He’s worth his weight in gold.

I know that I’m excited about going back to my old church. Now that I am a mother, I have no interest in drama or cliques. I just want my son to grow up in church and participate in Awana’s and have friends his age. I don’t care who slept with who or who accidentally got pregnant “out of wedlock” or, for goodness sakes, who just came out of the closet. I just. don’t. care. I’m excited to go to services preached by a pastor I fully respect. I am excited to see familiar faces. I am excited to be in a house of God.

My walk has been so rocky for the past few years. My faith in God was really shaken up by some events that I don’t really talk about and I have a hard time letting go of controlling my life. However, this move has really made me rethink my beliefs and just how much faith I can put into him. We needed a certain amount of money and we got it. Our car broke down and we received the necessary funds from a surprising source. All of these little problems crop up and solutions present themselves in the most subtle of ways but they are no less powerful.

For example, Joshua and I were in Starbucks today, bartering with a book reseller over some of our old commentaries and Bibles. I was talking to the man’s wife about our move and why we were moving and there was a lady reading her book that kept watching us but I thought nothing of it at the time. You see, in public, I am not ashamed to play with Noah or dance to overhead music with him. I am quite flamboyant about having fun with my little boy. This usually brings stares so it’s not something new to me. It never occurred to me that she might be paying closer attention than usual until the couple we were selling books to left. Then she walked up, handed Joshua a $20 bill and said, “God bless you in what you are trying to do”, then rushed back to her book and barely acknowledged our thanks (not in a bad way).

After something like that, how does one NOT believe in the power of God and the love that he instills in his children? So you see, my walk with God is in an entirely different place than it was a year ago or even a month ago. I have no idea what’s going to happen when we move. I have no idea where we’ll be a few months from now…but I firmly believe that we’ll be happy and content in due time.

Now, I have so much to say that I don’t know where to start! I’m also terrible at writing anecdotes and remembering things that aren’t written as “and then, and then, and then” statements.

But, I’m going to attempt, since if I don’t I’ll beat myself up for it later. Here goes:

We are moving in less than two weeks. It’s here: Crunch Time. We’re frantically packing, even though we *tried* to be prepared and pack ahead of time and get whatever we could done. We’re cramming visits – tomorrow some friends from Atlanta are coming down and then we’re having dinner with Joshua’s mom and siblings (Sarah and Scot are coming up from Florida), then we need to make another visit out to Joshua’s Grandmommy. Not to mention we need to pack the rest of our apartment and clean so we can cheerfully hand over the keys next Thursday. (Oh. my. God. Next Thursday. Holy cow.)

Thankfully, we’ve spent a lot of time with Joshua’s parents this past week. The yard sale was Friday and Saturday so we went over Wednesday to help set up and pick Noah up after a Nana Playdate, and then went back Thursday to finish setting up and spend the night. We didn’t get home until Sunday morning. Noah had a blast the entire time as he played outside on the plasma cars and rough-housed with his uncles. The poor boy has two skinned knees, two skinned elbows and bug bites. He was so covered in dirt Friday that I had to hop in the tub with him to get him clean enough.

Oh, yes, for some reason Noah stopped taking baths alone. He promptly freaks out and tries to climb out of the tub. It does seem to be getting better, thankfully, as the last time I gave him a bath (yesterday), he continued to play even after I got out. Phew!

He’s such a character though, seriously. Last Thursday, we were outside and he was calling for “Daddy” and I said “Josh!” to get Joshua’s attention. Noah grins and starts saying “Josh! Josh! Jooosh!” over and over. We figured it was just a one-time thing, or maybe he thought it meant “come here!” but Joshua did something later – I can’t remember what – and Noah goes “Jooosh…” like he’s scolding him. Goofball.

He’s also saying two word sentences which is just awesome. He looooves avocado which is great for his anemia and he’s been doing better about getting food and drinking juice.

I really do get this stuff written down, I swear, but Twitter and Livejournal are so easy because I don’t feel like I have to be coherent or put effort into writing a full entry. That, and LJ is for certain eyes only. ;-)

Well, I think I’ve successfully written an entry. It may be all over the place and badly written but I’m calling it good, for now.

We’ve had our rough patches but I realized long ago that I can only get passionately angry at someone that I love passionately. I hope that passion extends forever.

—

I love you, Joshua. Thank you for doing me the honor of being my husband. I am proud to claim you and call myself your wife.

Today, however, I went to the dentist (I’m starting to feel like I’m always in that chair one way or another) and had my tooth filled. I was a nervous wreck last night and this morning and I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up or both while waiting in the office for my name to be called. The dentist did an excellent job on my tooth though, as far as I can tell. You can’t even really tell there was ever an issue with that tooth, much less one that almost made me lose a prominent front tooth. I do have to admit that I love Hoobastank for the assistance though. The drilling really gets to me so I turned the music up as loudly as I could stand it and thought about everything but the work the dentist was doing. Unfortunately, there is still so much more than needs to be done and as soon as we have the money or insurance (or both), I will be. Yuck. I think there’s two extractions and two root canals with crowns in there somewhere…not to mention a dozen or so fillings. *sigh* And Dr. P’s office tried to say it wasn’t genetic!

Whatever. Afterwards, we went over to Shannon’s house and I looked through a ton of clothes she had set aside out of Joe’s closet. We have clothes for Noah from 3T through size 6; mostly play and house stuff but it’s all nice and I’m relieved to have them. It’s one thing to buy a few quality pieces for nicer events but it’s quite another to try to outfit an entire wardrobe for a boy that grows in feet, not inches (I’m not sure I’m exaggerating). There was quite a lot to go through, have I said that before?

I also went through all of the boxes in their storage closet. I wiped out our wedding box – stuff either went into the yard sale pile or the trash bin and I saved a whole ziploc baggy worth of items (Dad’s candle, a couple of bells, a picture, a piece of my dress and two small flowers). Joshua and I kept our Bride/Groom champagne flutes and my wedding bouquet (that I made) but those are always on display. I felt really good about paring down because I know three years ago I couldn’t have done it. Now, I just want what we do keep to matter to me, not to the story they might hold some day.

There were quite a few boxes that needed to be consolidated or weeded through and we did that. We have a decently sized stack of boxes in there still, along with our coats and luggage, but they are all packed and ready to be loaded into the moving van. I’m grateful that my in-laws are so generous with their storage space. I wish I had decluttered a lot sooner but I don’t think I was really ready until more recently. This move certainly kicked my butt into gear as far as keeping stuff on hand goes.

So that’s our day. Joshua, Noah and I got home, ate chili (using our pantry stores) and watched Bewitched. Noah took a two hour nap, played in his playroom and finally crashed around 1 AM (mostly because he had such a late nap today since he refuses to sleep at Shannon’s house).

I’m happy. I feel like this move is sanctioned by God for multiple reasons. I’m excited to see my family, to get back on our feet and to get into a new place. One more month!