Naturally, being in my mother-in-law’s pristine new house motivated me today to do some cleaning in my own. Josh and the kids went in after lunch to load some stuff that was still at the old house. I stayed behind with one of the boys. I didn’t want to be away from home that long. While we were here we started some laundry and dusted and wiped down the washer and dryer. I was going to do more in the downstairs storage area but it wasn’t as disheveled as it can sometimes be down there.

Next we went up to the bathroom. I deeper cleaned everything but the tub and shower. I took a knife and scraped the wax off the floor from a tipped over candle. It’s been there for months. Some things you see and are just not bothered by. It’s when someone else sees it that I tend to become bothered. One of my husband’s aunt’s had this dusting rag she was using to wipe down shelves and sticky spots off of mugs. She would probably be appalled to see our house. I don’t clean that much.

While I was doing that my son replaced the rusted vent cover with a new one I’d bought over the summer when I was doing the bedrooms. It’s just sat there on the floor all this time, another one of those things that just never bothered me. I bleached behind the toilet and cleaned the rest of the floor. While I was doing that I thought of a woman who’d helped us pack our bathroom when we moved from Hoyleton. I was a little mortified at the time wondering what might’ve all been in there.

I remember whenever we were moving into a new place my mother-in-law would always want to help me make up our bed. Every time. This way it’d be ready for us to sleep in. I really didn’t mind except that the mattress pad we had at the time had a dark brown, apple sized stain in the middle from some time when I had weirdly bled through the sheets. That was like a fluke occurrence and yet there was always this stain there whenever she and I stretched out the mattress pad and sheets.

She never said anything. The woman who helped pack up our bathroom I don’t think said anything either. This woman and her brother and sister were very nice people. It’s humbling when people are near your stuff, your space, especially the parts you don’t normally show people. But you wouldn’t have been as thankful for them if they hadn’t have gotten near it. When we were done with the bathroom we met everyone in town at the new house and brought the rest of the stuff in from the cars.

Today was a much better day at work. I didn’t leave with that terrible feeling like I’d missed something. The shift last week got inside my head so much that I wrote to my supervisor around 5 o’clock on a Saturday morning. The girl who was training me said it’s just because I’m new and getting back into things. She told me not to ever lose sleep over things related to work.

I’m feeling a little bit lost these days. This stage of life still feels so foreign to me. I have a son away at college, a daughter who’s regularly out and about with people from school, three other sons who I see but don’t interact with in the ways that I used to. They’re around and I enjoy them but there is still that separation and those stretches of times we don’t see each other or talk more in depth.

This all goes back to the feelings of gratitude we’re meant to cultivate. I am thankful for this job right now and that I’m able-bodied enough to work. Josh made me breakfast before I went in. Tonight we went over to his mom’s for supper. The new house is really coming along on the inside. It’s beautiful and my sister-in-law has done a nice job helping to get it decorated.

My brain, for whatever reason, has revolted against all things school related. I simply do not care right now. I have for sure decided to drop the intensive between the quarters. When I was looking at the the program requirements for UIS, the trauma class I would be taking would not have counted toward my remaining needed classes. So even though I would still love to sit in and learn the content, I’m not going to do it.

We were scheduled to go to Texas toward the end of next week. That plan too has now been cancelled. There was a conference down at Camp Lonestar and the kids and I were supposed to spend a few days in Dallas with my sister-in-law’s family. But when we sat down to really talk about it, there were things about the trip that didn’t make much sense. We were bummed to cancel, but there were other things going on.

This morning I worked on cleaning our room. Work had asked earlier if I could come in and help where they were short on days. I said I couldn’t this time. Last night we brought supper to my mother-in-law’s house where things are coming along and looking good with the unpacking. They hung a sign over the office door that says Theilen Farms est. June 2022. The weather has been lovely and beautiful lately.

My mother-in-law moved into her new house today. I dropped the boys off at school and then met Josh at the old house where the movers were going to be coming in the morning. It took them over four hours to load everything. During that time I left to go to a routine doctor’s visit at the Springfield Clinic. These annual visits can seem like such a waste of time sometimes. So much money for not much that happens.

When I came back everyone was out at the farm. My husband’s aunts were there along with an uncle. Everyone was sitting in the living room having some rest time while the movers unloaded things. After a while we all got up and started unpacking boxes. Josh and I worked on the guest room and the aunts worked on the kitchen. The boys put together the end tables that are going in the downstairs kids bedroom.

My daughter is staying out there with Grandma tonight and tomorrow. My sister-in-law flies in later this week to be here for a few days. There were some emotional moments before the movers arrived and once they were getting started. It’s still a shame that my father-in-law isn’t here to see everything. I don’t know if those who have gone before us can see us or not. I would think they are part of the great cloud of witnesses.

So maybe they aren’t able to see us at all times, kind of like in a cross country race. You see the runner at certain points, but you aren’t able to see him or her the entire race. I unpacked his coats and hats into the mud room and it looks exactly like how it would be if he were here and planned to use them. They’re supposed to be for anyone who is here who might need a coat to play or work outside. The house is huge.

I came home and was watching an Instagram story of a woman my age who is pregnant with her 9th baby. She is planning to have an unaided home birth but had gone and seen her midwife today. She was talking about hearing her baby’s heartbeat and out of nowhere it brought back baby heartbeat memories. I can’t believe my children were inside me at one point. Before I ever knew them, I’d heard each of their hearts.

Today was a crazy day at work. It by no means was as bad as it could have been, but the build up of little things here and there, and then getting pulled into a patient room unexpectedly when no one else was around to help her which set me back a full 45 minutes, I had a moment where I had to go into the med room, shut the door, and dry my tears. It’s the first time I’ve cried since being back.

It’s hard because we don’t really have time to talk much during the shift. Even just, “Hey, you’re doing fine” would give me some peace and reassurance. The girl I’ve been training with isn’t exactly the warmest, but I still like her, and like I think I said before, competence makes up for lack of warmth in nursing. I would not say it goes the other way around though.

Warmth can go a long way, but that itself isn’t enough. I remember two C words I came up with when I was first starting out that summarized what I wanted to strive for: Competence and Compassion. At some point later in my stay-at-home mom years I came up with a third that I thought was fitting, though I cannot remember now what the third C was. From God I’m needing extra measures.

It helps that the boys come home at noon. I’d asked my husband if he misses me while I’m at work, not in that annoying way, but just in a curious, “Oh yeah, this is different for you too, what’s it like?” sort of way. He said its’ not like he’s crying about it or anything, but that yeah, he likes having me around. I took a walk after work and thought about how much I love being home.

The past two weeks I’ve been training on REACH. I still really like it though I’ve been slightly discouraged that I’m still also in the middle of the training process and likely will be for another while yet. I’d rather have it this way then be thrown into things before I am ready. But I do get frustrated with myself sometimes, that I have to be dependent on asking this other nurse for help, thinking that I’m bothering her, or wondering how much farther along I’d be if I’d kept on doing this since the beginning.

But those are only minor thoughts. Some of the geese flew back this afternoon while I was walking. I admittedly wasn’t expecting them back this early, I figured it’d be more in the middle of the month. But anyhow there were a bunch of them. The past three days I’ve walked for over an hour straight which is the most I’ve intentionally walked in over three years. It’s quite the miracle.

Tonight we went over to my mother-in-law’s house to clean. Mostly we were going through boxes in her room and helping her continue to sort through belongings. My husband’s aunts have been over there and have gotten a lot done already. There is no rush to sell the old house so that is nice. The moving date is set for February 6th.

I found a letter that I’d written my father-in-law when I was in college. One time I was down there visiting and something about my car made him take a closer look at it. Turns out it needed over $800 of repair work. He took it into the shop where he would normally take his cars and paid the bill. I’d forgotten that I’d paid him back for that.

The letter was dated October 17, 2002 which was not long before our New Year’s Day engagement. We’ve had so many memories together since then, 95% of them good. If there were any bad ones they were only misunderstandings that went unspoken on either end. I still think of him often and the lovely times when he was alive and here.

How are you a man of God

and still here

I am not interested

in being your vice

Last night we went to one of the Saturday night services in town. We’re trying something where if he has to preach at a church Sunday morning then we go to church together as a family on Saturday. Starting in March he said he’s not going to be doing any more pulpit supply unless it’s for something directly having to do with the camp.

None of these are easy decisions because we like the things we do. But the hard fact of things is that there has to be sacrifice when you’re raising a family. Commitments creep in and pile up and before you know it we’re compromising the agreed upon standards again. The boys and I are home this morning. Elianna went along. I didn’t have to teach.

The fragmented Sunday mornings have been bothering me for a while. And it doesn’t seem like something I’ve been able to cure with getting involved or changing attitudes. One step at a time though, and I know everything can’t be perfect and there are going to be things in our lives that aren’t ideal. We do have to bear with such things at times.

The boys are bored and wanting to go to Menards. My children’s boredom makes me restless as a mother. I could sit and relax and read a book for hours and be fine. I told them I would take them a little later after I had gotten some work done. I have a case conceptualization study due tomorrow for class. I still am struggling with my classwork.

So much that I’m thinking now that I also want to drop my trauma intensive. I will wait, however, and cross that bridge when we get there. The latest book I’m reading is called Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn. I’m really liking it. The younger Elisabeth Elliot is very interesting compared with the stuffy and detached way I thought she was.

Tonight as a family we played a game called Happy Salmon. Having a child away at school has prompted some serious reflection on both of our parts as parents regarding the ways we’ve interacted or failed to interact with our kids as they’ve been growing up. It’s hit us both at different times. You value time even more as time goes on.

The kids had another snow day but the snow is mostly melted now. This morning things were still slick in spots but now it’s all puddles. That means the outside cats have plenty of water now again. When it’s cold like it’s been you have to make sure they have fresh water regularly because their water freezes in the bowl and they can’t drink it.

I had an assignment due yesterday that I didn’t turn in. I just put the computer away and went to bed without finishing. I really don’t like doing that, and tonight the teacher emailed saying that he hadn’t seen it turned in. I said I haven’t finished it yet and that I’d turn it in tomorrow. It’s a test critique of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.