Self-Care in 2020

I was reflecting on the wall I hit Saturday night. I didn't mention this in my last post but after the boys had me up for hours from midnight to 2 a.m. and we finally all got settled and into a good deep sleep there was an unearthly shattering sound at 4a.m. and this is the scene that greeted us...

The giant mirror in the kids' bathroom came off the wall and shattered everywhere. I could draw a lot of parallels to this mirror situations. The fact that the builders didn't secure the mirror to the wall with screws and clips, they just slapped some heavy duty glue up there and called it good. We could draw that out to how that's a lot like Parenthood. If we don't have some things that we do that bolt us and secure us we're going to end up like that mirror.

I wouldn't have said that "Mom Guilt" is something that I have struggled with often. Yesterday writing everything out, it was kind of eye opening how much of that burden I have been carrying lately. I think some of it is due to Hubby's work schedule and stress levels. He doesn't have any extra anything to give and so any time I take from the kids is 95% of the time them just fending for themselves. So sitting alone = guilt. Grocery shopping alone= guilt. Grabbing an extra hour of sleep after a horrible night with the boys= guilt. I've been the primary parent for months and the kids have been getting the short end of the stick. Hubs sees this, he's well aware and struggling with his own guilt.  We can't change the work schedule right now, it is what it is (that's pretty much the phrase of 2020) but it doesn't change the fact that I feel this sense of deep exhaustion tinged with guilt any time I try to catch a break.

But that's not working for me. I need to have something to secure me and keep me strong and in place.

So what do I do?

One thing I need to do is drop the guilt. It's not serving me. 

I went out on the porch for a bit this morning and I stopped the "shoulds" and sat out there and enjoyed myself. I browsed social media and drank my coffee in peace.

Yesterday I ran errands and while that's not exactly recharging (I hate Walmart) I did grab some stuff for my plant babies and they're much happier now.

I think the thing that I really need to do is compartmentalize and be intentional. Yes, I am taking time for myself right now. Yes the littlest does not like being locked away from me or having me leave him but it's just for a little while, he'll be okay. 

This hour I am working on school with the kids and then I'm going to go rest by myself for a little while. For an hour I am going to work on chores and then I'm going to do something fun with the kids, after that I am going to sit and knit and watch a show for 30 minutes. I need to be more intentional about the time I take for myself and not feeling bad about it. 

Today I am going to...

•  Go through the kids school books and get their schedules written for the week. 
• Get Joy2's math pages printed and organized
• Call the dryer repairman and ask him what my options are for our broken dryer (oh yeah on top of the bad sleep and shattered mirror the dryer broke this weekend!)
•  Wash a few loads and dry them outside (yay for a working washing machine!)

 

Finding the Balance Between Self-Care and Self-Improvement

The 5 year old has been struggling this year with sleep, especially since the Lockdowns started in March. He's a really sensitive guy and he's the perfect little barometer for the atmosphere and stress levels in our home. When we are stressed his sleep goes out the window and he wakes up anxious at night. Between the instability, our private worries about food and money in those early weeks of Lockdown. The work of preparing our house to sell, the insanity of selling our home and moving our family of seven 1,000+ miles, the weeks of getting settled and hunting for land, finding a house to put on the land. Mixed into the midst of that the insane hours Hubby has been working, adjusting to a whole new place, trying to homeschool and function. His sleep issues are expected I suppose. 

Friday night he had me up for hours because he was anxious. I was so patient, I rubbed his head and prayed for him and we muddled through the night. Usually when he has a bad night the next night was better but to my bitter surprise this was not the case and the disappointment and sleep deprivation triggered me. I got angry. I'm right there with him! He sleeps with his head shoved into my all night every night. I have my hand on his body! I can't do any thing more and I WANT SLEEEEEP!!!!!! 

He woke me up again when I was in deep in my first hour of amazing restorative sleep and my sleep deprived brain snapped. I was mean, I threw a hissy fit on the bed  pounding my fists and yelling, I kicked him out of the room and told him to go sleep somewhere else, I didn't care where. Not proud of myself at all. Daddy got him settled and I've made things right but it was eye opening to the level of burn out I am experiencing. 

I laid in bed seething and then feeling deep remorse and guilt for being such a shrew to my sweet and anxious little boy. I started reflecting and berating myself (so helpful) for being so burnt out. I mean I take time for myself! I go grocery shopping once a week! 

And I feel guilty for going alone, going on a weekday (because the stores are less crazy) while Hubby is trying to work. I feel guilty for taking so long when he's juggling the kids.

I workout every day! I take at least 30 minutes for myself every single day to stretch and twist my spine and push my lymphatic system.

I take time to have some Bible time almost every day. I sit out on the front stoop or in my rocking chair in the quiet bedroom for at least 30 minutes and do my daily reading and write and reflect. I mean the kids interrupt me every 5 minutes or so to ask a question or tell me some small person needs their bum wiped or because some one is howling...But I carve out that time!

I was laying there last night ticking all those things off and I was reminded of the book The Introverted Mom by Jamie C. Martin and her profound point that there is a difference between self-care and self-improvement. 

Self-care is doing things that truly recharge you and fill you up. Self-improvement is great and it can make you feel like you're accomplishing things but it is NOT self-care. And when any self-care that you access is constantly intrupted? No bueno. 

 Adding to that, if you're flooding any semblance of self-care with guilt...or feeling guilty meeting basic needs of your family in a way that keeps you sane? So unhelpful! And Exercise is self-improvement. It does make me feel better and is partially self-care but it's not fun, it's not like, "Yes this just filled my tank!!" It definitely falls under, "I did this so my body won't fall apart from stress and I won't slip into depression, go me!" It make me feel physically good afterwards but at it's base: it is self-improvement.

 So where does that leave me? How the heck do I do self-care? In the past self-care was going to Hobby Lobby and wandering around thinking about crafts I'd like to do. It was going to the park and wandering alone for a few hours. 

 But in our old state there was a mask mandate and walking through the masked masses depresses me beyond anything. Add to it that wearing a mask means that I end up with an awful pounding headache after wearing a mask for more than a few minutes. And we don't live near any of the small parks I felt safe wandering alone, all the parks here are trail heads that are very secluded. I miss my old places. So mix in a pile of grief and homesickness to my old self-care habits.  

So how can I do this? How do I recharge during this stressful season? 

I haven't come up with any answers but I'm going to reflect on it today. I'm going to go out alone and buy a pedestal fan to blow on me at night because part of my meltdown last night was also triggered by being physically incredibly uncomfortable. I woke up soaked in sweat because the central air to our bedroom is horrific when the bedroom door is close...but Hubby stays up lat into the night and we have to keep the door closed because he needs the lights.

More tomorrow...I need to go make muffins for the kids, they're hungry again.

Big Changes 2020...Hunt for Home!

 You can read Part 1 and Part 2 of our Big Changes 2020 posts in those links!

It's really strange moving to an entirely different area. It was fun driving into our development...Suburb? I think they call it a "Deed Restricted Community" but it takes 30 minutes to drive across whatever this thing is, neighborhoods are different down here! I remember thinking, "This will all be familiar to me in a few weeks but right now I have no idea where I am or how to get anywhere, how strange!"

You have to use navigation to find your way to the grocery store. You don't know how roads connect or if there's a shorter route. You have no idea what direction your headed in relation to the nearest city or what the name of the highways are. Thanks to my hours and hours scouring Zillow and Trulia for a rental and housing options had gotten me fairly familiar with the different areas of the county. The search was on again for a place to settle. I don't want to give too much information about where we've landed on here but I will say it was just the general feel of the area that got us here. All of Ryan's family is in the Orlando area of Florida, we have some friends in Central Florida and I have some family in the Tampa area but none of those areas appealed. We came to this area and we just knew it was home. It's hilly (for Florida) there are pine forests everywhere and it's just gorgeous, it was very different from our palm tree, scrubby and flat Florida experiences of the past, it felt like home. The counties down here are quite big, it can take over an hour to drive across them and while we knew we wanted to be in this county, we didn't know where. 

 

Our dream list was at least 2 acres of land but Ryan really wanted trails to wander so upwards of 9 would be preferred. We were really hoping for water access (knowing that we could get water for the Berkey water filter something was wrong with the well was of interest). We wanted to be near the forest but have some open area for any animals we kept. We needed to have at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the property couldn't be too far down a dirt road (we have a minivan and a small car and no desire to upgrade). That's a tall list. 

Once we were settled we started driving around to places listed that might work, most were miles down dirt roads! Some were obvious flood risks, others were too far from any family (we really wanted to be within  2 hours of Ryan's folks). I had come across this listing so many times since February. It's nestled in a vast forest near several large lakes but the top view shown on the listing was this bizarre property line.

3 acres with access to a 14 acre lake...but look at the odd shape!

 

I couldn't make heads or tails of the strange lot and it just didn't seem like it would work, it was only 3 acres and it says that it has an electrical easement on the border of the property, if there are giant power lines, no thanks!

But we drove out to see it. We walked the property lines and thought, this is odd. But the more we walked it the more we loved it. The power lines are very small (just a line and a telephone line) and the property is surrounded by national forest and the power just runs to the few properties near by, really the easement is only on a very small corner part of the property. It is on a dirt road but the driveway is only .2 miles down the road.

We went back to visit again the next day. We liked it even more! It has an area down by the lake, an open area for animals to graze, a foresty area and a HUGE (hundreds of acres) of pine forest across the dirt road. As we were leaving a little 2 door coup came puttering down the dirt road! The neighbor down the way (a retired couple) said that they've lived there for years and have had no problems with the road...a neighbor further back has a tractor and he levels and rakes the road every few months to keep it nice and smooth. 

We went back the next day with Ryan's parents and had them take a look. The neighbor (with the pool you can see pictured, they are actually the sellers) was outside and we chatted with her. They are retired and had 5 kids (she loved seeing that we had 5 kids too), the property has been in his family for over 50 years and our lot was the original site of the cabin (which burnt down some years ago) that his family kept there for when this was their hunting and fishing land. They were originally from up north and would come down for family trips when he as growing up. The little lake is spring fed, has small gators that usually stay to the other side of the lake, it has bass and cat fish and they enjoy taking a row boat out and fishing in all their years they've never had a problem with alligators or snakes.

The property is situated out in what looks like the middle of nowhere but it's 5 minutes from a little shopping center and only 25 minutes from downtown! And it's only an hour from the beach and an hour from Ryan's family! His parents were extremely impressed with the entire property.

We put in an offer the next day. 

The public forest bordering the property goes on for a few miles and ends in a series of large lakes

 

The little lake next to the property, it's lower in these pictures though we've gotten quite a bit of rain since then.

More forest

More lake views

Our offer was accepted and after 2 months of hoops and paperwork we sign closing papers next week!

Now for the house! We looked into so many housing options for this property, we priced out what we could afford, what we were willing to invest and what would actually work for our family. We are a one income family, we work and school from home. We looked into stick built homes and were unhappy with our options. The companies were not well reviewed and had issues with BBB. We looked into modular homes while they were better reviewed and we trusted the building process more, the savings was only a few thousand dollars and we simply could not get the amount of house we needed. We found a manufactured housing company that we researched thoroughly (rave reviews online and from every company we've talked to that works with them, no listings with BBB)and we decided that it was our best option.
There's a stigma with "living in a trailer" b the more we researched the more we realized that manufactured housing ahs come a long way in the last few decades. The model we found and the company that builds it seems amazing. You'd never know it wasn't stick built. We've decided to upgrade  the roof to reflective aluminum, raise the ceiling height 2 feet and upgraded the insulation to the highest density possible. We'll eventually add some really nice permanent brick skirting for the house. It's a 5 bedroom 3 bath house with two living spaces and enough space for us to continue to grow (not planning on more kids but I mean physically, these kids take up space!). It's not exactly what we planned but it seems like the most solid investment. We really don't want (nor can we afford) a half a million dollar mortgage. Our main focus is having a house that fits us and that we can start a little mini farm moving forward, come what may. We hope to put a great big deep front porch on the front of the ranch style home and focus on making it a welcoming place to visit. We'll have a guest bedroom/home office and an extra bathroom to accommodate visitors. We're really excited!

The Future!

I hope to kind of sit down and plan things out a little. I hope to create a food forest, we want to get chickens and maybe ducks and goats. Lots more blogging as a I learn and figure all that out over the next few months!

It's definitely going to be very different from the city life we enjoyed before...To the forest and life by a Florida lake (gators, snakes and all) to new adventures!

What our old walks looked like.

Big Changes Part 2...Getting Settled

 You can read Part 1 of Big Changes here I didn't go into how exactly we chose the area of Florida that we did. I don't want to give too many details about our location publicly. I will go into it a bit more in part 3.

Closing on our home was set for a month from when we went under contract. In those short weeks we packed, we did inspections and repairs and said goodbye to people and places we love so much.  It was a hard month.

Ryan and I played here as children and this has been a special place to visit

A favorite park

On July 11th we worked from morning to night packing up the truck, Ryan's Dad left with the truck that night I could go into all the little miracles and headaches of those last few days. How the reservation we made for the big 26ft truck was somehow canceled. Well no, the reservation wasn't cancelled it was still there but it didn't matter the truck we had reserved was gone. Ryan and his Dad had to drive 3 hours early Saturday morning to get a truck in the state next door. There were blessings too, our church is mostly elderly folks who couldn't help us with our move. Our old church where we were married has a moving ministry and since we're still connected through Ryan's family several people came helped us pack up our truck.

We slept on sleeping bags in our empty house that night and woke up and cleaned the house all day on the 12th, finishing up last minute projects. That evening we said goodbye to our house of many years for the last time. We made a video walking through all the rooms and saying goodbye. After all that work we were beat but we were also desperate to get this transition over for the kids. Little ones do not love seeing their house empty, the kids needed this whole thing to be done. So that evening once all the cleaning and goodbyes were complete, we packed the kids into the van and drove all night long to the rental house in Florida. The trip went so well! I mean it was really difficult, Ryan and I were beyond exhausted from all the work but we took turns driving and napping and the kids got naps as they could. The littlest one didn't love sleeping in his car seat but got a pretty decent nights rest as long as I sat next to him and held his hand (Thank the Lord we have an 8 passenger van and I could fit in the back with the kids as needed!). 

After 18 hours of driving we arrived at the rental house at nearly 3pm. Our truck and Ryan's Dad was waiting for us there! I won't go too much into the drama of our arrival....Actually I will, it was difficult. We discovered that the property management company we had so carefully chosen (highly reviewed and well established) had profoundly dropped the ball. It seems the person managing our property had been doing a crappy job and was fired. In the week before the move we knew that our point person had changed but what we hadn't realized is that the company hadn't actually made sure that our property was ready for us! The house was disgusting. The carpets hadn't been cleaned, there was water damage in an area of the house. There was damaged walls and electrical outlets weren't working, the garage door was broken. The bathrooms were atrocious and both toilets were broken!!! It was so bad. After packing a truck all day on Saturday, scrubbing and cleaning all day Sunday and driving through the night (with 5 kids!!!) all night Sunday and into the afternoon Monday: I was shattered.

We had to get settled though the kids needed us to get things as normal as quickly as possible. I ran down to the grocery store (truth be told it was a 3 trip process, thankfully we have a Winn Dixie 5 minutes away!) to grab heavy duty cleaning supplies and I spent 3 hours scrubbing the black ringed, hair crusted tubs (I am not kidding it was so very wrong, I still feel horrified and angry when I think about it) and dirty broken toilets (thankfully one was usable but you had to stick your hand deep in the tank, lovely!) and sinks. I scrubbed and hung the shower curtains. I scrubbed the hard water calcified broken kitchen sink, I did everything I could to make the best of a bad situation. The next day Ryan's brother came out to help us unpack the truck an take Ryan's Dad back to where they lived (about an hour and a half away). Ryan's Dad is very handy and he was able to get the garage door patched up enough to use until the PM company could send a repairman. I had packed for this move as carefully and thoughtfully as I could and I had the kitchen  and living room unpacked and "normal" by the end of Tuesday. Ryan's Dad had all the kids beds built and set up (Seriously, God bless that man) and their rooms were "normal" and ready for them. We were completely settled and had a usable house before his Dad left Tuesday! Miracles, so many miracles happened that weekend, it was unreal.

Moving is hard, making it feel like home as quickly as possible!

By the end of the first week I had all the boxes out of the rooms and every thing as settled as they were going to get in this transitional housing. The house is what it is, it's too small for us and it's cramped but we've mad the best of it. As frustrating as the disgusting greeting was and the damage we discovered (not as picture or shown in the zoom walk through!), I'm thankful. We plan to move out before our lease is up and we have pictures of everything that greeted us. The company still hasn't repaired some things that we've told them about, we have good leverage to break our lease early without penalty.  And that's what we plan to do because we found a new home! More on our Hunt for Home in Part 3!

Before I close I do want to say that even though some things went sideways, the overall feelings I have when I think of our move is awe and peace. There was so much peace even in the exhaustion and frustrations. The memory of our drive down here is so sweet to me, covered in a fog of exhaustion but still so sweet it was a really special trip and driving through the night made the first 14 hours FLY. The  last 4 were rough but still the kids did absolutely amazing. We have some seriously amazing people in our family (including our incredible children) and we had some seriously wonderful prayer warriors covering us on that journey. It was a good time even if it was hard. 

The Hunt for Home coming soon!

Big Changes 2020 Part 1

 It always cracks me up how badly I am at blogging. I'm not trying to cultivate a following so I'm not going to feel badly about my inconsistency. Life is busy and blogging as it is now known has become such a vapid and shallow thing the last few years. I truly don't have the skills or the desire to invest in what it requires, it's all about social media engagement and 99% of the interactions take place on Instagram. I enjoy scrolling through pretty pictures as much as the next person but at this point, I don't have the time or the energy. I just want to write.

Which brings me to now..Sort of...

This year has been insane for pretty much everyone, it's held true for us too: 2020 has meant some wild changes. But let me back up, Spring of 2019 we began seriously talking about a potential 1,000+ mile move. I felt so torn, I didn't want to leave my Mom (who lived next door), we had really close friends and I hated the thought of leaving them. But we were feeling stuck and also nudged and all sorts of unsettled so we began to seriously pray about our next step. 

If we go even further back to a few years ago we had a seed of an idea for a church plant laid on our hearts. We felt clearly that God wasn't calling us to plan it where we were. We began to ask where we were supposed to go and God kept nudging us to Florida. Florida was our "Never Will I Ever" state, years ago we joked about how much that was not happening. Face Palm. At the time I didn't like heat, I would miss Autumn and Winter too much and FLORIDA??? Blegh! It is a swampy, shrubby, flat place full of alligators, fire ants, giant spiders, flying roaches, poisonous snakes...And hot and muggy all the time, why would we go there??

And yet every door and window pointed to Florida. The Summer of 2019 brought the realization that we were moving there eventually, we knew that is where we were headed. The Autumn of 2019 brought the realization that a move that big was just impossible. How could we do it? How could we possible get the house ready to sell? How could we afford moving 7 people that far? We made a list for the house and started checking things off (it  was a long list). We took the move off the table though, it wasn't happening for at least 2 years.

January of 2020 we still felt a very direct and pressing direction from God to not get comfortable, to start moving towards this change. We told the kids that we were planning to move to Florida sometime in the next year. In February we went down to Florida for a work trip. We took 3 or 4 days at the end of the trip to scout out potential areas to live. The kids were excited, we've spent a lot of time down here over the years and they've always loved visiting. They love the big skies, the beautiful lakes, beaches and family time. That is a draw to being down here, we have just as much family (even more if you're doing math) down here than anywhere else.

February 2020 a Florida Beach Day

Then March 2020 

The day before our state locked down my Mom and I ran out to a little country store to stock up on baking supplies. I was looking at the lovely array of spices when my Mom said "Why Hello!"     

       It was the realtor friend she had recommended to us a few months before. She introduced us and I was able to talk to him about our hope to sell our house "If and when this all settles down."

The next day our world locked down, "Shelter in Place" was declared in our state. We questioned everything through those weeks, would we still be able to move? Would life ever be the same? The oppressive nature of the lockdowns in our area had us feeling very unsettled and extremely stuck. Every thing was closed and when would it open again? I couldn't really clean things out and take things to donation centers but I felt clearly to start organizing and packing, "Start here and keep moving forward!" 

So I started packing and packing....and packing.

Over the 2 months of lockdown we packed and cleaned, patched, painted, repaired and filled up the garage with junk. In early June I called a junk hauler to come take all the crap away. He happened to be a realtor and walked through our home and gave us an estimate. He also said that real estate was opening the next day and we could have this place on the market in a week if we wanted. The next day? It was opening? YES! But we didn't feel a peace about using this guy, I felt clearly we should call my Mom's friend. I contacted the realtor I met in March and asked him to come see the house ASAP. We had the house on the market within 2 weeks. Within 3 days we had had 26 showings and 15 offers, by the end of the 4th day we were under contract. BOOM. We were doing it, we were really moving to Florida!
`Part 2 Coming Soon...Florida!