Life Beyond the Big Decision

It's been difficult to focus lately on anything other than "the move." It kinda consumes. Lists, planning, packing, preparing. Summer is always a nice change of pace since being married to a school teacher. I sometimes think I look forward to the end of the school year more than the students or teachers. That said, it's been a crazy busy summer...again. I think back on the last...hmmm...4? summers. Two of them were spent packing to move states. One we were packing to visit for a few months. Two were spent preparing for a new baby. I am ready to be settled. To feel some stability. Or then will I be bored?

Either way, things are coming together now as we are down to the last few weeks. 24 days actually. We found housing. Two options that were each so good it made it hard to decide. Not seeing either one didn't help much. I guess I think of it as an adventure. Not seeing where we will be living until we get there. That's how it was the first time we moved to Florida and when we moved back here. Now for the third time in a row we are preparing to move into a home that we've never seen.

We're at the point now where we are excited, anxious, a little overwhelmed. Feeling a mix between just wanting to be there and have the move behind us and feeling like we should be savoring each and every moment and detail of being here. I look outside at the sights and even the sounds and I know it will soon all be changed. We say it all the time, but it is just so different from here. Down to the little blades of grass. As Titus and I were walking barefooted outside last week and I felt the soft grass between my toes, I remembered the thick, stiff blades of Florida grass. Maybe it has to be hardier there to stand up to the heat. The trees, I am really looking forward to leaving the leaves behind and seeing the tall palms again. I look forward to day after day of beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds. We will miss waking up to only the sound of birds chirping. Playing out in the backyard and feeling secluded from the rest of the world. Just our little family surrounded by corn fields.

There is beauty in both places.

Titus has been talking about the move more. He just doesn't quite understand it. After we packed a box the other day, we went to run some errands. After getting in the car he asked, "are we moving now?" We're trying to find the balance. Not talking about it too much or getting him too involved, but also wanting to communicate enough with him about it so that he is prepared. It reminds me of when we were awaiting Quincy's arrival. We tried to prepare Titus, but there's nothing that can really prepare a child for such a big life change. Or us as adults for that matter.

We just learn as we go.

Quincy admiring the scenery of the moment-


Titus enjoying a few morning raindrops, and not having neighbors to see him playing outside in his pjs-