updates

I wanted to briefly fill all y'all in on a couple of things...
(okay so it may not be so brief...)

Firstly, the car! Is home! And tucked safely in the garage after successfully traversing home from the car hospital this evening. It was not only done earlier than expected, but it's made a miraculous recovery and feels good as new. Okay, maybe not new, but as good as thirteen years old! The auto guy said (not once, but twice) "you really dodged a bullet here"... Sounded like he expected this one to be a goner. But no, not yet! She's not ready to call it quits yet!!

Let's just hope nothing else comes up until we have a job and know where we're living and we're ready to take on a new vehicle in maybe six months or so?

Speaking of...
Secondly, I just wanted to record/share a few thoughts on where we stand with the whole job/moving possibility thing/timeline we're looking at.
Ryan did find out his "Wave Date" this week, which is when he technically stops working. Well I guess he actually he found out on Friday, but today found out it might actually be two weeks earlier. He was told February 26th, but now they're thinking he might not have enough to do and they might want to move it up to the 12th. So we'll see.
From the Wave Date he's still "employed" and gets paid as normal for two more months. Employees are not expected to work those last two months and can actually take on an outside job, part time. If they take a full time job, they must notify izer-Pfay and their severance would begin. Otherwise, at the end of the Wave period, the severance package goes into effect... which corresponds to how long the employee has worked for izer-Pfay. So this Wave thing essentially tacks two months' pay onto the severance... but you can't take a new full time job in those two months if you want the pay.

Anyway.
So that's coming up.

What's coming up more immediately, as most of you have heard me mention, is our trip this extended weekend for Ryan to meet and interview with the people and the program for which he is being recruited. We will also spend a few days looking around the area, exploring the city and the suburbs and getting a feel for it all.
We've spoken more in depth with some of you than others about this situation, but the gist of it is that as much as we still don't want to move, I think both Ryan and I really feel like this might be it. We've actually tried to somewhat put off going down there because I think we're afraid that we will like it. (insert Dun-dun-dun sound effect here)

When we first knew for sure in November that this job here was done, we were very very much in the mindset of We Don't Want To Move. There have got to be other opportunities here and we shouldn't have to move.
Well, that's not panning out, or at least as quickly, as we'd hoped. So far all the job offers, the recruiting and the seeking him out, are from out of state and meanwhile all the local places have just been silent without call backs.

This prospect is probably an extremely smart move for Ryan career-wise and an opportunity he'd be very excited to take... IF it didn't mean moving the family once again. I think it's really only the moving that's prevented him from jumping on this head first from the moment it was first brought up to him. And actually he's shared with me that all along these last couple of months of exploring this opportunity, he's been looking for reasons to drop it, to tell them he's not interested. First of all, it's research connected to Academia with a well-known medical University, so he thought pshaw... it's a university... I can get a better paying job elsewhere. Until he found out the numbers they were actually thinking were actually very attractive. And then he thought pshaw... they wouldn't relocate us, so I don't think it's going to work for us. And then they offered relocation. And so on and so forth. It's like every time Ryan tries to close a window, Someone Else is throwing the door open.
So yes, that's part of why we're second guessing our digging-our-heels-in-not-wanting-to-move.

At this point I've moved on to the state of mind where I can wrap my head around The Starting Over... I can research schools and neighborhoods and communities and feel like it'll be okay. Maybe even good. I actually get excited about some aspects of The Starting Over again.

But then I think about the things we're LEAVING again... and I actually feel a little quite panicky. Our schools, the things we're involved in in church, our neighbors, our friends, our community, our free zoo, our pool, our three car garage (joking) (kind of), our comfortability here... I'm just not ready to give that all up for the Unknown.
I actually have little mini panic attacks thinking about giving notice about things like not re-registering Sawyer for preschool next year or not signing the kids up for swim team this summer. It's going to be hard for me to have to let go of this community we've so grown to love. I don't know why, but it feels significantly harder to think about leaving here than it did to leave Oregon in the first place, where we'd lived (basically) our whole lives.
Maybe it has to do with just feeling like we haven't had enough time here. That we want more time to enjoy this unexpectedly perfect-for-us spot we've found ourselves in for the last two-and-a-half years.

I know it's strange, but I'm very much in this in between place of being okay with The Going if that's where we're supposed to live, but definitely NOT okay with the Leaving St Louis part of it yet. It's a really odd place to be; this being excited about the prospect of new things, but at the same time panicking about what we have to leave behind.

IF we do this that is.
It's all still a big IF.
But all that to say that we could use some prayer. Especially this weekend as we're down in that area trying to make a decision on whether the Lord is making our home down there or not. I'm really just trying to have faith that our path will be made clear to us. That things will either fall into place or they won't. And that that is crystal clear from the beginning.
Also for peace and rest and assurance in whichever path is ours...

I do have to say we've been blessed to have wonderful friends surrounding us and as I've shared some of my thoughts about all this with some of them they have been so incredibly gracious with listening ears, faithful advice and amazing encouragement... especially some older, wiser women of the "been there, done that" variety.
Love that.