SeVeN MoNTHS ToDay

Seven months today.

Yep, It’s been seven months since we moved. What have I discovered? Lots of things:

That I am open to change.

That a heart can break watching your children leave everything and everyone they have ever loved and known.

But that it can slowly heal. Although it takes time, and that they are slow to accept these changes and still remind me almost daily how much they miss home, miss their friends, miss snow, want their friends to visit, want to go to college in Illinois, don’t like their school (only on occasion).

I love the weather here after the sucky heat breaks. December has been absolutely beautiful.

We feel at home in our new home.

We have had a gazillion visitors and are expecting a gazillion more and are so happy that everyone wants to come see us.

I like talking to and meeting new people, and am open to discovering what people are all about.

I still miss my friends, and every now and then I will get a pang of homesickness, like today, when I was at Paradise Bakery, which is like Panera, I had some Black Bean Soup, I was thrown straight into missing my friends from home, who I would go to lunch with and always have soup.

I think cacti are really pretty. There are some purple ones that are so gorgeous. I really had preconceived ideas of what I thought it would be like here, and I was wrong. AZ, I apologize.

I still have the same resolutions here that I had when I lived in Illinois. Some things DON’T change.

I won’t keep those resolutions either.

I am worrying less about my kids, but still worrying about Tukey – he hasn’t found a group of kids to settle in with.

I am worrying about Ajers because there have been some cruel kids around; I don’t know if they are jealous that he’s come in and befriended some of the other kids, or that he came in and got on the basketball team, or what, but some things have happened that don’t make me happy. I have told him to do what Jesus did – turn the other cheek. Tukey said, “The butt cheek?”

Diva’s growing up beautifully. I’m watching her right now create a piece of art work in her class. She makes me proud. They all do. I’m learning that through the hard times, they’ll persevere and become better people.

I’m learning that rain in AZ is like snow in Virginia or other places where they get little of it – people freak and act erratically (and I just learned how to spell erratically!) when they are driving. It’s RAIN people! Good God, what will they do in snow?

I’ve learned that my kids loved swimming in a heated pool on Christmas Day (our neighbor’s, not ours).

I’ve learned that there are kind people willing to include a new family from Chicago into their traditions and into their lives and that makes my heart swell, especially during a time of year when it could have been a lonely sad place for us.

I’m learning that no matter where we are in life, that as long as we are together, and that we are raising our family in a way we believe in, and that we continue to communicate with each other, that everything will be working its way to fine.

Happy New Year. I hope 2011 brings you an abundance of health and happiness, because if you have that, everything else will follow.

PeaCe uP!