So much to say, so much to write about this move. There are leasing agents I’d like to string up by their evil toes, incidents with garbage men, and soapy basements – all stories worth telling. I insist on starting from the beginning though so, let’s just cover Day 1 today.

Moving day (Saturday) started with a bang, or rather a ralph – Joshua started puking from a high fever at 1am that morning. Needless to say, I was without sleep going into the big day. As 7am approached I was up and headed to Starbucks for caffeine reinforcement. Despite the sick baby I was in relatively good spirits and ready for the long day ahead.

Mostly the day went as expected, a few broken items, lots of muttering and cursing over bruised shins and dropped boxes. Everyone who showed up to help was fantastic and made the occasion better than it should have been. At the end of the day, with boxes everywhere and a mountain of unpacking and cleaning ahead of me like a looming mountain, I was spent. I had very little sleep the night before and had worked myself to the bone for about 16 straight hours. So, I bid my guests goodnight and retired to my new master bathroom where my jacuzzi tub awaited me. The jacuzzi  tub that made me want to rent this house in the first place.

I ran the water, got in and took a deep breath. After 8 months without a bathtub, this was as close to Heaven as I could imagine. I decided that tonight was as good a night as any to try out the jacuzzi function and reached for the button. This is where things get kinda fuzzy and the emotional scarring begins.

Eyes closed, head resting, I reach for the button and depress it with ease. Joyously the tub fills with aerated bubbles and I sigh contentedly. Before said sigh had run its course, it was replaced with a shriek. Apparently the gentleman who rented this house before us, didn’t fancy himself to be a jacuzzi bath taker. You want to know how I know this? Because BLACK MOLD SHOT OUT OF THE JETS AND ALL OVER MY BODY! Let me re-iterate, BLACK SLIMEY CHUNKS OF MOLD ON MY BODY!

I jumped up and began draining the bathtub, while furiously trying to get the pieces off of me. As I sat on the edge of the tub, near tears, waiting for the gross water to drain all I could do was laugh. This had to be a joke. I mean after all of my hard work and lack of sleep, isn’t it just my luck that my naked body would end of covered in mold?

While it seems reasonable that I would just clean out the tub and run another bath, alas, there was no more hot water. Whoever added the master addition on installed a seriously insufficient water heater for the tub, so that was that. No hot water, no bath.

Sometimes I wonder why these things happen to me but then I am reminded, if they didn’t….what in the world would I write about on this webpage? Happy reading y’all!

Two weeks ago I needed some boxes in order to start packing for the big move. In the spirit of saving money, I decided I was going to go to a few of our local grocery stores and ask for boxes from their produce departments. A long, long time ago I used to work at a grocery store and I had the lovely task of throwing boxes into the baler each night, so I knew that grocery stores were abundant with extra boxes.

I’ll admit, I felt a little like a beggar for bumming boxes off of the grocery clerk instead of ordering them online or buying them someplace. However, I was determined to save a few dollars. Once again I am placing little to no monetary value on my pride.

The first store went so smoothly that I decided to try another. This time I went to Safeway and with new found confidence I strolled right to the back of the store and asked one of the workers for extra boxes. He was obliging and filled my cart to the brim with boxes. So full in fact was the cart, that I had to peek around the side of it in order to steer straight. I noticed I was getting a few strange glances from fellow customers but I didn’t care – these boxes were free!!!

As I got to the exit, it felt like the wheels on my cart were stuck. I kept pushing the cart forward but something was blocking the front wheels. About this time, I hear a faint alarm but pay no attention to its’ cause, as I was too focused on getting my cart to move forward. I was in the middle of the doorway, cart stubbornly stuck and boxes falling hither and yon every time I tried to push the cart toward the door. I am so focused in fact on the task at hand that I can barely hear a grocery clerk yelling “hey lady that alarm is for YOU!”

Once this message registered in my tiny brain I was mortified. Why would the alarm go off? Why wasn’t my cart moving? Before I could ask these questions out loud, a breathless clerk is standing in front of me, exasperated that I haven’t been listening to his pleas to stop what I am doing. He has some type of remote in his hand and I am kind of scared that he might taser me at this point. I think I may have even put up my hands as a gesture of peace. Instead of shooting me, he leans down and points the remote at the cart’s front wheels. I ask him what is going on and he explains that when a cart enters the store and then leaves without going through the checkout stand, the wheels lock up.

Oh.

So, it wasn’t that the wheels were stuck on some object I couldn’t identify due to the mountain of free boxes blocking my view. It was the “robo wheel” and its’ crime fighting sensors. Who would have thought.

Needless to say, everyone is now watching me and the clerk and the robo wheel cart. After he unlocks the wheels, I stumble out to the car with a red face. People the lesson here is – nothing in life is free. Even free boxes have a price.

This was just the start of the hilarity that was our big move. I have so much to write about – however after four straight days of moving, a sick Joshua, a sick Isaac and now a sick Mommy, I am burned out. So, more to come later but I thought you would all like to know that grocery stores are taking a bite out of crime these days –  so watch out.

This favorite holiday dish can be found lingering in the kitchens of thousands, if not millions of homes, around the world this time of year. I thought I would I share my personal recipe with you!

• Take 1 major commercial holiday, add economic recession and stir
• In a separate bowl, mix 2 parts family drama and 1 part personal career meltdown
• Add a pinch of weight gain and self-loathing to taste
• Finally, stir in a decision to move in the month of January to a new house because the one you are in doesn’t have central heat and you forgot what having toes feels like.
• Combine all ingredients in a large casserole dish and wait for the manic explosion

This holiday recipe will not disappoint!

Yes you heard me right, we are moving to a new house in January. The new house part is great. The packing and moving at this time of year, with two small children might actually kill me. I suppose the good news about my impending death is apparently God’s house has many rooms, I am sure all of which have central heating.

Mazel tov!

Oh people, my how things have changed. I know lately I haven’t posted much but things have been CRAZY. Well, more accurately, I have been crazy. Let’s just say that this move has left me with hills and valley’s of emotions and I have been learning a lot about my ability to deal with change. I guess I should have taken Who Moved MY Cheese more seriously…maybe I would have transitioned better.

Anyhow, this week I started running with two girls from work in the mornings. They are both beautiful, young and incredibly in shape (Hi Jenny!) At first I was intimidated but we have had a great time running together and I feel monumentally better throughout the day when I run in the morning.

This morning was particularly fantastic as we happened to run by a certain doctor that the girls know. He lives just a bit off of our running path and we zig zagged out of the way in order to catch a peak of his house. Well, holy moly did we hit gold.

As we nonchalantly jogged by, it appeared that said doctor was (with windows WIDE OPEN) doing pull ups on a bar in his front room. WITH NO SHIRT ON. People, what happened after this was like a scene out of a stupid chick flick. Let’s just say there was lots of high pitched giggling and yet another sprint past the poor, unsuspecting doc’s window. We are grown women mind you, but we aren’t above stalking hot doctors apparently. Now, given that I am a happily married woman (hi honey!) I will say that this little adventure was strictly an information reconaissance mission for my lovely single girl friend, so you could say that I took one for the team. Really, I never leave a fellow soldier behind. I have strict military like morals.

I can’t imagine what the neighbors thought as we cackled loudly outside their windows at O’Dark Hundred, maybe geese flying West for Fall? Anyhow, I fear we were less mature than we would like to think.

 One of the girls I run with is getting married on the beach in Carmel next weekend. She is marrying a secret agent man (seriously, she can’t even tell me about him because she’d have to kill me or something) Apparently, aside from her good taste in men, she MUST NEED glasses because she has asked me to do her makeup for her wedding. (My mom is so proud! Hi Mom!)Although when I told my sister (who is a stylist) that someone asked me to do their makeup, she asked if that meant someone was going to ask her to run for Congress. Point taken Nikki.

So I am thinking that I will post some before and after photo’s of the blushing bride so y’all can see my mad make-up skills. I might have missed my calling as a MAC counter girl, however given that I am a HER and not a SHIM, maybe I wouldn’t make it there too long.

Anyhow, running this morning, while fully entertaining, was a bit hard because my children refuse to sleep. Isaac and Joshua, at least once a week decide to tag team me in the middle of the night with a parade of requests for water, bottles and bathroom trips. I am thinking that we are going to have to separate the two little tyrants and move Josh to the guest bedroom because I can’t hang with the lack of sleep. Somehow the man sleeping next to me manages to sleep through the Midnight Masterpiece Theater of Children – although they are so loud I don’t know how.

Look for my regular Friday Fasting post tomorrow, as I am screaming up on the end of week 2 of no shopping. One day at a time, people, one day at a time.

This is one of those posts that isn’t meant to entertain or enlighten. It is a moment of self-awareness simply put to paper.

Since we moved, I’ve had good days and bad. As with any transition, the consequences of change are felt. It is wonderful to reside amongst such jaw dropping beauty. If I take a deep breath when looking at the ocean or the trees occupying the nearby cliffs, I feel prettier, smarter and more fulfilled. Internalizing the beauty of your surroundings isn’t hard to do around here.

However, I am really missing the safety net of my old home. I miss the comfort that comes with familiarity. Turlock is ugly. Well, maybe not ugly but unconvincing and awkward. The people, however, are like family so the make of the town never bothered me entirely. Once I set foot in my old job, Turlock ceased to be an issue. It was where this amazing opportunity was so, I would no longer question the town’s beauty or comfort.

When we made the decision to move, it was precipitated by a 12 month period of wanderlust. We both felt like we wanted to live someplace else. We wanted to choose where our children would be raised, not just end up someplace and call it home. I look back on that period of time as very purposeful because had we not been looking, this opportunity would not have landed upon us.

For me, the biggest part of leaving Turlockwas shockingly not the prospect of leaving my family. We are amazingly close and I knew that no span of time or distance of space would change that truth. My mother, father and sisters are a part of me and in that way are always with me in what I do. I knew I would miss the ability to just stop by their houses but I knew the move would allow for periods of extended time spent together that would be more meaningful than the “drive-by’s” of old.

So, the clincher for me really, was leaving my job and all of the things/people that went with it. My job had fallen into my lap 7 years ago. I was offered a shiny present that I hadn’t yet earned, all wrapped up with a wonderful salary and title. I treated the present with great care and after a few years, had earned that title and salary with great effort. My job became a second persona. It was still me, just better. The person I strived to be at work was, for the most part, the woman that I wanted to be as a child. When I saw myself as a grown-up, the picture of me going to Washington DC for a conference came to mind. It was the best of what I had pictured myself to be (once I gave up on my dream to be a doctor, which ended promptly in a high school calculus class).

The day Kevin was offered the job, I was with him. We had gone together for his final interview and I waited anxiously in the car. We knew he would get it and we knew we were inclined to accept it. However, once it was in writing, it felt more official. On the drive home we kept repeating, “We’re moving!” as though saying it one more time would make it real.

As I am apt for negativity, the excitement waned quickly for me as I moved on to the slew of details that had to be completed for the move to actually take place. I would spend the next 60 days just doing things, the things that needed to be done. I was shockingly detached from the emotions of the move due to the busyness of our details.

Once we moved and unpacked, it hit. All of the things to be done were done. We had moved, we had made a major change. When I got a call from a friend the other day who had applied for my old job and wanted some pointers, at first I was excited for him. Then, as I began to explain my job and what was necessary for the position, I began to get melancholy. In fact, after the call, I got down right depressed.

My job had been my ideal. I was accepted, I was understood and I was one of the few who had access to the top of the organization. I could speak eloquently on any one of the myriad of issues facing my organization at the drop of a hat. My job was one of my best accomplishments and now, it would be handed to someone else. Someone who may, or may not, treat that accomplishment with care and concern. It was like watching a woman move in on a grieving husband at his wife’s funeral. I was not done with my job, yet life had allowed for it to end.

Yet, with all of this said I know intellectually that the job itself was not mine, it is the company’s. The successes and failures of the job were mine to own and I did for a time. However, with this move and my new employment looming on the horizon, it is time to let go. I can not hover like some ghost over my old accomplishments, I need to prepare myself for the next phase with the same care and concern I gave the last. Somehow though, it still feels like a part of me is dying.

Being in a new town necessitates some decision making; where to get your clothes dry cleaned, where to grocery shop, where to find swimming lessons, friends and a good babysitter. Let’s just say I am sick of all of the decisions.

I don’t really miss Turlock. I just miss the familiarity of the town, the proximity to family and such. I knew where to get things, who to call when I couldn’t find something, who the good babysitters were, etc. Here, I am constantly adjusting to the “new”. I like it, just some days I wish I could be like Evie from Out of this World and put my index fingers together, freeze time and get everything all figured out. Although I am not sure that I want my Dad’s voice to come out of some possessed, glowing cube. (if you watched this show you know what I’m talking about…)

One of the big decisions ahead of us is where to go to church. I love being involved in a church and meeting new people. I just hate the whole deciding which one to attend. Every church has it’s merritts. This one has good worship, this one is very welcoming, this one has a great pastor. I want a place that is inviting to non-believers and has great teaching. I want a church where there are lots of young families so I can make friends. I guess I am asking a lot of a church.

The big question for me is, which criterion is most important? I want a church that is “seeker” friendly but yet I want to feel biblically fed on Sundays. What, I guess I should be asking, does God want? Considering I believe He shows up at just about every church, does He have a preference? Does He like one more than the other? Does He care about worship style or small groups or programs?

So friends, how (if at all) do you chose a church? What do you base it on? Last Sunday I went to Shoreline Community Church and I really liked it. Is gut feeling what you go by?

I can find a grocery store and a dry cleaners by myself but I really want some insight in picking a church. A church is the place where I am supposed to grow spiritually – which when compared to choosing a place for a good shirt starching, seems significant.