Home Sweet Home

It has been 21 days since I last made time for and remembered to blog. Guess that's no surprise considering all that's happened since last I wrote:
12/16-Pat graduated
12/16-We moved
12/16-18-Pat's nephew, AJ, and his expectant wife and 2 boys spent moving weekend with us helping expedite the  resettlement
12/18-19-Immediately followed by my mom coming for a quick overnight to deliver the Christmas tree and the first load of our possessions from "storage" (one of mom's spare bedrooms)
12/24-25-My parents both coming for a special, unplanned overnight Christmas Eve
12/25-Christmas!!
-And, now, almost new years!

God is so gracious and we couldn't be happier with our new home. We're completely moved in and unpacked, shy 2 or 3 boxes. We managed to get the tree up and fully decorated just 2 days after moving and had a perfect way to display our stockings on the mantle of our fireplace. Now, after such a short, understated, partially appreciated season of Advent in our family, the decorations are coming down and the new year is upon us. We are glad to be settling in in Durham and foresee this being our home for many years, but we certainly feel our eagerness to move compromised our ability to appreciate Advent the way we should. We are well motivated to fully create the space needed next year to appreciate the season like never before and hope our children are ready to be fully vested in the experience as well.

So the holidays have come and are almost gone, we have established our family's footprint in Durham and are eager to begin opening our home to our friends through dinners and, if I can talk Pat into it, an open house (but I doubt it!).

So here's to a very Happy New Year to all our friends and family. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas as did we.

Workin' 9 to 5!

Ok, so maybe I'm not exactly working 9 to 5 (8:30-5 more like) but it's whipping my tail! Who knew going back to a full time out-of-the-house job would take so much out of me. And it's probably not the work day but the 45-75 minute commute twice a day that's doing it.

That's where the excitement comes in. 8. Count 'em. EIGHT days to moving day!!

We are all super excited. The house is in boxes. The moving truck is reserved. All the deposits are paid. The utilities are all scheduled for disconnect and connect. Friends are lined up to help. And the cleaning schedule for move out is bouncing around in my brain.

It's a good thing that all this move-related chaos is coming along because the daily keeper of the household related chaos is a disaster. I can't tell you who has bathed this week, or the last time I cleaned the toilets, and I even forgot to cook Pat dinner tonight!

But despite me being one frazzled female, Pat and the kids have been amazing! Doing dishes and folding laundry and grocery shopping… even Julie wrote a grocery list for me! Meanwhile, Pat is steadily making headway toward the conclusion of his education at Southeastern, graduating next Friday (moving day).

Please continue to pray for us as we prepare for God's new direction.

Praise God. Alleluia.

Reflections on Thanksgiving

Dear friends and family, Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we celebrate the profound way God has directed our path and the sweet ways we have grown individually and as a family. We have so much to be thankful for I get speechless just thinking about it all!

After 11 years, this is only the second time since getting married that we have done Thanksgiving dinner at home! Pat prepared an amazing prime rib roast and potato salad and I fixed a small ham, collards, baked mac-n-cheese, ham rice, baked potatoes for the kids, corn bread muffins, deviled eggs, and two pumpkin cream cheese pies! It was heavenly and we're all stuffed.

What an amazing way to kick off the Advent season. If we venture out tomorrow it will only be to buy candles for our Advent wreath!

We are blessed beyond measure and wish each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We're moving WHEN?!

So if you've been trying to keep up with us (which is hard enough for me to do these days) you'll know that Pat and I have landed great jobs in southern Durham and that Pat's in the early stages of discernment for ordination at All Saints (an AMiA church a.k.a. conservative Anglican in Durham). So God's obviously leading us to live, serve, and for all other purposes BE in Durham. But when? That's the question that we've been entertaining for months!

At first we assumed Pat would need to find some third shift security job or some other not-so-appealing gig. We were wrong. Then we assumed I wouldn't find a job quickly or easily, that I wouldn't have a job until the spring, and that we would move in June when the kids' school year ended. Again, wrong on all counts. So we're striking out with our assumptions and God's replacing them with His assurances. Wow.

I couldn't care less about being wrong so much. It's very freeing!

But with all our miscalculations, we realized we needed to "move it" with our final assumption and move. So I hit the internet and started hunting. It was a dream hunting on my iPad and I am now an expert with all the apartment and rental apps out there! We ended up finding our apartment listed in only one place (which-if you know apartments-is a freak occurrence in and of itself!) on my HotPads app (HotPads.com which I have never heard of until now). I called and, wouldn't you know, they had a 3 bedroom (also another freak occurrence) available to move in January 14! We couldn't get to Durham fast enough!

So all the paperwork has been done, deposit paid, and all the chaos in my brain of unanswered (move-related) questions has already been silenced. So much for June.

Praise God!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADDENDUM-November 12, 2011

Just when you think you have it figured out, guess again!

Everything has been worked out for our benefit and we're going to be able to move Saturday, December 17, the day after Pat graduates! This is great because the kids are tracked out the whole month of December and will start in their new school with everyone else in January.

We think this will be a much smoother transition for everyone and will eliminate the extra month of driving the long commute, spending more money on gas, and having less time together as a family. We're ridiculously excited.

We now have the task of finding someone in Durham to watch our precious 3-year old Johnny full time. Any takers?! Please pray for that to be smooth, too!

Ready or not… when God moves fast!

Many months ago we started praying for Pat to find a new job. One that would allow him to protect his back and knees and be more closely aligned with his experience and training: technology and communications. We were excited when a friend at Apple recommended he join the team there and shocked when he landed a job after a few short days and started training almost immediately!

Around the same time, we started praying for God to pave the way for when I head back to the corporate work environment in the Spring. Little did we know He was already doing just that and practically overnight-okay literally overnight-I interviewed and was offered an amazing opportunity with a company also in Durham minutes from Pat's!

We are stunned and humbled by God's provision. It's undeniable that God wants us in Durham; who are we to stop Him! Obviously we were off when we thought it would be June 2012.

What a way to kick off November: the "thankful" month! Our thankfulness is outpouring from our every thought.

Eat to live?

Over a year ago, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both my hips, significantly worse on my right. Osteoarthritis (OA) is where the joint's cartilage breaks down and can even get spurs in the socket so when the ball rotates it literally scrapes bone against bone or bone against spur. Needless to say, it's rather painful and slows me down quite a lot when it flares up.

My question has always been, what causes that flare up and what can I do to prevent it? Like a good doctor, mine gave me a prescription for pain management but who wants to take meds for the rest of their life?

I'm sure someone, somewhere, at some point told me about the potential impact diet has on OA, but it wasn't until this past weekend a new friend re-introduced me to the concept. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis over a year ago and her doctor gave her the option of (1) pain management or (2) trying a specialized diet. She, like me, is not fond of meds for life so she eagerly tried what many refer to as the caveman diet. Basically, it's fruits, veggies, nuts, and meats, though not too much red meat. Obviously, there's a few major things missing: carbs, sugars. Oh, my. And night-shade veggies are known to inflame joints and aggravate arthritis so I'm avoiding tomatoes and peppers, too!

Now, today is only day 3 of this major lifestyle overhaul but I feel GREAT! No pain, plenty of energy, well focused. I don't know about my resolve long-term but I have the amazing opportunity to choose every day if I want to be in pain or not and I can't think of any better motivation!

In all my research online in the last few days, I came across some additional, intriguing information promoting eating according to your blood type. As crazy as this sounded at first, the more I read the more it made sense (at least for me and my blood type). And it is incredible how much one's blood type is credited with personality type. So far there's no published research supporting eating for your blood type but the recommendation for me, with type O, is practically the same diet I just started!

I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences as I explore and experiment with my diet to find if it does help my osteoarthritis or not.

Before we started a family, I thought I'd never...

I have fallen in the self-laid trap of making promises I should have never made (especially to our kids) but I’m not one to often say out loud that "I'll never do" something.

However, in my head there is always a random list of things I think I'll never do. I'm just one that won't promise it. It's an important distinction that I need to learn better since my kids have a tendency to keep me honest and have the memory of an elephant!

Here is a list of things that, before we started a family, I thought I’d never….

1: Watch iCarly when no one is home and actually like it.

2: Have to keep my kids from discovering Home Alone for fear he would learn too much.

3: Buy a Nerf for my kids let alone participate along in pretend battles– and then take joy when I got him.

4: Allow movie watching with a little language (like Goonies or Shrek) just because they are too good to miss.

5: Offer my son my t-shirt for him to wipe his nose.

6: Think playgrounds and parks would be a more important deciding factor than speed and convenience when picking a travel route.

7: Love playing with Legos.

How about you? Spill it.

Featuring... Us!

About two weeks ago, we were invited to introduce ourselves to our friends at All Saints Church via their blog and we are honored! It has been wonderful meeting so many amazing people and we are excited to see how God is working through our new relationship with ASC.

Check it out!

Supplementing Public Education?

Over dinner last night, Pat and I were having normal family conversations with the kids when I said something about how it is already snowing in parts of the country. Julie and Jimmy started asking questions about where and immediately revealed their completely distorted understanding of basic geography. Two nights ago, we ran into similar disappointments in another area of their education.

Wow have our eyes finally been opened. I think we both have known that we should be doing more at home to ensure our children are receiving the richest education possible, but, like many, we have been relying wholly on the public system hoping it was doing enough. Additionally, there is no doubt that the instability in their education thus far (changing schools almost every year due to us moving) has had a huge detrimental impact.

Homeschooling is simply not an option for our family so what do we do? I have begun scrutinizing the free resources available online to find some ways to supplement at home and already ordered a world globe from Amazon. We would love to hear how other families bridge the gap. Thanks in advance for sharing!

Welcome home, Julie! (At Biltmore?!)

Julie experienced an amazing week with my parents and had the opportunity to learn some sewing basics. I love the fact that my mom is (again) trying to pass down this talent through the generations. Thankfully, Julie has a great appreciation for style and fashion and the life dream of becoming a fashion designer!

We met my parents in Asheville (at the Biltmore themed McDonald's) and spent the day exploring parts of the Biltmore Estate. There is so much to see and do we will have to go back and do the rest! My parents bought us 12-month passes for almost half price so we are already planning another trip in December to see the Christmas decorations and hopefully again in the spring to see the beautiful gardens!

It may have only been 5 days but Julie was very missed by all. I don't know what we are going to do when our kiddos are all grown and out of the house!

Thank you to my parents for being so amazing and continuously blessing us! We love you!

Weekend with Nana and Donnie's Ordination

This weekend was a whirlwind but, oh, so amazing!

My mom arrived Friday evening and the kids were ecstatic. We were able to have birthday time for the "4 Js" Saturday and they all opened their presents from Nana & Papa. I was shocked when we realized she hadn't been here to visit in almost a year! Thankfully we've been to visit them a few times.

Sunday we spent the day in Chapel Hill/Durham area and it was exhausting but such a sweet time together. We were blessed with an amazing worship service at our new church, enjoyed a scrumptious lunch at Chili's (thanks to Nana!), drove around for a bit checking out neighborhoods and apartment complexes, then explored the Duke Gardens.

Duke Gardens is amazing! It's a picture-perfect kind of place to enjoy feeding the ducks at a beautiful pond, letting the kids run free through grassy, open space and throwing a ball or frisbee, and admiring the beautiful vegetation throughout the gardens. We had such a great time!

We ended our day attending the Ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons at All Saints Church where our close friend, Donnie McDaniel, was ordained. We were honored to witness such an amazing event and excited for what is to come for him, and the others ordained, in their ministries.

_Moose Tracks_ (Theological opining)

I've had a friendship with Donnie McDaniel since the fall of '99. Someone once said that it is very difficult to count the number of friendships on one hand. Wow, is that so true. Despite the current social networking phenomenon (like Facebook) happening in our world today, "friends" are not that easy to make. Now we may have many acquaintances, but friends are a different story. When Christ was fulfilling his ministry, he had many so-called "followers," but there were twelve that he considered to be close to, and of those 12, Scripture seems to portray that Jesus had an even closer friendship with 3: Peter, James, and John. Indeed, one could argue that maybe the Lord didn't really have friends, at least when one looks at how they left him during his time of accusation and crucifixion. Nevertheless, Jesus called them his friends. And after Pentecost, those friends (apostles, except for Judas Iscariot) were loyal to Jesus until their death proclaiming him as Lord and Messiah.

I have several friends and am thankful for their friendship. Indeed, it would be very difficult to deal with the struggles, temptations, and victories in life without friendship. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, points out that true happiness (of the wholesome account not necessarily pleasure seeking) comes from a virtuous friendship. A virtuous friendship is one where two people have a friendship based on the virtue that each one possesses in order to always promote the good of the other. In other words, it is friendship that is unconditional. One is not using the other to attain anything for their own selfish gain. Aristotle even claims that "Anyone who is to be happy, then, must have excellent friends."

We weep with our friends. We rejoice with our friends. Last night on Sep. 18, 2011, I rejoiced with my friend as he was ordained to the diaconate in the Anglican Mission in America. Donnie has a servant's heart and desires to serve the Church through many ways. He will do well since God has enabled him and is making him into a virtuous, godly man, even conforming him to the image of Christ. What is amazing, is that as friends, we have noticed how God is taking us along the same track, the same journey so to speak. It's hard to believe that 12 years ago we would be where we are today. Donnie is an excellent friend. I thank my God for the friendship that I have with Donnie McDaniel. He has sharpened me as I hope I have sharpened him and it is great to see how God is blessing and using him for the kingdom. Value the friendships that you make (outside of Facebook, as well as through Facebook) and see how God uses your relationships with others to make you more a virtuous and godly person.

Still Running,
Moose

How Did We Get Here?

Pat and I have known each other for about 12 years, been married since 2000, have 4 children, and moved nine times bouncing around six different cities in the Carolinas. So how DID we get here?

Well, as our history has shown, "here" is revealing our belief that home truly is where the heart is. Our journey started out as newlyweds living with my parents in Rock Hill, SC who quickly had one then two beautiful children. In December 2002, we hastily packed our little family up and moved to Wake Forest, NC for Pat to embark on an education to prepare him for ministry. We didn't last long and after three short months we were spiritually and financially strapped and we ran to the first open door: a tiny little non-denominational church in a tiny little town in SC. We served there for a year, saw God start working, and that door was slammed in our face so we skirted across the county line and served in a little bit bigger southern baptist church in a little bit bigger town.

God richly rewarded our ministry there, grew the church, and gifted us with many opportunities to grow. Two years after arriving there, God drew us to minister to a church split just over the county line again so off we went and God birthed a new little southern baptist church and another beautiful addition to our family. It wasn't long before we realized that, though we were serving God, we were skirting around his ever-present call to education so, after a year serving and watching God grow this church plant, we packed back up and headed back to Wake Forest, NC for Pat to continue his then half-completed education.

Fast-forward from then in 2007 to now and God has brought us, with much support, through spiritual, emotional, and financial devastation. Jobs came and went for both of us, we have been blessed by one last beautiful addition, our marriage withstood much stress and strain from finances, relational distance, and more, but God saw us through it all and has restored us to be steadfast, humble, faithful servants of God and each other.

By the grace of God, Pat is on track to graduate in December with his Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies with a minor in History. Praise the Lord. So now we have the fun job of discerning what's next and we're excited.

_Moose Tracks_

Wayne Stiles wrote a little devotional book entitled, "Going Places With God." Well, as noted above, my family and I have gone places--a lot of places. Often, people will ask me, "Pat, why have you moved so much?" Honestly, I don't have an answer that satisfies many who ask the question. But the answer is and always has been, "wherever the Lord leads, we'll go." Some of my friends that I have attended College @ Southeastern with are serving right now all over the world: Turkey, Malaysia, France, China, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic just to name a few. These friends of mine have gone all over the world to serve God because they believe that He has called them to go and they obey the call on their lives to serve.

Though there has been continual change in our lives, there has been one constant: The Lord God is with us and He has never forsaken us. You could say that the presence of God has been the fuel to our fire to stay faithful to Christ and His gospel and to keep following wherever the Lord leads. Through all of the moving, there has been doubt, anger, frustration, worry, fear, marital struggles, financial struggles, and physical struggles, etc. Yet, there has been new friendships made, victories over sin, miracles witnessed, lives changed for the glory of God, and a peace that surpasses all our comprehension. God has indeed been and still is with us! For that, we rejoice evermore. So, even after I graduate in December, my answer will still be, "Wherever the Lord leads, we'll go." It's worth being in His presence. Amen.

Noodle Brain gets explained

Click here for elaboration on my "noodle brain" reference... hilarious!

What is in a name?

We've recently begun attending a new church and the rector's wife and I had a few brief moments to get to know each other before she introduced me to some other newcomers. In her introduction of me, she described the last 12 years of my life more succinctly and creatively than I would have by simply saying this: that I have followed my husband, Pat, on a wild goose chase for God.

Stunningly, in those brief moments, she understood the chaos (that I would never trade for the world!) that has been my life. But, most importantly, she understood why.

Through this blog, I hope to enlighten my readers and followers on why I will forever be on a wild goose chase through my life, marriage, parenting, friendships, and who knows what else. Everything I do, I do for the glory of God. And I dedicate this blog to Him.

I must confess though, I have always been skeptical of personally blogging, with my greatest objection as not being able to find a creative name for it. Thanks to the wit of that rector's wife and my noodle-brain (long story), I tweaked my wild goose chasing life to acknowledge my husband's role in all this and as he was nicknamed Moose many years ago coined my own special phrase: wild Moose chase! Enjoy and watch for "Moose Tracks!"