Welcome to North Carolina

Once upon a time there was a mother of four who dreamed a dream of tree lined streets full of children playing happily as mothers and father’s looked upon lovingly while enjoying time to connect as a couple, or trade humorous tales from the trenches of parenthood with fellow neighbors.

Then she had to work her ass off to make it happen.

Oh my word y’all.  Exhaustion and mental overload have reached epic proportions.  Friday evening we packed the truck up, after an INTENSE month of ALL the things required to buy a house.  For perspective, we saw the house for the first time on Sunday May 21st and closed 26 days later on June 16th.  On June 17th we hosted our going away party with ~70 people, at our home, that was in absolute chaos.   Why?  Because we live near DC and no one had the kind of space, centrally located, except for us.  June 19th I flew out to Texas for the week, because it was already on the books for work and I couldn’t back out.  I got home at 10pm on June 22nd, packed like a refugee preparing for the witness protection program from sun up to sun down on the 23rd, and was NC bound the following morning.

Call it a blessing or a curse, but because my natural disposition is more of the ‘can do’ attitude, I tend to think truly ALL things are possible and then drastically under estimate the cost of taking things on.  Case in point, for whatever reason my eyes were on the prize of executing the move.  I budgeted all mental capacity and energy to running the marathon that was this past month, thinking landing in our new house was the finish line.   Now I find myself 4 days into ‘living the dream’, and this house, this neighborhood…. ABSOLUTELY the dream.   However in my dream, apparently I had subconsciously hired an interior designer that completely unpacked/set up my house to the nines without my having to lift a finger.

In reality… where I actually live…. boxes are everywhere, my kids have gone OFF. THE. RAILS with all the transition/chaos, and my to-do list stretches out to infinity.  I’m learning my new job, while training my backfill for my old role.  To get my kids into the schools that I SO want them enrolled in, I have to actually DO that, which apparently requires as much paperwork as buying a house.  I’m overseeing the work we negotiated in the closing of our house, repairs, repainting, etc.   Trying to unpack.  Trying to reign my kids back in (which means they think I’m the devil (Caleb’s exact words) for not letting them get away with whatever any longer).  All the while…. food…. because every day my kids want to eat all the things and I’m sick of cooking for them.

Exhaustion is skewing my perspective.  I’m equal parts defeated by how much we have to do, and encouraged by all that we’ve done.  At no point in time have I doubted this is exactly where we are supposed to be, and for that I’m thankful.  Fun surprises keep the wind in my sails, and God’s grace keeps one foot going in front of the other.  Favorite stories from these first few days….  Sunday morning, roughly 20 hours in North Carolina, Kevin took the boys to Home Depot to pick up a few things.  While walking down one of the aisles, AJ starts waving at this woman and says “Hi Jen!”.   Only my child would already recognize and know a neighbors name before either of his parents because he introduced himself earlier that morning when he saw her walking her dog.   Sunday evening, in an attempt to get some energy out of the boys, we intentionally walked the neighborhood looking for future playmates.  They hit it off with a crew like they’d been friends forever, and the mom has already added me to the neighborhood text string planning their 4th of July block party.  Finally, discovering this beautiful lake and surrounding boardwalk trail in our neighborhood is just icing on the cake….

So much needed peace and tranquility for a weary mama hustling to make her dreams come true!

Looking forward to sharing some of the beauty, and creating a peaceful, tranquil place to welcome ALL the visitors that are gonna come see us 😉

Love ya’ll!

 

 

 

 

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