't leave until Jesse’s suppressor came in, because you can’t move until the background check is finished.  That was September 28^th.  The next afternoon he texted me on his way home from work and said “pack your bags, baby!”   The suppressor came in one month before our apartment lease will be up, which is just enough time to give notice to the apartment and our jobs.  I felt awful leaving Party Planet, because I am the only dance teacher, and my heart hurt to think these girls will be losing dance, but Leslie managed to find someone who used to own her own studio to come in and continue my classes.  It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned it.

Last Friday I got a phone call from a guy named Bryan, who is Justin’s attorney and needs someone to help out in his office that he shares with Justin’s wife, Christy, who is an accountant.  He says he’s at the point where he can’t quite manage everything on his own, but isn’t sure he’s ready to hire an employee.  If all that works out (no promises), then basically I would be doing the same things I do now, but dealing with adults instead of babies.  It was rather amusing how everything he said made me think “been there, done that, signed the paperwork”, down to working in an office with no windows.  It sounds like it wouldn’t be the most glamorous job ever, but it’d be familiar.  Also, I didn't notice any grammatical errors on his website, so I would feel comfortable working for him.

Now all we are waiting on is for Jesse to get a call from Nosler, the company he is hoping to get hired at.  That was the only thing we had planned and is so far the only thing not working out….That and finding a house, which we can’t really do until we have jobs.  We really would like to have a house lined up before we leave here, because if not, we will be living in Justin’s “spare oom” for a while.  Spare ooms are great, and all, and I am so thankful to Justin and Christy, being willing to open their home to us, but it’s not a forever situation.  Also, if we could find a house, say, in the next week or two, we could theoretically have Thanksgiving in Bend, and we wouldn't have to flip a coin to figure out whether we’re going to Colton or Kellogg! 

Honestly, that is the one thing I've really been stressing over, this week.  Is that ridiculous?  I’m about to pack up and move across the country with no house and no jobs, and I’m worried about where we will spend Thanksgiving.  But this will be our first Thanksgiving in Oregon since we got married, and the first one we will have to pick a house to go to.  The year when we were dating the Cline family brought their venison up to the Smith house and we all had a jolly good time.  I love Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is a big deal.  Having to pick someone to spend Thanksgiving with, knowing you’re not going to get to see the other someones, is super difficult!

But it will all work out.  In the meantime, I have 10 more getups!  Only 10 more getups before we are getting up at 3 am to drive to the airport and pick up my favorite parents-in-law.  Only 10 more getups before I say goodbye to all my kids and the women who have shaped my life for the last 2 years.  After 10 getups I will turn in my keys and leave East Elementary for the last time.  There will be tears and hugs and laughter and possibly some things we can’t have at school…but we don’t talk about that…Right now is the lull before the storm.  Now is the time when I am a little excited, and a little sad, but mostly life goes on as normal; I still have to get up and get my paperwork done.  Soon we will enter the mad dash to get everything packed and loaded in the U-Haul and get ourselves on the road again.  Soon we will be home, even though we will never truly be home again, because a part of my heart will always be in Breckenridge, Texas.