This past Monday, my sister-in-law, Karen and I were at Girl Scouts with Savannah and Karis. I was talking to one of the other moms there. I was telling how Tim had been laid off last week, blah, blah, blah. This mom is one of the sweetest people I know and she was really concerned. She very kindly asked if I was okay. I told her I sat in my closet and cried for about 30 minutes and then I came out. Our conversation went on to reveal that I wasn't always this calm about things. Nope, not in the least. A few years ago, I would have been in a full on panic over a lay off. Two unemployed adults with not one house payment, but two! That would have been enough to send me right over the edge. No doubt about it. Karen joined in the conversation and compared my life to treading water. She said I had been treading water for quite some time. I agreed with her that I feel like I have been treading water since my layoff at the end of 2006. She said was so funny the way she was saying that I am just treading, treading, treading and then SHARK!!!! SHARK!!! SHARK!!! oh, okay... treading, treading, treading, treading, treading - OH NO!!! SHARK!!! SHARK!!! SHARK!!! treading, treading, treading... When she said this I just laughed. It was so funny and yet so incredibly true. It seems like we have just been trying to move forward for so very long and every week or so it seems that there is a barracuda, or a swordfish or an all out hungry shark waiting in the midst. I have played her words in my mind all week long and each time I tell somebody about it, it just makes me laugh again. I have to say that even though it has been hard, it always somehow works out. No doubt about it, that it has worked out. God has been good to us and I will just have to keep treading and hope that my beautiful and peaceful sea turtle is waiting for me at the end of this long, long journey.

More snow pictures...

We are off to field day with our homeschool friends, but I wanted to upload more stuff. I looked at my new blog layout and noticed it showed total number of posts by year. You can see my total has tanked this year! So, I am aiming to get blogging. Here are more photos from our one day of snow in Illinois.

He was so funny! I loved his silly face in this one!

Her very first snowman - EVER!!!

Making his first snow angel.

Isn't it pretty when you know it will only be there for one day?

Illinois Snow in April

I know I said I would be back earlier today. It just seems that my life is so extremely busy these days. I have all the intentions in the world of blogging, preparing for a garage sale, doing school, putting laundry away, baking 50 cupcakes, doing my Wii Fit and the list just goes on and on and on. It seems that somehow my life is more busy. I can't put my finger on it though. I was always busy when I lived in Florida, but somehow I had more time. I don't know what the difference is. I was thinking maybe it was because I have a bigger house and have more to clean. Then I thought maybe it is that my blogging has tapered off since last August when Sebastian stopped taking naps. I think there may be a little truth in both of those things. Whatever the reason may be - I feel like I never have all the time I need to do all the things I want. It is after midnight and I have a busy day tomorrow, but I wanted to start the Illinois stuff on here. So, for tonight - there is a video from our snow day in Illinois. I could hardly believe it was snowing in April. Before we left, I had read that snow was possible, but I didn't really believe it. We arrived shortly after 4pm and by 5pm it was snowing. I looked out the big picture window in my friend's mom's house and there it was. It was so pretty. I remembered back to when Timmy was 8 years old. We were in Illinois on November 1st, 1997 and it snowed then. It was quite an early snow. Now, here we were with my other kids and they got quite a late snow! They were thrilled! Absolutely amazed! Sebastian tried to walk on water. He didn't realize the ice on the koi pond wouldn't hold him. Oops! He was in for quite a surprise! I don't ever want to live where it snows, but I was really happy my kids got a chance to play in it just for a day. We will have to go back for a snow day when Sebastian is older so he has a better chance of remembering it. I hopefully will get more pictures up soon.

Looking like I am skipping the whole month of April too...

Not intentionally! I have many, many pictures and things to share from my trip to Illinois. I am supposed to be getting ready for a garage sale today. I think I will set a goal to filling X amount of garage sale boxes and then I will reward myself with coming back to play on my blog. That is my hope! Come back later today!

I skipped the whole month of March...

Tim II in Iraq

I started my blog 3 years ago - today. I blogged faithfully for most of those years. Then all of a sudden I just didn't want to blog. I think it was a mix of things. Many things. Some will sound whiny and I apologize in advance. The last couple of months have been really hard for me. I think the top and foremost thing was having Timmy leave. I know he left to Oklahoma and I actually did super well. When he left for Alaska, I pretty much did a nosedive with my feelings. I was in a total and absolute funk. He left on a Friday and by Monday morning he called to tell me he was going to Iraq on his dad's birthday. My nosedive just went below sea level at that point. I wanted to stay in my sweats and hide in my bedroom. I am not a depressed type of person by nature. Most of the time I can just brush it off. This time I just couldn't. One weekend afternoon, Tim asked me to come sit with him outside. He point blank asked me if I was depressed. I thought for a moment and said, "Yes, I think I am!" I went on to tell him that I just didn't know how to deal with my child leaving. He did what he always does and he just listened. I built up so much fear over Timmy leaving for Iraq. I wasn't sleeping and I was just so worried. There were a lot of other things going on - Florida house stuff (Will it ever end?), Tim job stuff, feeling isolated from friends stuff and a to do list a mile long. Slowly things started to seem better - not that anything really changed all that much. Timmy left for Iraq and he seems okay. I get to talk to him on the phone or IM everyday. So far, he is staying put working for the battalion commander. Doesn't thrill him, but makes me very happy. The FL house stuff is the same or probably worse, but I just can't do much about it. I am fixing loan interest rates that will hopefully give us a little more breathing room. (I hope!) Friends - well I didn't see a fix for this coming not in the least bit. I am lucky to have my sister-in-law, Karen here and we have a lot of things in common. The rest of the family is pretty hit or miss as far as really connecting and I guess just "chatting" as Debi and I used to call it. I was pretty down because I thought that if I lived here, we would all become very close and after a year - I have realized that is not happening. It really made me miss Debi because things would be so very different if I had gotten to live next door to her while she was here. Many times here, I feel like I am somehow out of the loop or just not welcome to things. That is hard when you live right next to so many people. I don't think it is earth shattering - I just think I was hoping I would be close with all of the women I live by. I decided I just needed to be thankful that Karen is always there with a smile and willing to talk to me. I had been praying for a solution and then I found a homeschool park day. Wow! I have met the most interesting and chatty bunch of ladies. I absolutely LOVE it! And the kids love it! A couple of weeks we met with them twice a week and a then this past week we met with them at an amazing park day. We stayed for 5 hours and just had the best time. I felt like I climbed so far out of my hole just from connecting with people that wanted to share their lives with others. I am so thankful for an answered prayer. So, I think I may be ready to start blogging again. I really want to have some kind of record for my kids. I want to post pictures for Timmy to see and I want to feel my creative side of writing again. I just needed a whole month to be down for once. I hope I don't need that again anytime soon. I hope you will stick with me through this! Thanks! (Oh and Happy Birthday Leann!)