Libby’s Lines

Hey. I know it’s been a while. Life has been a bit crazy the past couple of years. My job went to full-time rather unexpectedly, full-time took over my entire life for about a year and a half along with trying to be involved at church, a work-traveling husband, two boys and now an additional child (as of August).

I am no longer working outside the home and am enjoying the reduction in stress. I haven’t gotten too much done around the house yet, because I’ve been a little selfish with my “free” time since not working. I’ve been doing some reorganization around the house and some cleaning, but I’ve also taken time to do some scrapbooking, a little reading, cooking, etc. just for “me” time.

The kids are in private school this year: our oldest is doing much better with homework, played soccer and is in the Men’s Acapella Choir, our youngest is doing well and is on the robotics team while our newest addition to the family (a niece of mine) is doing better academically and was on the junior volleyball team this past season. She had never played before and it was good to watch her learn something new and begin to do pretty well at it.

Our oldest is driving: it’s fun and scary at the same time. He does pretty well, but like most adolescents doesn’t want our help or advice. More growing away from needing us and as his mom I want him to still need me, even though I want him to be independent and self-sufficient.
It’s a tough cycle, isn’t it? Letting them grow up, wanting them to grow up and still wanting them to stay little.

Well, time for bed. Good night. God bless.

Do you like to wait? Not me. I can be patient with people, but not schedules. I am a bit of a control freak and I like to know what’s going on when, where and why. When one of these pieces of knowledge is not known to me, it drives me crazy!

I am now fighting down the depression “urges” that keep trying to sneak in. My emotions are all over the scale (and perhaps off it too). I know that having in faith that God is going to take care of us is what is required, but I also know that He requires us to do our part as well and not just sit back with the attitude “Ok God, drop it all in my lap”. We have taken the steps to ensure employment and income, we just don’t have a start date yet and no date of when to expect income to start coming in. This spills over into: I don’t know when we will be moving, so I can’t go looking for a house yet, don’t know what to pack yet, because I don’t know how long it will be, don’t know what to allow the kids to participate in because of timing, etc.

The anticipation of moving is still there, but the anxiety of it all is becoming overwhelming. I get up and start to pack a box and then I think “wait, we may need that before we move”. We probably won’t “need” it, but do I want to pack, unpack and repack boxes in the off-chance that we will? I don’t think so.

It’s just the frustration getting to me. On a lighter, positive note: I have 3 boxes completely organized and packed and have sorted through a ton of stuff and gotten rid of a lot of it! Yay! We are downsizing more and more as we go. It’s good.

We don’t look forward to them, they aren’t fun, they don’t give warm fuzzy feelings, they can make you cry, they bring an end to something.

We have all had to say goodbye: for one-week travel assignments, till the next family reunion, because of moving out-of-state, moving to another neighborhood or town, leaving one organization to be a part of another, saying goodbye to loved ones who have given in to death.

Goodbyes are not easy, but sometimes necessary. Healing comes, we begin new relationships, the family grows and the cycle begins again. We just have to remember to welcome those new relationships and though we may be hurting from the goodbyes, newness brings healing and freshness to our lives.

The past couple of months I have experienced many hurts and disappointments, have had to say some goodbyes and begin attending a different church. I have felt like I need to distance myself from the people at the new church to protect myself, however they are so kind and welcoming to our family and us as individuals that I am finding it easier and easier to begin working on new relationships.

We are not discontuing relationships with most of the friends from the church we left and this, I’m sure is part of why the healing is moving toward completeness rather quickly. We don’t have to start completely over, just make a few changes. I welcome the changes now and look forward to the friendships that will come.

So, though they are hard and we don’t look forward to them, think of goodbyes as possible beginnings as well.

One more week till school starts! I am excited about the coming personal time I’ll have each day, however, I am also anxious about the coming year for my children.

Having children in high school means that everything they do really starts to count! Their grades, extra-curricular activities, volunteering all count toward possible scholarships for college and even counts toward acceptance to college. They have to be very aware of their decisions and we have to be very careful in our reactions to their decisions.

My prayer is that these adolescents just take it slow; not rush into anything or any decision.