I’ve not a lot to say about the state of Florida yet.
I’m having a very difficult time with the transition. I miss my friends, my community, the guy at CVS, the manager at Ingles, the lady at the Post Office. It’s nuts. My poor kids and husband don’t know what to do with me. I don’t know what to do with myself.
The last move took about a year to adjust. I remember being pregnant and feeling depressed for about a year.
I hope it doesn’t take as long this time.
IN HIM
julie
I am always amazed (and always want to be) by the way God speaks to me.
Some believe in an audible voice and I’m sure that happens to some. For me, it’s the voice in my heart where the Holy Spirit lives. It’s audible to me but it comes from inside me, not a booming voice from the clouds.
Friday is trash day in the neighborhood in which we live. Most folks put their trash out on Thursday night. As I was walking Sparky that evening I walked by a perfectly good white shelving unit a few houses down from mine. No damage, just dirty. I looked at it for a few minutes and then decided to knock on the door to see if the home-owner minded me taking it. What a perfect excuse to meet my neighbors, right?? The funny part was the man who owned the house I had already met and he was watching me from his window checking out his trash. I can only imagine what he was thinking.
As I went to the door a face appeared in the glass beside the door. He opened the door, laughing, and said, “Caught ‘cha!”
I admitted to him, “Yes you did. Can I steal your trash???”
“Sure! Take whatever you want.”
So off I go with Sparky in one hand and wheeling the shelving down the street with the other, honestly hoping not a soul was going to see me. Yep, call me Fred Sanford. My youngest son was riding his bike up the street looking for me and offered, “Where did you get that mom?”
“From the trash.”
“For free?”
“Yep!”
“Cool.”
Putting the white shelving in the garage and planning to clean it later I continued my walk in the other direction down the street with my son riding his bike. There we found a filing cabinet, two chair floats for the pool, a hose box (one of those things you role your hose into) and a small piece of hose that fit perfectly from our faucet to the pool so I can add water when needed.
Yea, I sniffed through there trash as if I’d found gold. Another chance to meet a neighbor, right?
Knock, Knock.
“Hi, I’m your new neighbor, Julie, from down the street. Can I steal your trash?”
(I just have to laugh at myself recounting my antics.)
“Sure, take whatever you want.”
Meanwhile, the neighbor across the street is checking me out checking out my neighbor’s trash. He walks over and offers me his wheel barrow to tote the load down to my house telling me I can take whatever I want from the neighbor’s trash pile. “He won’t mind.”
The wheel barrow man was a very interesting man who worked for Home Land Security until 2 months ago. He’s a retired Navy officer. Funny as can be with a German wife and a 45 year old son who just returned home after a divorce. His nickname for me now is Fred, as in Fred Sanford from Sanford and Sons. Remember the show? He ran a junk yard?
That’s him on the right. Ok, so maybe some of you are a little young to remember that but it was a great show from my childhood.
To continue with my trash story……
As I was putting all my “finds” in the garage God quietly spoke to my heart telling me, “See how I take care of you? It’s never like you think I will.” He’s WAY too creative for that. He likes blowing my mind. It lets me know He is God and I am not. And it lets me see His creativity at work, first hand. Makes me wish I had been around when he made the rhino and the giraffe.
The same day my new friend and neighbor brings me about 8 squares of carpet samples from her husband’s store. He runs a flooring business and always has old carpet samples. Now I have rugs to wipe your feet on when coming in from the pool or in the front door. Most were a very short piling but one of the ones she brought me reminds me of my favorite rug at home. It’s green shag. It’s a little darker than the one in SC but it feels SO good on my feet. Odd that I placed that one in the bathroom on the tile in front of the toilet. Now, each time I, well, you know, I’m reminded of her and of God’s provision for me. Odd thinking of people and The Creator in the bathroom but He talks to me a lot there. So, hey, whatever works!!
The following day (yesterday) the same friend brings me a paper grocery bag full of Panera Bread. Their church gets all the leftover bread they can’t sell. Of course it is still perfectly good. Their church members get some and they distribute some to the needy.
Bread.
God. The bread of life….
…a sack full, overflowing and smelling like Panera heaven.
And once again overwhelmingly free.
He’s an amazing God, providing for me in ways that blow my mind.
“I love you Lord!”
julie
I can already feel Rocketman getting attached to our neighborhood. It really is pretty. I’m also thankful God has given us this chance to live here to figure our where we want to live, what we are willing to sacrifice, and all that jazz. We live in an older section but one that has lots of character. It’s a gated community. I’m not accustomed to locking doors or any of that but here it’s something we do. Big city folks and all, ya know?
So here’s a glimpse of the view from the front porch…
Looking to the right….
Looking across the street…
Looking to the left…
Our next door neighbor’s house. I LOVE IT……wanna steal it.
Across the street and down a house or two. Totally love this one too….
The part of the neighborhood Rocketman loves….
Different types of flowers than (up north)…..
And you are welcome to come inside and sit a while……
If you are willing to get past the large mass with green glowing eyes…..
You might find this on the other side of the house…..
Or this….the giant float mom just had to have since we were moving to Fla and all…..
And this is what happens pretty early around here these days, especially with baby girl.
Hope you enjoyed the tour.
Stop on by for a visit.
Day 3 and 4
Yesterday was a nice day. We got the tire fixed on the car. We had run over a nail somewhere. And I found the Dollar General. Now we have nice tacky new bath mats, trash cans and such. See all the ugly stuff was marked down. So that’s what I bought. There is no sense in spending a bunch of money on things I already have in SC.
The boys made a friend yesterday. Zach. He’s a very big 10 year old. Nice boy. They swam and went fishing yesterday. I made it to bed about 7pm and slept until 7:30 am this morning.
We found this guy yesterday. He’s really cool.
We tried a church today. It was really nice and had a wonderful kids program. Then it was home for lunch and a FL thunderstorm. Time for a nap.
Fred has had the hardest time adjusting I think. Cruiser took it all in stride but Fred stayed here for a few days before taking over my office chair.
This evening we went to the beach. The kids swam, I took my camera and took not a single photo. We went with Zach’s parents. Both very nice.
So tomorrow Rocketman leaves for work again.
Until then…..
Day 2
I’m ready to come home.
Not sure why exactly except this doesn’t feel like home yet. Go figure, it’s only been two days.
Renting is really unusual since nothing here is really mine. It’s okay, just weird.
The kids are fighting over the pool. What’s up with that? That thing is supposed to entertain them, not cause trouble. Now we have pool rules.
1. No running
2. No pushing
3. No jumping on mom’s expensive float.
4. No naked swimming. (Yes, really)
5. Towels and bathing suits must be hung after leaving the pool. And for goodness sakes, dry yourself off before coming in the house.
I made it to the grocery store today. My oldest son was up at 4am. The Rent-a-Center place doesn’t REALLY put it all together. I have no dryer hose to connect my vent to the wall. Liability, they say. Nice to know before you wash a load of clothes don’t you think? And the frig? No hook up to the house’s water. Liability, they say. So what do you do? I even had to take the plastic off the mattresses. Maybe they cut grass or something. Maybe they need to see my kids swimming naked. Maybe I need to shoot them. Maybe, just maybe…….
I’m missing home.
UPDATE:
Rocketman came home tonight and we all took off to the pond in our neighborhood for some fishing. It was so therapeutic. We caught 2 crappie, 2 bass and 1 brim. We had a lot of fun and 5 fish out of 6 family members isn’t bad. Oh, if you count the turtle we caught and the one that really did get away it was a banner evening.
I feel more relaxed, less wound up and less homesick.
Maybe I just needed my man to come home.
These two are happy again.
It’s taken days and days and days to pack just a portion of our house. Trying to decide what to take and what to bring has been one of the hardest things we’ve had to do. Since our house (up north – smile) hasn’t sold we wanted to leave it ready for showings and our own visitations.
Honestly, I have only moved myself one time and that was when I married Rocketman. I didn’t have much then…a small U-Haul hooked to the back of his Jeep, $7 in my bank account and livin’ on love I moved to Memphis TN.
Fourteen years and 4 kids later life is a little bigger. I repeatedly found myself saying, “Lord, I have too much stuff.” And although we purge often and donate locally I wondered if He wanted me to hear myself saying those words. How much of that stuff never gets touched??
Certainly a lot in the basement in SC are things that have been boxed up for house showings hasn’t been touched in months. Most of it is my scrapbooking stuff. I promised myself I’d scrapbook this summer. But after toting what feels like half of my life to Florida I’m really don’t want to see another rubber tote for quite some time. Some of it is camping gear. We camp often…..in our yard, under our carport. I’m telling you, “It’s the life.”
This is our biggest move since our marriage since the last time we moved we had two kids. One was two and one was a wee 11 months old. Now we’re toting an 11, 10, 8, and 6 year old. Thankfully we are out of the crib, stroller, high chair, and port-a-crib stage.
We’re renting for the first time. Someone else’s house….someone else responsible for the decisions other than us. But also someone else to mow the yard, clean the pool (which we’ve never owned) and handle repairs. I’m hoping that pool provides a tremendous amount of entertainment this summer.
After settling in and taking a breather from all the turmoil of moving the house shopping will start again. God blocked all our attempts to buy in the beginning of our move so we felt led to rent, get to know the area, and then decide upon where we’ll live. Good advice but required us moving ourselves for the first time in a long time with the bare minimum to live in our rental house. Less to clean is the way I’m looking at it.
So here we are. Moved in but I forgot the router so it’s being shipped to me by my good friend Dede.
Until then it’s blogging by Word!
Looking forward to a bed……
And just because I love pictures….
Several things have happened recently.
We won the championship for our flag football team for the second year in a row.
Yippee! This yummy little guy will be playing before I know it.
Isn’t he adorable???
These guys crack me up with their hand motions but “hey” it won the game!!!
(unedited)
This one of mine did not play this year but he sure had a knack for sucking me out of 50cents for a ring pop every game….
And this guy did play. He takes after his mom….look at those legs stretch!!!
And I’m spending my days boxing, boxing, planning and all that jazz to move to our rental home in JAX.
I’m sad, happy, nervous, stressed and all that jazz.
“And the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
I need that pasted on my forehead.
IN HIM…….
Julie
UPDATE: Our home inspection did not go well so we’re back to finding the house God has for us.
We will soon be Floridians! We signed the contract to purchase our new home in Florida on Sunday. We prayed for wisdom and feel like the Lord really gave it to us.
Let me tell you a what though…..looking for houses with 4 children in tow is NOT fun!
Rocket Man worked all week but looked at the houses I liked with me on the second go round.
But this is what we ended up with….
Ta Da!!
Our back yard (which we hope to place a pool in soon!!)
So what do you think???
Well, there are many things I could say but I think pictures speak a thousand words, don’t you?
One in her new bathing suit and one in his new Pirate pjs. Both comfortable outside…..
One mad…..
The kids with the camera……
Flying?
Not really…….
Off to the chiropractor in pj’s and a bathing suit.
Recently I can’t think of anything to blog about, nor do I think about my blog.
Life is crazy with getting the house ready to sell, looking at houses in Florida, and missing my hubbie already who will be gone the day after my birthday.
My best friend may come visit this weekend.
Daylight saving has me up at 6 since it’s really 7.
We made it to church on time yesterday.
We sold our truck.
Rocket Man wants a jeep. After all, we’ll be in Florida.
This one’s kinda cool
Of course girl’s ideas of jeeps and boys ideas of jeeps often differ.
I turn 45 on Friday. Yikes, where does time go.
Any donations for a face life?????
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