A Life Adventure I Like to Refer to as "A Series of Unfortunate Events" - Part 1

With frustrations surmounting, sending me to the brink & at times into the level of crying.  I hope just typing this out will help make some of the frustration go away. 

May 2013

My beautiful, sweet boy was born.  He fills our lives daily with joy and laughter. 

I'm not writing much about him at this point because he is not in any way the source of my frustration, yet he is an important part to this story, so, more to come later about Baby Barron.

August 2013

With my maternity leave over, I returned to work.  Sad to leave my son, but knew he was in excellent hands while I worked my 7-4.  I took my regular vacation of one week off the end of the month to celebrate our anniversary with my husband.  

~ a little background before I continue...

My father-in-law, a few months prior to my son's birth, was diagnosed with arterial sclerosis of the brain (aka Alzheimer's).

...now to continue ~

We aren't super religious [anymore] but my husband and I grew up in Christian homes and raised under Biblical values, et al.  So when my husband walked into the nursery where I was rocking my son, he had just gotten off the phone with his mom.  She informed him that she had made a decision to move her and my FIL from Portland to Florence, Oregon and was already making plans to visit Florence to find a home.  I don't know the exact words that were exchanged in the phone call, just that she had invited us to move with them; with or without Tim and I, they were moving.

Tim has a job that he can do anywhere, so that wasn't a huge factor for our decision, but he especially didn't want to lose his father being physically close since the illness was already causing him to mentally "leave". I loved my job, yet I've always desired to stay home and raise my kid(s).  We had mutually agreed a while previous to all of this to "walk away" from our home.  We were in negotiations with the bank for our home, yet still occupied it.

With best intentions we made our decision to move with my in-laws.  We also believe we were honoring God with our decision.  Not any one particular scripture verse came to my mind that day, but here are a couple that basically explain my thoughts on it that day in August: 1 Timothy 5:3-4, 8 and Ephesians 6:2-3.

I think it was the weekend before I returned to work from my vacation when we stayed at my in-laws PDX home and watched their dogs while they visited Florence for a home.  Tim and his older brother finished numerous projects on the Portland home before it went up for sale.  Being where the home was located it didn't take more than 24 hours after it was listed when an offer was made and accepted by my MIL.  Also, my MIL found a home for both families to live in, which also included a decent amount of land around it so we could have a garden full of fruits and vegetables.

I had glorious visions of this new "adventure" too: walking along the beach during the day with my son, collecting shells, hunting for bugs in the brush with him when he turned one...

September 2013

I gave my resignation at work, trained my successor, placed a forwarding address request with USPS - the usual "moving" things.  Packed box after box after box.  Got rid of a lot of things.  Helped my in-laws move into our home.  With mixed emotions we said a sad goodbye to friends and family, most of whom were also raised as Tim and I and/or couldn't argue with our decision.

October 2013

Moving day came dark and early on the 11th.  The caravan was headed out before God was even up: leading the group were 2 extra-large U-haul trucks; my husband driving one and our neighbor Alex driving the 2nd, 2 sedans which drove on ahead parted ways with us which contained my in-laws and the other contained Nick & his girlfriend driving the car to bring back the other drivers.  I followed next in our FJ with BB sleeping in the back and towing the aluminum boat full to the brim, Nathan followed me in the little red Ford truck towing a trailer with Cocoa as his co-pilot.  We were off.  I cried and cried.  Probably cried several times on the trip, but I don't remember, I was trying to stay positive.

Nathan got stuck behind a slow driver so I held back to stay with him as best I could.  We arrived in Florence and I got lost and drove us around crazy in that small town.  Finally we made it to house, unloading already underway.   

I got out of the car and my MIL says to me very excitedly "welcome home!" - I held back tears, trying to be strong and positive, unloaded BB and took Cocoa into the house with me.

~ to be continued...