One year ago today I was teaching Art at Madison Academy when Erin called to say he had been offered the job he had interviewed for. It was a moment I had been both hoping for and dreading. After two years of unemployment we really needed the offer but it also meant leaving the life we knew and loved.
It was unusual that I was booked with work that entire week. It was a mixed blessing in that it would be my last week to work. I taught kindergarten the following day and on Friday I cried through a day of first grade. I was in the classroom I had picked for JR to be in this year. As I read through lesson plans and looked around the room at the amazing things this teacher did with her class I could only tear up about the fact that my child would not be able to experience the things I was seeing.
Ten days after the offer we had already flown to Minneapolis to look for houses to rent, hired a moving company, put our house on the market and had a final IEP for JR. Somehow during our flight I picked up an upper respiratory infection. A lovely thing to be dealing with considering how quickly we were moving on things. I began getting rid of stuff I didn't want to move and disconnecting services. The next weekend Erin drove to our new home with a car packed to the brim. He started work on that Monday while I continued to wrap things up in Michigan. On April 1st the moving van drove off with our stuff and Erin flew in to Flint. On April 2nd we cleaned up our empty house and spent our last evening with our small group. On April 3rd we went to church, said goodbye to our friends and family, and headed off to a new life, a new adventure.
It has been a year now. I am beginning to feel at home in Minnesota. I am slowly venturing out from my home and starting to learn the area. I am blessed that we have an income that allows us to give our children a few trips to museums or shows, vacation, and occasional new pieces of clothing. I have been blessed to update my own wardrobe with pieces I feel good in. There are so many things to do here. We love exploring the area. Erin's work is close. We love that he can run home on his lunch hour or work from home if he needs to. We spend so much less on gas. The blessing of renting is that when something goes wrong with the house it is someone else's problem. Erin doesn't need to worry about house issues anymore. I love living in a place that our family and friends could easily make a vacation destination and I hope they do.
I don't love the long car ride home and I miss my friends in Michigan. I miss having family near that can keep our kids so we can have a date night or I can run to an appointment by myself. I wish to be closer to my parents and siblings too. I am gun shy at the idea of buying a home again anytime in the near future but miss having a garden.
A year ago all I wanted for my birthday was for Erin to have a job. I am blessed that my birthday wish came true. In spite of my outbreaks of homesickness, the good outweighs the bad in our new circumstances. We ride the roller-coaster of life knowing that the track before us is ever changing. We don't know from one day to the next where it will lead. Opportunities as well as heartbreaks could show up at any time. What matters is that we lean on God and each other through it all.
A year after a life changing event seems a good time to look back and reflect. Below is a note I wrote just over two years ago on Facebook.
It was unusual that I was booked with work that entire week. It was a mixed blessing in that it would be my last week to work. I taught kindergarten the following day and on Friday I cried through a day of first grade. I was in the classroom I had picked for JR to be in this year. As I read through lesson plans and looked around the room at the amazing things this teacher did with her class I could only tear up about the fact that my child would not be able to experience the things I was seeing.
Ten days after the offer we had already flown to Minneapolis to look for houses to rent, hired a moving company, put our house on the market and had a final IEP for JR. Somehow during our flight I picked up an upper respiratory infection. A lovely thing to be dealing with considering how quickly we were moving on things. I began getting rid of stuff I didn't want to move and disconnecting services. The next weekend Erin drove to our new home with a car packed to the brim. He started work on that Monday while I continued to wrap things up in Michigan. On April 1st the moving van drove off with our stuff and Erin flew in to Flint. On April 2nd we cleaned up our empty house and spent our last evening with our small group. On April 3rd we went to church, said goodbye to our friends and family, and headed off to a new life, a new adventure.
It has been a year now. I am beginning to feel at home in Minnesota. I am slowly venturing out from my home and starting to learn the area. I am blessed that we have an income that allows us to give our children a few trips to museums or shows, vacation, and occasional new pieces of clothing. I have been blessed to update my own wardrobe with pieces I feel good in. There are so many things to do here. We love exploring the area. Erin's work is close. We love that he can run home on his lunch hour or work from home if he needs to. We spend so much less on gas. The blessing of renting is that when something goes wrong with the house it is someone else's problem. Erin doesn't need to worry about house issues anymore. I love living in a place that our family and friends could easily make a vacation destination and I hope they do.
I don't love the long car ride home and I miss my friends in Michigan. I miss having family near that can keep our kids so we can have a date night or I can run to an appointment by myself. I wish to be closer to my parents and siblings too. I am gun shy at the idea of buying a home again anytime in the near future but miss having a garden.
A year ago all I wanted for my birthday was for Erin to have a job. I am blessed that my birthday wish came true. In spite of my outbreaks of homesickness, the good outweighs the bad in our new circumstances. We ride the roller-coaster of life knowing that the track before us is ever changing. We don't know from one day to the next where it will lead. Opportunities as well as heartbreaks could show up at any time. What matters is that we lean on God and each other through it all.
A year after a life changing event seems a good time to look back and reflect. Below is a note I wrote just over two years ago on Facebook.
"I will praise you in this storm" or "Seeing God in one family's life on unemployment"
It was one year ago today that Erin called me in the late morning to tell me he was packing up his things and on his way home. He had been one of the unfortunate ones to loose his job that day. I had been a stay at home mom for seven years and while Erin was an Electrical Engineer, it was still a struggle. We had been working hard to pay off the debt from our past mistakes amid the ups and downs of living life. I had learned to feed our family on a rather small budget and we kept the house cool in the winter to save on heat. We rarely eat out and vacations have been going home to Indiana. Our life was already on the tight side money wise, what would this new adventure bring?
Looking back over the past year I can see God's blessing in our circumstances. It is not a path we would have chosen but we are probably better off now than we were a year ago. Here are some of the blessings we have had:
1. Because of the thoughtfulness of many of God's people, our kids had the biggest christmas they have ever had. We also had money given to us that paid off; JR's speech bill from the year, a credit card bill, Erin's school books, and made up for the fact that I worked very little that month.
2. With Erin unemployed, I have gone back to substitute teaching. This has put me in our kid's school on numerous occasions and given the opportunity to learn that even though I picked it to begin with, it is no longer where I wish my children to be.
3. The food stamps we receive are far more than what I had been budgeting for food. We have been able to splurge from time to time and still stock up. Our big freezer and pantry are often overflowing. And while we didn't go out for Valentine's Day, we were able to have a very nice date night in.
4. We just learned that because of our current circumstances our tax return is rediculously large. We will be able to pay off our van and our car and then some. Our 401k loan was also taken care of in the process of rolling over Erins retirement funds so our debt is considerably lower. We planned on it taking us at least two more years to get to this point.
5. While Erin has gotten a little tired of being home so much, he has enjoyed seeing our two little ones grow before his eyes. He and JJ have a closer relationship now. I often have the thought that he is blessed to be able to take a year off in the middle of raising our kids rather than waiting for retirement.
6. Erin has taken the opportunity to go back to school and learn a new trade. A year from now, (provided he has not yet gotten a job) Erin will have an associates in Computer Networking as well as a bachlors in Electrical Engineering. (If he does get a job he will continue with classes at a slower pace. He is too far into it now to just quit.)
7. We now have internet access and a laptop. Erin needs the internet to search for jobs and in an effort to save money we had never splurged on it before. I also need the internet to find subing jobs. The library was just not going to cut it so last years tax return got us a lap top and last August we finally hooked up to the internet.
We have had our ups and downs and like I said before, this is not how we would have chosen to do things but it has been a blessing to us in many ways. Where will our adventure of life together take us in the next year?
Looking back over the past year I can see God's blessing in our circumstances. It is not a path we would have chosen but we are probably better off now than we were a year ago. Here are some of the blessings we have had:
1. Because of the thoughtfulness of many of God's people, our kids had the biggest christmas they have ever had. We also had money given to us that paid off; JR's speech bill from the year, a credit card bill, Erin's school books, and made up for the fact that I worked very little that month.
2. With Erin unemployed, I have gone back to substitute teaching. This has put me in our kid's school on numerous occasions and given the opportunity to learn that even though I picked it to begin with, it is no longer where I wish my children to be.
3. The food stamps we receive are far more than what I had been budgeting for food. We have been able to splurge from time to time and still stock up. Our big freezer and pantry are often overflowing. And while we didn't go out for Valentine's Day, we were able to have a very nice date night in.
4. We just learned that because of our current circumstances our tax return is rediculously large. We will be able to pay off our van and our car and then some. Our 401k loan was also taken care of in the process of rolling over Erins retirement funds so our debt is considerably lower. We planned on it taking us at least two more years to get to this point.
5. While Erin has gotten a little tired of being home so much, he has enjoyed seeing our two little ones grow before his eyes. He and JJ have a closer relationship now. I often have the thought that he is blessed to be able to take a year off in the middle of raising our kids rather than waiting for retirement.
6. Erin has taken the opportunity to go back to school and learn a new trade. A year from now, (provided he has not yet gotten a job) Erin will have an associates in Computer Networking as well as a bachlors in Electrical Engineering. (If he does get a job he will continue with classes at a slower pace. He is too far into it now to just quit.)
7. We now have internet access and a laptop. Erin needs the internet to search for jobs and in an effort to save money we had never splurged on it before. I also need the internet to find subing jobs. The library was just not going to cut it so last years tax return got us a lap top and last August we finally hooked up to the internet.
We have had our ups and downs and like I said before, this is not how we would have chosen to do things but it has been a blessing to us in many ways. Where will our adventure of life together take us in the next year?
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