Sweet Life in the City

 Oh, hey. Just dropping in to unload the million thoughts going on in my head. I know it's been awhile and once again I am writing this from my phone, so please excuse any mistakes. I am wearing my reading glasses since the last time I posted so maybe writing from my phone won't be as bad as it usually is.   I'm a little bit of a mess these days and I am entering the time of the year that is the hardest on me emotionally,  mentally,  and spiritually. These next few months are filled with dates that broke me. There are dates the next few months that take me back to the darkest days I have experienced.  I enter this fight with the demons that seemed to have attached themselves to me 22 years ago. Praise Jesus, He gave me victory from those demons, but this time of year they like to rear their ugly heads and I struggle. Cancer gave me so many wonderful people and experiences that would not be part of who I am now. But cancer and the trauma that  followed ...

  "I live with a difficult child. That is really hard to write, but the truth is that I have lived with a difficult child for about 14 years. The last few years have been unbearable at times."  I haven't written a post in a long time. The main reason is that I don't have a personal computer (my work computer will not let me log in with my personal email) and I absolutely hate writing from my phone, but here I am needing to write,so I write. When I logged on this evening I found that I had started to write a post on May 23, 2022, but never finished it. We had just come off one of the most difficult years with Chloe. I could be found most nights just crying in my bathroom or screaming, "I can't live in this house with her anymore!" Her treatment towards me had escalated so intensely that I didn't even speak to her for several days and I was a little afraid of her. She had been making so many poor choices at home and we just tried to keep them hidden. I...

 I  never really know how I am going to feel on this date every year. My emotions are running a little bit higher this year. My 18th year cancer free also means that my sweet baby boy is almost 18. I will wake up in the morning and think about the events that unfolded 18 years ago. I will relive almost every moment of that day. I remember waking up March 3, 2004 knowing that the person I had been up to that point would never be the same. I remember looking in the mirror that morning wondering what would become of me. We drove the hour away to the hospital. I remember waiting. I remember finally being placed in this tiny room and I put layers of hospital garb on. My parents and Jeremy's parents were in the room with me and I remember we were making small talk. There was a thick feeling of uncertainty in the room. There were people that stopped by to see me and since we had not been in SC long I really did not know them that well. Jeremy's uncle stopped by and I know he was tryi...

About nine years ago, our family had a moving truck all packed to head to Chicago.  We had said our "goodbyes" to our family and friends.  There was still one last goodbye I had to make and it was the one I was dreading the most. It wasn't a "goodbye" to a person,  but a place and a community that I had grown to love so much.   I drove my vehicle over to the Christian school that had become such an important place in our lives. The last thing I had to pack up was the boxes I had left in my classroom.  I loaded my vehicle and walked back inside to return my key. Nobody was at the school this day, so I tucked my classroom key in an envelope and dropped it in the elementary principal's mailbox.  As the key fell into the mailbox my heart hurt so badly and the tears burst from my eyes. I loved this school so much. I loved teaching there. I loved the people I worked with, the students, and the families.  This school welcomed Jeremy and I both into their...

 Hello! It has been an extremely long time since I posted. I was even a little hesitant to write this post, but I felt like I should share some things that are going on in our life. If you actually clicked on this link then I know that you love our family and trust that you would pray for us as we embark on a new, but familiar, adventure.   I feel like I need to go back just a little bit. About two years ago J and I had sold our house and bought a new house. The kids were at new schools and I was homeschooling C. We kind of thought we had landed and was preparing to stay put for a very long time. It was not long before we started to feel the Lord was changing our heart towards a new direction. He started removing things that we held so close to us. Not necessarily in a bad way. There really wasn't anything bad that was happening,  we just started to feel our heart pulling us somewhere else. Well then the pandemic hit. We were so lonely and isolated.  We got it, ...

I am not really sure how to begin this post. It has been a wild year so far and it looks like it will be a bit chaotic for a while. We are all experiencing big feelings these days. I realize that many have different opinions and suggestions and theories about what is going on in the world. My emotions and opinions have been all over the place this past week. Surprisingly for a highly anxious person, I have been mostly at peace. Oh don't get me wrong, I have shed some tears and I have been shaking with the fears of the unknown, but at the end of the day, I am trusting our Father. It would be foolish for me to try to figure out why this is all happening, so I am choosing to trust that there is a reason and a purpose for this madness and I am going to try my hardest to work on what the Lord is wanting me to learn through these uncertain days. So, on the subject of learning, my social media feeds have been filled with another fear that many of my friends and family are facing over thes...

We are now on day 5 of this school year. Thank you so much for praying for us (especially the kids) during this new school year. I am happy to report that things seem to be going well for all three kids. Sam has started to talk to a few kids, Emma seems to settling in nicely and getting to know people, and Chloe and I are learning the best way to navigate this homeschool thing. Last week was pretty rough on me. I spent a lot of time and energy last week wishing I could go back and make different decisions about where we found ourselves. Regretting and even considered trying to undo my choices. After the 10th text to my hubby he finally was like "okay you need to stop this, it's been two days" 😏. On Sunday our pastor preached on Jeremiah 29 and I was so convicted on how I had been acting. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most popular verses used. It is loved and quoted by so many because everyone loves the idea that God wants to prosper us, He wants to give us a future and a ...

We made it through day one back to school! I dropped Sam off at his school first and as I drove around to exit I cried and prayed that he would have a good day. I then drove a few minutes away to Emma's school, parked, and walked her up to the school. We were a few minutes early before the doors opened and there were like a million people waiting to get in. There was a girl standing in front of us who introduced herself to Emma and this was this girl's first time ever to attend a public school. There were not many parents waiting with their kids, so I left Emma right before the doors opened to let them in. I walked back to my car and just sat and cried for a few minutes. I headed home and Chloe and I dove right into our homeschool lessons. I felt kind of bad for her because I knew the other two would not be doing work on the first day, but there would not need to be all the introductory stuff that goes with the first day of school. I only planned a few things just to ease her i...

It has been awhile since I sat down and posted anything. I have sat down many times to write, but the words just didn't seem to come. As I am on the cusp of a new adventure I thought I would try to put into words what has been going on these last six months or so. It wasn't pretty, but I am so thankful for the Lord's mercy and Spirit to help us find our way back. I lost myself this past year. I found myself in a place that inside I felt blank. I had fallen asleep to the people  that are the most important to me. I didn't realize the depth of my neglect until I found myself standing in my child's room, tears flowing, listening to the struggle they had been facing for months, struggles that I had completely missed. God shook me awake that day in May. I am so glad He did. I know that it pretty heavy to write my first time blogging in months, but there is no other way to jump back into this.  Let me back up a bit. Everyone in our family had been dispersed to new places...

When I was a kid I really don't remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. I think I went through a stage of wanting to be a pediatrician, but realizing how long you had to be in school and all the other gross stuff that came with being a doctor I decided I did not want to be that. When I graduated high school and went to college, I really did not have a wide range of choices, so like most females at this college I entered the teacher education path. My sophomore year at school I felt strongly that the Lord was calling me to pursue a mission degree instead of a teaching degree. It would be in that new course of my life that I would get to know my future husband better, meet a couple who would impact my life more than I can even explain, and develop a love for people from all over the world. I would graduate with my missions degree and Jeremy and I planned to go to the mission field, France actually. We had big plans, God had other plans. Our lives would forever be changed with a ...

How? How in the world is today December 1st! We had a great Thanksgiving even though I have to honest that I was a little apprehensive as it was approaching. This was the first time I would not be celebrating a holiday in my childhood home and I was not sure how emotionally prepared I was for this new house. We left at 1:30 on Wednesday to head to Missouri. Jeremy did not have school, Samuel dismissed early and we always dismiss at 1:00 on Wednesdays, so we left from my school since it is already on the other city of downtown. The reality of not going "home" surfaced as we passed the exit we usually would take and Emma declared "well we would already be at Grandma's house if they still lived here". Nope, we still had like 6 hours to go 😡 We got to my parent's house in Missouri Wednesday night and the kids were super excited to explore their new house. The house is so pretty and it fits my mom personality perfectly and every room has her touch for making a h...

I feel a little bit guilty that I have not posted in a long time. I feel like I had taken everyone to this place of our new adventure and then I just left it there. That very first day of our new school seems like a lifetime ago. Several times throughout the last few months I have sat down to write, but for starters my exhaustion would always take over and my brain would pretty much be mush. We leave our house at 6:20 every morning and are usually home between 5:00 and 5:30 every night. The days are extremely long and the drive  has been less than kind to my body. By Friday afternoon  I certain my legs will never work again. The second reason is that it was just too hard to put into words all the emotions that I have been feeling. The first few months were really sad for me. It didn't make any sense. My school is amazing. The people I work with are amazing and the students are mostly amazing 😏. I just found myself wanting to go back to what I knew. I missed so many sweet face...

I feel like a blinked and it went from Thursday to Monday! Friday morning we had a kindergarten ease-in day and I was able to meet most of the students that will be in our class this year. One of our students is a sibling of some students I know from my last school. I see at least seven familiar faces at my new school and it has been a great comfort to me. It seems like we will have a really great group of kids and I am excited to see how much they will learn and grow this school year. Friday afternoon was our staff luncheon and finishing up things to get ready for today. Friday night I was pretty tired, but Friday nights have become Jeremy's and I's night to watch an episode of whatever crime series we have been watching. This started a few years ago when we got hooked on "Midsomer Murders". We managed to watch all 19 seasons and since season 20 has not made it to Netflix yet we had to find another series. We have gone through two other series ("Hinterland"...