Appreciation for the finer things.

With the immense amount of stress we've been under, it's really hard to recognize the lighter moments when they happen as opposed to after the fact. Like the sheer joy on a toddler's face while kicking a pile of leaves (or a mole hill). I've been trying to enjoy the time we have left in this house as much as possible. We went up to the Pomeroy Farm near Yacolt. Riding on the tractor pulled hay trailer while taking in the sunset over the Lewis River and against the backdrop of the evergreen covered hills was one of those moments I wanted to sear into my brain and remember forever.

Then there was the Longview Civil War football game last night. I joked with Tyson that I felt "fulfilled" as an educator, after being mobbed by about 20 kids. My current job (where I get a new group of kids every 6 weeks) has been harder on me than I thought it would be. There's not really any time to build those relationships, and I really miss it. Which was all the more reason it was so great to see former students----and make no mistake about it, I'm really proud of the fact that the band council members and the drum major at Mark Morris are all MY kids (and 6 girls on the cheerleading squad! HA!)

And speaking of former students, can I just say how old it makes me feel that a student I had as an 8th grader is now one of my choristers at the community college?

But if this job/house situation has taught me anything (if I didn't already know this, obviously God thought I needed a reminder) is that you won't miss those great moments if you live IN the moment. Like a kindergartner yelling at a kid across the room "DID YOU JUST FART??!"

Let the chaos begin!

If we're lucky, the timing might work out PERFECT. But really, everything in our lives is now at the mercy of Sgt. Recruiter and our mortgage company.


And here's a frustrating piece: Tyson leaving his current unit before his 6 year contract is up means we will have to pay back a portion of his signing bonus. And you may be asking yourself "why would you have to pay it back if he's staying in the Army?" Answer? National Guard = state pays you. Active duty Army = federal government pays you. As I've been learning, many Army rules and policies are a reaction to a prior problem. So my guess is that some states lost A LOT of money a while back on some soldiers leaving for active duty. Annoying? Yes. But at least they're consistent.

The other bad part is having to sell our house for a loss. But as our agent told us, the only way we'd make money on this place is if we paid it off, and THEN sold it. And even then we'd never probably get the amount we paid for it. The silver lining here is that this agent is a ROCK STAR and within 3 days of listing it, we were submitting one of TWO offers to the bank.

Sooooo....now we wait. Wait for the recruiter and our bank to tell us what the heck we do next. I feel like I've been doing well not freaking out and stressing about stuff. It's really out of our hands now so it's not really worth spending the energy on freaking out, I guess.

Wow I have a lot of packing to do.