A little update so your not hanging...

On Monday the boys and I traveled down to St. Louis with Hubby while he had his job interview . During the interview I drove around and found a park with a nature center, when I went to the door it was locked but a woman came and let me in. Turned out it was part of the school district in one of the burbs and they bring bus loads of kids to the nature area ( there was a pond and trails and stuff, really nice) as part of their enviromental education program. SOLD was what I was thinking as I talked to her as I've never heard of a program and it looks like my kids will be doomed to being city slickers so they'll need to learn the difference between a goose and a duck. The nature center and the subsequent trail hike (in the rain) with the boys took a couple of hours and when we finally got back to the van I was amazed at how long it had taken and that my phone had not rang. I was just wondering if my signal was good when it did and it was my mother with ants in her pants wanting to know what was happening, of course I had no clue. So I loaded up and started driving back to where Hubby was expecting my phone to ring any minute - who ever heard of a two hour job interview? I get back to the joint and the kids and I sit in the van for another hour before he calls. At one point Sonny Boy was running sprints in the parking lot as I couldn't entertain him anymore. After the 3 1/2 hour interview was up Hubby was offered the job. The money is not wonderful but we will be able to survive. Currently Hubby has not officially accepted the job offer and is going to counter offer for a little bit more money but will most likely take the job regardless.

In the meantime I will stay here with the kids and hope the house sells. Right now it's our biggest hurdle financially and it's a stress. We don't know in what Hubby will live in, we are looking into purchasing a cheap camper, or hopefully he can rent a room from one of his new co-workers. Hubby is going to take a couple of weeks off of work before the new job begins, we will travel to see his family because it will be a another year w/o vacation. Last years vacation was burned going to Ukraine and this years had been postponed due to job worries.

That's the scoop - the line for the computer is forming so I must go. I'll write more when details are ironed out.

Nothing good ever last too long

The more I think about this whole job loss issue more depressed I get. Come on really, your supposed to move forward in life, move to other cities because it's a promotion of a sort, better money, better enviroment, or just cause you want to live there. We will just be moving (God willing Hubby gets a job) not likely to a place either of us is excited about, not to a job that will be better pay, money or prestige. Just a J-O-B.

Today as I'm eating ice cream with the boys at the local landmark custard stand it hit me when I bumped into someone I haven't seen in a couple of years -we've both had boys since - that when I move I'll have to start over that sense of community again. New contacts, new church, new doctors, new civic groups, new ice cream places etc etc. I've just gotten settled here, I finally don't have to get out a map to go most places anymore. I can get around the city to major spots unassisted. If there is an emergency I can call 1/2 dozen people or more to lend me a hand without feeling like I'm imposing on them. I have a reliable babysitter when I need her. When we move we'll be going to a completly new enviroment and none of that will exist.

Five years ago we moved up here with a sense of adventure. This move move is filled with fear and trepidation. The whole thought of starting over again weighs heavily on me. Looking at my flower beds blooming angers me because I've put work into them and now they will no longer belong to me and it's not my choosing. Makes me hesitant to put down roots along with the flowers and settle into a place and call it home.

I suppose I could be more excited about moving and new jobs and such if it looked like we would be moving to a part of the country that was known for outdoor adventure, majestic beauty, sandy white beaches etc. However it basically looks like we'll be moving to St. Louis, (at least at this writing could change by Monday night) thrilling, a town known for a stainless steel arch and draft horses pulling a beer wagon. I would much rather move back home to AR than move to middle of corn country. Sorry dear reader if your from there maybe you can enlighten me with more to do.

Anyhow I'm trying my best to pull myself together and I'm doing a little better. Hope your doing better than I.

The Axe that Fell

Well we all knew the axe was hovering over Hubby's head at work the last few months, however it had been hemmed and hawed at so much that it was starting to feel that they were not really going to do it but they did. Tuesday he was given notice till the end of the month. Thankfully he was given a decent severance package which includes insurance for a while so hopefully something will crop up with potential to keep us alive before that runs out.

Hubby has been non-stop working phones and contacts since he was given the news. He's had a couple of good leads so far. One is a given, however the job has not been officially listed through the company's HR so it still does not exist and may not for a few more weeks. He probably has a job in another place as well but we are not too excited about moving to that area.

Our biggest concern is sitting in this house. We still have had no offers after a month on the market, and while we tried to be pro-active with this it didn't work. We are lowering our asking price and hoping to draw someone in. If we could just sell this house we'd be homelss but at least not facing foreclosure in a few months. We may end up loosing money on it just to get out from under the payment.

Of course all of this stress triggered the migraine I had been sporting for a few days to go haywire, yesterday. I took a trip to the walk-in clinic and later in the afternoon I went back and they sent me over to the ER. I'm upright today but no one would call me 100%. Hubby stayed home and worked his contacts and kept the kids from killing themselves while I slept off narcotics upstairs. Thankfully he was able to do that.

I'm so far behind on housework I feel as if I'll never be caught up again. Before yesterday's migraine from hell I had been sick with a bad cold for several days and pretty useless and then the bomb dropped and I wasn't worth shooting yesterday. I don't see myself being caught up for a few days unless someone drops a speed in my soda pop. While I hope the house sells soon I hope no one wants to see it before Sat as I do not have the umpf to get it clean enough to show before then.

Needless to say we are stressed to the max now and really don't know what the future holds in the next few weeks. Keep us in your prayers that the house sells and Hubby finds a job or finds a job nearby so we can just live in this house.

As Promised...

We had a good Easter, big breakfast of pancakes, church, egg hunt, big ham supper! What more could you ask for?

Could it be Spring??

I think it might be! My flower bed by the backdoor is about a week away from full bloom, though I admit it's a sheltered spot and blooms earlier than any other flowers. The one pictured is Pushkinia, planted in the fall before we traveled to Ukraine. Saw it in the store and though "Wow that sounds Russian, I'm buying it" well I don't know if the flower is actually native to Russia, but it is named after Pushkin a Russian poet. Pretty little flower but little is the operative word, the whole plant is about 4 inches tall.

Easter is tomorrow and I finally got the boys some outfits put together, really just a couple of multi-colored striped shirts that match but at least they are dressier than average Sunday attire. I hope to get some nice pictures of them made together in them. I actually made an appointment for this am but just couldn't drag myself out of bed to face the three ring circus it would have been getting into town for a 9:00 am appointment.

Eli has been officially in our custody for one year as of Thursday last week. Wed he will be home for one year. Funny he seems like he's always been here. The last year has been much easier than expected. From reading blogs, books and just about any info I could get my hands on before we traveled I expected a full year of hard adjustment but it hasn't been too bad. Don't get me wrong the first couple of months were very hard with a very clingy child who woke up several times a night. Now he's settled into a routine and is a generally easy child with typical two year old behavior that I could live without.

We had two showings on the house this week, we fully expected an offer from one of the lookers as it's his third trip, however he's hesistant due to the basement steps. I admit they are steep and somewhat scary but it's not like you tote laundry down them. Weeks go by that I don't go into the basement at all and it's not a basement that could ever be finished out, more of a cellar actually.

Hope all is well there in blog land. Happy Easter!

Strange kid or what?

This afternoon I got the urge to go shop at Kohl's to see if I could find the boys a cute outfit for Easter (no luck) however I did find a sweater on clearance for Hubby, a fleece on clearance for Sonny Boy and a pair of tennis shoes on sale for Sonny Boy. No big news there. The boys acted wonderfully in Kohl's and I was actually able to look at things a little bit.

The strangeness kicks in we got home. We come home and there is the usual shedding of coats and shoes in the doorway and plopped the sack down in the kitchen and turned on the oven and came to check the e-mail. While I'm pecking away at the computer Igor starts going through new loot and takes each item upstairs, installs Sonny Boy's new shoes and shirt in his room and then puts Hubby's new sweater in the bathroom ( why the bathroom I don't know, Hubby's closet is not in our bedroom so that might confuse him) Nothing could persuade the kid that we didn't have to do this stuff right now. I have adopted a 2 year old neat freak. I bet I drive him nuts! On the plus side to this, is maybe he'll keep the house clean once he's big enough to unload the dishwasher and do laundry!

We have been fighting a nasty little bug in the house the last couple of days. Igor is snotty and coughing and took a VERY long nap today, Sonny Boy has lost is voice and sounds like a 14 year old with it cracking and hoarse and yesterday I felt as if someone shot me with a tranquilizer dart. I'm better today, wonderful Hubby came home from work a little early and I pretty much went to bed at 4:00 pm, Sonny Boy missed school yesterday but today went back because I couldn't take his bouncing off the walls anymore - In all fairness he didn't feel bad just sounded bad.

My mother caught me on a pretty good April fools joke today, when I got home from Igor's therapy there was an e-mail that said she and this guy she dates off and on were going to get married to consolidate their bills! I fired back "ARE YOU SERIOUS" but couldn't wait on a reply so I called her at work and yelled the same thing. She nearly peed her pants laughing and yelling April Fool! Never even occured to me what the date was!

Well hope no one got you too good on the April fools jokes! Maybe spring will get here soon.