It's raining, It's pouring

Marc and I just had the longest conversation we'd had all week.  It's just been a crazy week.  We had company, sold a house, bought a house, got our adoption decree, he had his huge strategy meeting with the CEO to lay out the plan they hired him to make, he flew to San Fran and back in 24 hours, he interviewed perspective hires today...and now finally, he is on his way home.  We are both exhausted.  I laughed talking to him, he is so tired he cried and said it's the third time he's cried today.  Poor guy.  He cries over real stuff, but not usually from exhaustion...I put white wine in the fridge and we'll make sure it is a low key early bed evening and a restful weekend.

Moving, uprooting life is hard.  Living apart from your spouse, kids, dad, during the week days is hard.  Hard and yet as the storm rages, God provides.  It is a daily provision, spiritual manna.  Not too much by way of answers most days, but just enough to give us strength to get through it.

Last September when we first had inklings that our life here was being disrupted.  I felt impressed upon to really remember God's faithfulness and have continued to feel we need to focus on remembering all he's done and reminding ourselves of all he WILL do.  I have a special project brewing that I hope comes to real life fruition at some point.  For today, I just want to "remember" some of the blessings even this week of chaos brought to us.

Monday was stressful, but on our car ride to Chicago I had a really good conversation with my Mother in Law.  She was vulnerable and I love her for it.  It was a blessing, I stood in awe.  We have a history that I won't go into because it's the past, but this was clear evidence of God's work.

We didn't have lice...which based on my reaction would have been infinitely worse had there been actual existence and not just theoretical risk.

We had free hotel rooms for our Chicago craziness because Marc's temporary housing is paid for.

We had family in Chicago to watch our VERY tired kids while we looked at houses and composed an offer.

We got the house we wanted without stressing over it, held our hands open to whatever God wanted, but are so blessed that we got this one so we can just enjoy Sheboygan our last month here and not worry about further house hunting.

Today, I am SUPREMELY grateful for a messy house.  For the first time in months, I could leave dishes in the sink and toys out.  Didn't even sweep the floor.  I won't let it get disgusting, but just relaxing and not being "on" 100% of the time is SOO nice.

By far the GREATEST gifts this week have been my kids processing.  I never want to forget Ava's statement to me yesterday.  When I picked her up from school, I told her we definitely got the house and she said, "Christian is officially our brother, our house sold, AND we got the house we picked.  Isn't it amazing that God answered all our big prayers, Mom?."  She gave credit where 100% of the credit is due, I was so blessed to see her precious heart and her growing faith.

Chloe's processing is not really spiritual or nearly as profound but has made me smile.  For a while, Chloe has had a pretend world.  She lives in a pink house with her mom, Hannah (our babysitter), they have a pink dog named rosebud and a blue car and they eat candy.  Sometimes she is Chloe in this world, sometimes she is Abby, a dear friend of hers.  She loves to play this pretend and does so almost daily.  Today, however, she evidenced that she is processing the move.  She told me she is moving to a new house.  I thought she was in the "real world" so I acknowledged that yes she is.  Then she told me she is moving to a Rainbow House.  The Rainbow House doesn't have any spiders.  She is also getting a Rainbow car, but she'll keep her blue car too.

I guess imagination is her avenue of processing and it was so cute I wanted to burst.  I can't wait to hear more about this Rainbow house, for knowing her, it will continue to evolve.  No spiders sounds nice...I am hoping there are no cardinals either.  (Our little friend continues to live in our yard (15 months now) though the pecking has drastically decreased since we began madly spray for hornets)

They say when it rains it pours and this week has been all kinds of pouring rain....but soaking wet or not it's always better to dance in the rain;)


(Yes, I realize there is no cute antedote involving Phin.  He hasn't said too much about the move, but he did kindly flood my bathroom this morning by playing around with toilet paper and clogging the toilet and then continually flushing to try and fix it....all before 6am.  Try as I might, I still am having trouble being thankful for that.  Perhaps I can say,  um...I guess I am glad it wasn't overflowing with poop water just water and toilet paper?  But I am only mildly thankful...mostly still annoyed 12 hours later...rest assured he'll be plenty cute for a different day's blog post.)