Monday!

Monday, you've never been so hated and so looked forward to at the same time.

The moving truck arrives tomorrow, along with our friend Rob, who will be driving it.  Sadly the two don't arrive TOGETHER necessarily, and so there's a lot of finagling going on with that.  But you can hear about it all tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Not today.  Because today has been specially set aside for impossible tasks.

ONE!

I'm getting rid of our food.today, not that there's a lot left of it.  We have enough flour left for one more meal of pancakes, and the pound of bacon in the fridge along with whatever is left on the ham bone constitutes all of our meat.  The children are snacking on nothing but dried figs and saltines from here on out and a solitary carton of vegetable soup along with the contents of my crisper drawers will be a soup for supper tonight.  The condiments are gone, the pantry is gone...

David stopped me on the stairs and said "Um...are we not going to need this stuff for meals for the next few days?"  What meals?  What next few days?  It's Monday, I have pancakes and bacon for one meal, soup for another, and then it's Tuesday.  The children will eat applesauce and grapes and whatever I can scrounge up for breakfast, and then lunch will be providentially provided by our friend Anna, and supper is chicken sandwiches at Burger King.  And then it's Wednesday and the truck leaves and feeding two grown men isn't my problem anymore.  And none of these meals will require apple cider vinegar or cheesecake mixes or any of the other foods I'm getting rid of right now.

This is all we're taking with us food wise.

TWO!

I'm spray painting two of our dining room chairs.  They're a temporary solution to our chair problem, which is that we don't have any!  A table, yes, and two lovely chairs...and four people.  So these wooden folding ones will have to do for the foreseeable future.  Usually when I say something like that we end up using the item for years because we can't afford to replace it, but I truly hope that isn't the case this time.

THREE!

Thank heavens for friends!

Some of the best things I've seen/read on the Intergoogleweb and in print this week.

** Your minister isn't a machine.  This article that should be required reading for all pastors...and their congregations.

** Anne Kennedy's blog about being a conservative Anglican priest and homeschooling her six children is a breathe of fresh air.

** The Japanese Giant Salamander in this picture is both incredibly strange and really, really fascinating.  And here's a BBC article that is worth reading.

** How to spray paint a vinyl chair in bold and fantastic stripes!

** I really want to know if this portable outlet that you stick to your window to utilize solar power would be worth getting everyone on my list for Christmas.

What I Wore Sunday - The Last Day At Church

Today was our very last Sunday at our church here in small town New Brunswick.  It's been our spiritual home, off and on, for four years, and we'll miss it, especially since what they offer us - a great Sunday School program for Samuel that he adores attending, a safe nursery staffed with loving workers who dote on Clara, and uplifting music, fulfilling sermons, interesting small groups and tonnes of activities, a chance for David and I to sit alone in a pew and be together for an hour - isn't going to be present for a long time in our new church.

In case you're just tuning in, this week we're moving to a very tiny town in Northern Ontario for David to pastor a church.  It's exciting, and it's what we want, but the challenges are very real.  And one of those is going to simply be that we will never again be a family in the pews.

Anyway - here's what I wore, yet another fall transition outfit.

I bought this belted satin shirt second hand, and I was really nervous about wearing it because of how bright and 'look at meeeeee!' it seemed.  I also discovered that satin attracts water marks like a big fat rock gathers big fat moss.  But I gave it a shot this Sunday and I think I'm happy I did.

Check out the FLAP link up for more outfit inspiration.

I'm hoping (trying not to add another stress on myself, but hoping) to blog something every day this week.  With pictures.  Seeing as that's practically impossible for me on a normal week, let alone one where we're packing a truck with all of our belongings including the computer and moving over 2000 km away and where I'll be living in someone else's house for three days, I'm going to take it easy on myself if I don't make it.

My Empty Fridge

 The freezer is empty, the cupboards are almost bare, and this was the fridge a few days ago - it's even emptier now.  We are the proud owners of a limited assortment of condiments, really.  And some eggs.

Tonight I'm cooking that big cabbagey looking creature in the bottom there with some bacon I picked up at the butcher's.  And I have 1 solitary onion in the drawer, which I will sauté with the eggplant and some oil and the last of the Greek seasoning in the cupboard.  And we're going to buy a big roast of pork which will hopefully last us a few days before we're reduced to nothing but take-out pizza.

Anxiety To The Tune Of Happy Squealing Children

Sitting in the destroyed dining room (why do children need to wear so very MUCH of their suppers?) contemplating the equally topsy turvy kitchen, the partially cleaned bathroom, and the two page long list of things to get done.  Trying not the panic.  Not succeeding.

I can hear optimistic sounds from my husband upstairs attempting to book the final airline ticket.  This is so encouraging since the last few times he's been on the phone with them there has been a lot of glaring and much casual frustration and storming about.  He's had a rough day, poor guy.

Just went upstairs and David is still on the phone.  Uggghhhhaaaaaahhhhhh...this is the last big thing we have to do today!  Not that we had the amazing list crossing off morning I had hoped for.  We made it to David's appointment and to mine, but then missed another one.  We bought food for tonight but not food as in 'groceries'.  We didn't Go Grocery Shopping.  We did make it to the bank, but we didn't get a chance to pick up the new cat carrier.  It's all been so touch and go.

And now I have a list a mile long for tomorrow.  It's not as long as it was the first time I wrote it out, and then got canola oil all over it so I couldn't cross anything off, but it's still pretty long.  There are 33 items on it; 15 of those alone are people I have to somehow get in touch with some one reason or another...can you watch my child/help me pack a truck/tell me where I can sign up for a family doctor/tell me if you want my table?

Well, Apparently All Is Well on the booking of tickets front.  David has claimed victory and has gone off to fall asleep in the bathtub listening to sermons.  I feel palpable relief.

The Anniversary Gift

So here we are, the last Big Day of work this week.  I mean, don't get me wrong, Friday and Saturday will have their fair share of packing and general crazy, but today is the day filled with everything under the sun that seems to need immediate attention.  To combat this, here's a little bit of beautiful in the midst of it all. This is the tea set that David bought me for our anniversary this year.

It was the colours that drew me to it, and the simplicity of the design.  And when I was surprised with it I started to think about whether I'd be able to add to it over the years, and quickly discovered how expensive that would be.  But I'm thrilled that I have a two-person set right now.

Everything Piled On Thursday...Poor Old Thursday

I thought we'd be able to spread out the week a bit more, but it's looking more and more as though Thursday is going to be the next Big Day Of All The Things.

David's appointment

My doctor's appointment, inconveniently moved up a day

The insurance appointment, inconveniently moved up a day

Grocery shopping

Picking up the cat carrier

While we're at that end of town, Another Errand

Buying R's plane ticket and sending it to him 

There cannot be another thing in there, please Lord.

David is currently out with both children completing his To Do list.  Lucky man, he gets to then go to the library all by his onesome and write essays while I get to convince said children that they really want to eat things that come out of cans for lunch, specifically beans and peas, both of which are disgusting and surely a sign of the apocalypse.

It's Insane That We've Gotten This Far

Only two days into The Week Before We Move and heaven help us all but we're in Full On Moving over here.  It's exhausting being emotionally 'on' all of the time for an introvert like me.  Yesterday I discovered that I had spent almost seven hours tending a bonfire in the backyard simply as a Way To Get Away From My Family.

I'm going to sit here, at an ungodly hour of pre-dawn, having freshly consumed two leftover pancakes and a tepid cup of tea, because I was woken up an hour ago by a small child who had wet the bed.  He is happily dry and asleep on clean sheets while his mother is decidedly NOT.  And I'm going to cultivate a glow of productivity and write out what we have we accomplished so far (only through the grace of God by this point).

Happily, we have been the recipients of that most wonderful event - Obviously Answered Prayer.  When determining how much our plane tickets were going to cost we mistakenly assumed that entering the number of travelers would result in an estimate that included all of us.  This was not the case, apparently.  And so we ended up with an actual price that was double what we had previously counted on.  There was, I'm not going to lie, a moment of chaos.  And then David and I prayed that God would be Very Obvious and Quite Clear and Really Show Us What He Wanted.  And lo and behold, he did.  Our truck rental company, it seems, would give us money off the rental if we agreed to drop off the vehicle in a larger city that was only slightly out of our way.

That amount came to $390.  The flight bookings agent calculated that if we were willing to push back the flight time until Saturday, the price would only be $389.99.  It was wonderful.  David spent part of the day in the city paying for the truck, finishing bookings and what have you.  Apparently they need to bring in the trailer we need from wherever it is that they have these things.  And then the rest of the day was spent purchasing airline tickets and paying for them and the printing off of the tickets.  Those two large tasks done, we moved on to burning off old stuff in the fire pit, as I mentioned, and eating supper, which was a very odd concoction consisting of onions, mushrooms, garlic, apple sausage, kale, two kinds of lentils, wild rice and broth with sour cream stirred in at the end.

Today is going to consist on my side entirely, I think, of packing.  My intention is to continue with the closets and dressers, and to bag up the clothes being donated and then to begin on the toys.  David will be running errands and making phone calls.  We need to set up an account with the new vet, see about the local public health office to arrange Clara's innoculations, attempt to register with a new family doctor, figure out if we need a transit permit for towing the car, print off a form, return embroidery floss to a neighbour, donate several large bags of books to the library, return a paper shredder, transfer David's ministry license and make an appt. to patch the left front tire.  Those will be his tasks, followed likely by a long trip to the library to work on his schoolwork.  Supper is something to do with three very small steaks in the fridge, probably with beets, and hopefully including pasta if we have any left.  The cupboards might as well belong to Mrs. Hubbard.

Tomorrow is Thursday and we'll be buying the plane ticket for our friend R. to come out and drive the truck, picking up a second cat carrier, arranging with the post office to forward our mail and David has an appointment.  We'll also need to get together our team of helpers to pack the truck on this end and unload it at the parsonage, buy cat litter, children's gravol for the trip and no doubt more groceries, and I have two phone calls that must be made.

Friday all we have so far is a final doctor's appointment for me, a trip to the insurance agency, another to the bank, packing packing packing...

I have no sweet clue what will be left to do on Saturday.  Likely clean like a fiend.  And then Saturday night some friends are bidding me goodbye and I get to escape the craziness.

And then Sunday we rest.

A Timely Quote

Anne Kennedy, talking about cleaning out her basement...

"I imagine this is like heaven. As we come into the presence of the Almighty we find we are Finally Rid of that nagging desire to gossip, that nasty feeling we've lugged around toward so and so who never understood who we really were anyway, the immense frustrating pile of imperfection and ingratitude and other junk that we knew we wanted to get rid of but never got to it because there was never any deadline. Well, my deadline is Saturday, and if Jesus comes back that day, I'll only have to leave behind a quarter of the stuff I currently posses. So, come Lord Jesus, or, if you'd like to wait a little longer, that will probably be ok too." - An Undercurrent Of Hostility

Exactly.  Because I am a fallible human being, so far from perfection, and although we can all hope Jesus is working on me (in fact, we can trust in it) there's a heck of a way to go.  He's infinitely patient, though.  And now to go dismantle my dining room table.

What I Wore Sunday: Fall Transition 2

Linking up with the ladies at FLAP

Another cool morning/warm day transition.

I'm wearing one of the new shirts that I mentioned buying here.
Generic black pants.
Gold and silver bracelets.
Little gold earrings.

Great day at church today  - two of my favourite modern Christian songs were sung during the service - Forever Reign being one of them.  The sermon was on getting back to our passion, and it was so inspiring for both of us.  David is officially finished at work now and next week we move to the new pastorate, which is overwhelming and wonderful and overwhelming all at the same time.  Samuel is getting in as much friend time as he can before we go; I know he's going to miss Sunday school though, especially as the new church doesn't have any children's programming.

This coming week is going to be one of the busiest ones we've had in four years.  If you find time to add our family to your prayers, we'd appreciate it so much.

Moving Makes Me Sound Very Dull

I'm not naturally a non-planner, a happy go lucky will o' the wisp fly by night gal.  I'm not.  And it has taken me thirty mumble mumble years to come to grips with this.  When you're really uptight and you need someone to talk you down off the ledge?  That person is me.  When you are overwhelmed completely and totally by everything always?  I can help you with that.  But if you need someone to throw cares in the air and run away to Paris for the weekend, or, more likely in my sphere of friends, loosen your death grip on planning and go to the park for an hour...I might not be the one to call.

However, I did try to unwind the other day by tubing down the river with some girlfriends, and then today, in the midst of a bout of mustpackeverythingitis I did buy fruit at the store, and then later took the children to see some friends and play on the swings for a little while.

Yesterday I packed the children's rooms, and you can see pictures if you're friends with me on fb.  And if you aren't, well, I'm sure I'll post them all at some point.  And today's big plan is to get all of the clothing/laundry/linens 'dealt with' in some way.  Washed, dried and packed or kept out.  The bedding is being stored in black garbage bags in the unplugged (and cleaned) chest freezer.  David and I have each gone through our own closets twice now to purge clothes.

*David's final shift at work is today.  "There's no going back" we said to each other on the way to the grocery store.  Somewhat overwhelmed.

*Samuel and I were playing Go Fish today and he is finally beginning to grasp the concept of 'same'.  This is exciting.

A beautiful flowery plant in the backyard.

*While at the store we also picked up all the usual valuables on the toddler black market:  grapes, marble cheese, chicken fingers...our goal in the next week is more 'peace and quiet' and less 'well balanced diet'.

And now, over the deafening noise of the crickets, I'm going to make a cup of tea and start cleaning the carpets.

Theme Thursday: Faith

Today is my wedding anniversary.  David had to work, it's his second to last shift, and so he hid chocolate bars around the house for me to find throughout the day.  And then when I went with the children to pick him up from work he had us walk to a friend's house where he had stashed a gift for me.  It was a tea set in this design, which I adore.  I will have to take pictures at some point, but it's a teapot, sugar bowl, creamer, and two cups with saucers.

This morning the children went to have significantly more fun than they do here with boring old me over at a friend's house while I packed their rooms up and switched mattresses and did a variety of other terribly dull housewifely tasks.  And then this evening we had Thai chicken curry with rice noodles, went to the butcher, and then bathed both cats.  And so with all of that done I'm feeling fairly productive.

And today is Cari's Thursday link-up, and her theme today is faith.  And so I'll share a picture from our wedding...

This is us taking communion during the service.  The entire picture is actually quite a bit larger, but I've cropped out the priest and assistant.  What - this isn't a picture taken by ME you say?  Well, all right then...

Here's our little helper cleaning up after a service David took at a very tiny little country church last year.

In Which I Am A Martyr

This morning David needed some Time Alone.  Because we are all Very Stressed.  And so I took the two children and went to drop off the recycling at the depot several blocks away.  This is more of an undertaking than one might imagine, since C has recently acquired a certain grating quality to her usual whining and moaning, and S is going through a phase I am going to refer to as "Explaining Everything Always".  This made our outing sound something like this:

C:  Moooooaaaaannn moanmoanmoan whiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeee.
S:  And the grass is on the ground because it is because it is grass because it is on the ground because it is grass.
C:   Eeeeeeeeeeee......aaaaaaaaaa.....whine.

I therefore felt very good about my mothering qualities when I gathered the whole $1.70 from the nice man at the depot booth and dragged my unwilling brood home.  We had a bunch of other errands to run today on top of that, and those ones David came along for.  Although, several things we had hoped to accomplish were not done, and that made me feel a bit antsy because it's the 14th of the month and I really feel as though All Things Need To Be Done Now.

To combat this feeling my friend Caitlin suggested that I write a list.  I told her if I did write a list, it would be very long.  She made disbelieving noises at this statement, so I wrote a list.  It took a long time and was two pages long...and it included very vague statements such as 'clean all the house'.

Still, I did get some packing done today.  Clara's room, mostly, is done.  And Samuel's room is significantly started.  Tomorrow David needs to go to the library to work on coursework for the morning and I will stay home and pack, but then in the afternoon I have every intention of going tubing down the river with some dear friends and casting my cares aside until I come home.

Tuesday

We have a cat carrier!  We need two, but since two brand new ones will cost us over $60 we've been a little wary of dropping down the cash.  Plus the frugal Scottish woman in me thinks 'Dang - it's a plastic box.'.
But then we found a used one for only $15 and bought it on the spot. One down, one to go.  Be still my cheap cheap cheap really responsible lil' heart.

After an entire morning (I wish I was exaggerating here) of figuring out moving details, some things are finally finally coming together.  I'm just really sitting here and waiting on God.  Because I am incapable of managing much else this afternoon.  I'm telling myself that tomorrow is David's day off, and so clearly tomorrow will be the day we get more stuff done.  Today is for being upset that the children are not sleeping, having a toothache and Reading All The Blogs.

Can we all just hush up a moment and look at my backyard?

Thank you, God.

What I Wore Sunday - Fall Transition

Linking up with the FLAP ladies for What I Wore Sunday.

If you can believe it - it's halfway through August.  And although our days in New Brunswick are still hot and sticky and very humid, our nights and early mornings are cool.  You can tell Autumn is on the way.

For church this summer I've been relying on summery cotton dresses and skirts, but the cooler weather begs for layers, and richer colours.  This morning I played around with both of those things.

Blouse, vest and capris - R.eitmans.
Shoes - Tradition

I should have worn a nice, long necklace.  I intended to - but I was rushed getting out the door.

Long Day

David is working, hold your breath folks, 13 hours today.  This means that I'm on the solo parenting train - next stop - Crazy Town.  Since I didn't get to sleep until around midnight last night, and Clara, sweet charming insane person that she is, got up crying after 4am, I have had very little sleep.  I want to complain about this, you have no idea how much I really want to, but my husband is working 13 hours and it just feels wrong to say anything negative.

Despite the shakiness of today, and it was pretty shaky, I'm so hopeful about tomorrow.  Tomorrow, man, tomorrow is going to be great!  Epic!  No reason to think this I'm just optimistic!  And I'm the real 'We all must go to church rain or shine or hail' person in the family and I've given us a free pass on church tomorrow if we really just can't do it.  It's been a tough week, and frankly I'm not convinced that the Sunday morning battle is going to be a good way to start the next seven days.

"With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling" - 2 Thess. 11.

Seven Quick Takes - The 'Fashion' Edition

Check out Jen for more 7QT

1 - I've always prided myself on being a bit of a devil-may-care when it comes to fashion - which means I'm touch and go at a party, let's be honest.  I could show up and look simply smashing, and yet it's equally possible I will arrive in sweatpants.  Okay, maybe not sweatpants.  But I did walk through town yesterday knowingly wearing a shirt with stains down the front of it.  Whatevs.

However - I'm actually really trying to change this.  If you've ever seen my What I Wore Sunday Posts you know I have a theme.  I kinda always look the same.  I also recognize this - I know there's a uniform in my life; knee length A-line skirts, tops from Reitmans, usually with a V-neckline...I get it, I get it.  I did try to sort of break free...once.  And then...I chickened out.  But no more.  I'm determined.  I don't want to get known as a dumpy pastor's wife.  So much so that's I'm using my 'child and husband free' evening and actually going through my closet tonight to make up outfits that stretch me beyond my comfort zone.

2 - Keeping this in mind - my husband took me shopping today.  Like...for clothes.  Not nursing clothes or underwear, which is pretty much all I buy myself these days, but real honest-to-goodness big girl stuff.  Not surprisingly, I had a very difficult time just Picking. Something. Out.  I'm serious; when your personal shopping generally consists of stuff you can bleach plus tube socks, it's remarkably difficult to get beyond that.  Three shirts, two stores, one skirt and a pile of rejects later I emerged with the first real clothing buys in a long time.  It's a start.

3 - Even harder than actually making decisions on what clothes to buy is somehow figuring out how to put things together.  Take this outfit:

www.whatsaybeauty.tumblr.com

I love it.  But honestly, if I had a tea length cream tulle skirt, I would never in a million years think "you know, this would look great with a green wool blazer".  Never.  In a million years.

Or this one:

link

Fun, right?  A bit K. Hepburn.  Never would pair these two together.  I'd be the girl thinking "Right, three piece man's suit.  This needs a hat."  Not. A. Big. Scarf.

4 - While this might make me hopeless, I'm still giving it a shot.  And frankly, some of my outfits are likely to be hideous.  I'm going to come right out and say it - likely to be hideous.  But David is usually a pretty good judge and he'll hopefully stop me from walking out the house with two different shoes and a lampshade on my head.

5 - I've always had this Pinterest style board and now I'm actually adding stuff to it.  Tell me what you think.

6 - After actually deciding to try and improve my fashion abilities a bit, I thought long and hard about where I could best spend money to make the biggest impact on my wardrobe.  Decision?  Shoes and belts.  I'm not kidding.

7 - Suggestions?

Ministry Update - And Prayer Requests

Are you curious how it's all going over here?  Well, it's hectic, interspersed with brief periods of calm.  Much like the beginning of any new chapter of life and the start of any move.  It was like this before each of our moves, and so this is simply a stronger version of that.

Prayers

If you feel as though you want to pray for us, please do!

You can pray...

* For our peace of mind.

* For David's schoolwork to get completed by the end of August.  He has a few papers to write to finish up those courses he took back in June.

* For us to get into Moncton in the next two weeks in order to get a few things done.

* That the children will adjust well as the house slowly empties.  So far we haven't had any problems, but Samuel is talking through the move a lot to himself, so hopefully he's coming to grips with it internally.  When we moved last year from our apt. to this house, he had a rough time.  In fact, he still refers to the apt. as 'our house', and occasionally asks to go back there.

Please also spare a few moments to pray for our friends in ministry.  The H family, off to their first church. The G family, working hard in their second year in ministry and the M family, starting their master's degree.

Good Things!

* In terms of stuff to look forward to at the new church - the congregation has told us the parsonage is looking great, and that's encouraging.  I've managed to find it on G.oogle maps, and have spent waaaaay too much time tooling around the town looking at different buildings and deciding where to take the children walking.

* We're not entirely sure yet what programs the church currently runs, but we're pretty certain that they don't have a Bible study.  So we've found a good (free!) program to use if that turns out to be the case when we get there.

* All decisions that need to be made regarding what furniture is coming with us have been made.  It's nice to be in complete agreement with your spouse over this sort of thing, especially during a stressful period because, let's admit it, this move would be pretty unpleasant if we spent a large portion of it arguing over whether we take the ugly green chair.  (We are.)

* I've been very frugal with grocery money over the past few weeks, and as a result we're 'eating down the pantry' pretty effectively.

* The car is almost ready for its long trip.  The battery has been changed, fluid levels checked, car washed and detailed all the way down to scrubbing the floor mats, and the spare checked.  We seem to have a slow leak in one of the tires, so we need to get that fixed, but otherwise we're looking fairly decent.  One of the two carseats has been taken apart and washed - the other still needs the same treatment.