Sara @ Moonrize

I always feel like Christmas is the end of the year. I feel like making my resolutions now (as I eat chocolate and contemplate a pizza for lunch! lol) and starting to move forward. Maybe I just feel like that because I want to get a jump on the rest of the world.

This year, let me tell you, has been HARD. Really really hard. I started to make a Christmas letter and decided that it would send people (or maybe just me) into depression. December last year I was in the middle of “operation save the school”. This was a LOT of hard work but at least there were things to DO. I was able to try and help rather than sit and watch it crumble – that came later. However, I was also in the middle of “operation loose my best friend”. That sucked – bad. I cried and cried and cried for MONTHS about that. Thank god I had Cari sue and Jennifer Sharp to help me through it. And I had my wonderful husband. In hind sight…it was good. We needed to break those ties to some people who maybe didn’t bring out the best in us? It also MADE Gary and I rely on each other more and we are closer for it. It also made me examine my relationship with God and my beliefs. It really shook me, this break and the reasons for it, and now i’m sure of where I stand and who I am. And if I ever feel that i’m not sure….I drop to my knee’s and talk it out.

March was the death of my brother in law. I wasn’t really close to him but he was my nephews father and my heart broke for him. Gary and I went to Montana which started the real hard push for my mom to move out to the pacific northwest. She just couldn’t continue to live out there with no kids near her. She was not capable of making and implementing this decision on her own so I knew I was looking at a lot of work but felt up to the task.

Spring brought the final nails in the coffin that was Heritage Christian School. Its a funny thing to watch (and by funny, I don’t mean Ha ha) people being put in an insecure place. I like to think that I am a good observer. During the HCS stuff, I was a worker…but an observer more. I got to observe the dynamic between the teachers / parents / students and Board of Trustee’s. I was able to help a bit, I think, and that felt good but more than that, I was able to learn. I learned a lot about the nature of people this last year and not necessarily in a bad way. Some people have this amazing grace and trust that the Lord will guide them and take care of them – in the middle of all this madness we call every day life. Some people get angry and / or negative to everything. They become unable to see the small blessings. Its almost as if they become paralyzed with the fear and just find themselves unable to move around it. Some people are very good at self protection (using humor and or tears to work though whatever life is handing them) and some are not as good at “rollin’ with the homies” (that one’s for you, Britney. RIP). I hope that I was able to learn and implement what I liked from that situation – and turns out God knew i’d have a tough year and let me learn this lesson before things got really bad.

In June HCS closed but the BOT needed me to stay. This was hard. To walk into a building each day that was basically a graveyard of hopes and dreams. At this point, I was being paid again – an hourly wage – but still didn’t have the previous month and a half of wages. This took a lot of faith because I never knew if I was going to get paid for that week. Plus, it was hurtful because a lot of people who I consider friends hadn’t received anything. In addition, I had to try to justify to my husband the fact that I was still working for someone whom owed me 6 weeks pay. Personally, I felt that there were somethings that needed to be done and wouldn’t get done if I didn’t stay. Once those were done, I left and started the unemployment fun! The silver lining of this part of life was that I’ve discovered what I want to do with my life – nursing – and it would have never been something I would have picked. That was discovered from a lot of prayer, having a lot of time on my hands, and my work at HCS. So now I have a goal and a focus and a belief that its right. That feels good.

The summer had lots of fun and hard work. Moving my mom out, the final champoeg, road trips with my sissy. Road trips with the nieces and my husband. Let me tell you, this was one of the best summers ever. Wow, funny, I forgot that. it was so crazy, I forgot how FUN it was. We really did have a great summer.

October was the “incident” that tore my bio family (mom’s side) apart and changed my life forever. I’m trusting in the Lord to help recover this daily. The positives in this incident were – 1.) My husband. wow. he loves me SO much. 2.) My friends. They are good friends that i’m so lucky to have. 3.) God’s grace. I could have had quite a different outcome and I’ve been carried through hell in the arms of God. I truly understand what it is to thank God for every day.

October was also the start of school. A lot of new things… strengths I didn’t know I had and strengths I thought I had that had gone missing! What a learning curve. And what FUN. I love school…i love what i’m studying and I love the anticipation of a wonderful carer.

November and December have been a decision to TOTALLY CHANGE OUR LIFE. But for the good of family, so that’s okay. Highly stressful, but worth it in the end. I think it might also be bringing the healing needed – on my part anyway – to have a relationship with my mom.

so…in summary – thank GOD 2009 is over, bring on 2010. which, btw, I will say in the TWENTY TEN fashion. This year will be a year of constant change, i’m sure. I will continue with school and learning. Plus remodeling a house. Plus moving. Plus loving on and caring for a sick parent. Plus maybe getting a job again. Plus the ever present losing weight and possibly doing the 1/2 iron. Plus being a good friend. Plus being a good sister. Plus being a good wife. Plus finding ways to show my husband how much I love him and how grateful I am for him. Plus growing in my relationship to my God. Plus giving more to others. Plus communicating with those I love who are far away. Plus loving my dog. Plus taking more pictures. Plus washing my face more.

Okay, I need a nap.

Dear Craigslist,

Please up date your “best of” section. Some of us are out of school and need some random wittiness to click upon in between frantic sessions of baking cookies.

Also, please add a section just for cute pictures of Chihuahua’s.

Thanks so much,
S

Gary’s dad is not well.  He is going into renal failure (will most likely be on dialysis in the next 6-12 months). His mom is in her late 60’s and is still working with no real viable plan to stop working.  We have recognized that we will have to supplement their income (and have been prepared to do so for several years) but with our own debt, its not a very good idea to run two houses.  Our house has stairs, and they may not always be a good option for Dad.  So….we have made a decision to buy their house and combine households.

This is not a bad thing for us, as they have a much larger lot (though much smaller house) and there are more options for building extensions and such there.   Plus, our mortgage payment will be much smaller so we will be able to save and do the extensions with cash – which is huge. Until those extensions are done though, we will have 4 people in 1000 square feet of room.  That’s a little scary.

The decision came when we made a list of pro’s and con’s. It went something like this:

Pro – Mom can retire and look after Dad.

Pro – We can stay on top of Dad’s appointments and ADL’s – helping where needed.
Pro – We will owe way less on the 7th ave house than the Albertine house (saving money each month for repairs and add-ons).
Pro – We will be debt free (other than the house payment).
Pro – The parents might be able to relax and enjoy their final years.

Pro – The house has been in Gary’s family for decades and this is the only way to keep it.

Pro – There are a lot of options with the lot (unlike the Albertine street house).

Con – They smoke in the house and think we wont know.
Pro – They’ve promised not to do that once we start painting and cleaning.

Con – They will probably still do it when we are gone.

Con – It is an OLD house and we will have a lot of work to do.

Pro – We like doing that work.

Pro – We will have money to do it (debt free!).

CON – Until we convert the garage into a master suite (probably take a year at least) we will have 4 adults living in 1000 square feet of house!

PRO – We will be family, taking care of family.  That’s the way it should be. I love them so much and I want them to be able to count on us.

Con – When we have family in town (or friends) we wont have a place for them to stay for a while. This is a pretty big one for us.  Luckily we know about pricelining hotels but still….makes us sad. Having family and friends over is a huge thing for us. We love it.

Pro – Mom loves the dog. She calls Tiqi her Granddaughter.

Pro – We will be forced to “de-junk”. No one likes a horder.

After making the list, we saw that this is really the best option for us. We are anticipating moving in April – possibly May.  When we bought this house – the Albertine street one – we thought we were going to have a gaggle of kids and that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.  And really, we didn’t know enough about house shopping.  We were so excited that we qualified that we pretty much just ran with it.  I also think we were doing some “keeping up with the jones” and we don’t do that anymore.  It seemed most of our friends – our closest anyway – all had kids and were buying big beautiful new houses. So we did that too. It didn’t occur to us that we had a different life path.

If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have bough a new structure on such a small lot. We might not have bought at all. We are different people than we thought we’d be by now – and I’m sure that’s a good thing. I don’t want to be those people….striving for material things that are bigger and better.   I don’t want to be judged on the size of my loft or the manicured back yard. I LIKE who we are now. I like that we are best friends who function as one. I like that our priorities are happiness and family.

I’m scared to let go of freedom.  We are making a commitment to our Parents that will last LOTS of years. And sometimes, people drive each other nuts. This decision has not been entered into lightly…but we both feel that its right.

So, pray for us, okay? a lot! and come to our many pending garage sales. We’ll be selling everything for a quarter!

xo,