I glance out the window, soaking in the beauty of our front yard, listening to the sound of laugher and kids playing and know that this view will only last a few more days. The kids have been enjoying the beautiful weather, swinging, playing, coloring outside, and munching on slices of watermelon on the deck.
It is starting to feel like summer and of all the seasons of the year in the Pacific Northwest, Summer has been my favorite. The rainy days are slowing down and it is warming up. Today got up to 80 F.
I am breathing in the wonderful smells of star jasmine that grows over the entry archway of our gate and Honeysuckle growing along the fence. I love the giant ferns and elephant ears, and how the flowers bloom one after the other around the yard. I will miss the deck and the BBQs we have had over the years.
We have been in this house since 2010. Twelve years. It was our first home. It was my oldest four kids first home. The home we brought our youngest kids home to for the first time. The house my daughter was married at, and my grandson came home to from the hospital after he was born. We have made a lot of memories here.
Veronika has a sweet friend that we get together with every Wednesday so they can play together and the little girl's mom is a dear friend. We enjoy sitting together and visiting while our girls play. We have known them since Veronika was first home. Times like today, make it hard to leave.
But I know come September-May, I will be once again thrown into a world of struggling with my emotions. It is hard enough to deal with on it's own, but add menopause on top and it is not a good mix. I hate being cooped up for months on end with the constant rain. Rain now and then is great, but almost 9 months of rain in a row, that wears a person down. There is a condition called SAD. SAD stands for "Seasonal affective disorder) and is a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times. It is considered a mood disorder that is characterized by depression that occurs the same time every year. SAD occurs in climates where there is less sunlight at certain times of the year and symptoms can include fatigue, depression, hopelessness, and social withdrawal." I have been struggling with SAD since we moved here, but in the last 11 years it has gotten a lot worse. And the last few years since I hit menopause it has gotten even worse. I miss being able to spend time outside year round. I miss the crunch of leaves under my feet. I miss summers that get so hot every year you just want to jump in a pool to cool off. (We tried a pool here at our house. It would never get hot enough for long enough during the day to warm the water and then at night it would cool down so much the pool was never warm enough for the kids to want to play in. We even tried to warm the water up with one of those heat blankets, but it was no use.)
Our POD will arrive tomorrow and will take all our things away on Monday. We are closing next week, and then we will be on our way. I will miss my precious little grandson who I was blessed to watch grow up a good part of his first year of life, I will miss my two amazing and wonderful adult children, and my son-in-law. I will miss visiting with my dear friend and watching our daughters play together. Thankfully, my dear friend and her family, that we get together with every week, plan on moving to Iowa in a few years so this is not good-bye forever! We will be able to get together again with our girls one day! And once we have everything set up, hopefully our dear friends from Canada will be able to come visit!! Veronika and her dear friend lived together in the same orphanage as babies. They took the first pictures of Veronika before we met her while adopting their daughter and our families have been friends and gotten together almost yearly until covid. It has been SO hard to not see them and we miss them dearly!
But it is time for a new chapter. My oldest four kids are all adults now. They are making their own lives now, and it is time to follow our own dreams of having our own farm. Living off the land, raising cows, chickens, pigs, and bees. Having a cabin on the property for any of my adult children, family, or friends who want to come visit, and when not in use could be rented out as an AirB&B. And enough land that if any of our adult children would ever want/need a place to stay, room for them to have a house of their own on our property.
Some are dreams I have had since I was a child when I first visited my Uncle Wilfred's farm, only to be made stronger when I visited an Amish farm when my oldest kids were little, still others, like the AirB&B, are dreams that I have had for almost twenty years. Dreams that we can finally turn into reality. We are trusting that God will lead us the way we are meant to go. We have trusted in Him, knowing that one day these dreams would come true and here we are. Now we go forward, trusting him to lead us to the property we are meant to buy.
We have a lot of fun adventures planned for the road trip. We will be going to a place called This is the Place Heritage Park in Utah. It has a little area set up like it was back in the pioneer days, along with all kinds of fun activities for kids.
Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico
The Alamo in Texas
In Louisiana we will get to visit with Grandma and Grandpa (my parents). The last time we got to see them was 2015. Since then we have adopted again and the kids have gotten a LOT bigger!
From there we will go to Missouri and start looking for our new property where we will be building our dream home.
We are starting a new chapter of our lives. It will be a lot of hard work but we will make our dreams come true!
In the mean time, if you could pray for ALL of our children that would be wonderful. We leave behind in the Pacific Northwest two of our amazing adult children, our super adorable grandson, and our wonderful son-in-law. It is so hard leaving them behind, I wish I could bring them all with us, but they have no desire to live on a farm or to leave the West coast and they are making their own lives here so we will have to settle for chats, emails, and video chats until they are able to come visit us.
None of our children still living at home fully understand what moving means. Ellie has zero understanding of what moving means even though we have been talking about it for over a year, our walls are currently bare of all decorations, we have moving containers everywhere, and we have been talking about Missouri and what we are doing. I do not think the rest of the kids understand that moving means you do not come back to your house after a road trip is over. Please pray for a smooth transition for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment