One of These Days...

One of these days, I will get to sit down and write an entry about something! For now, I can just say that Adam made it home safely from Uganda, he had the time of his life, God solidified our decision about the future, and everyone has enjoyed having him back at home. One really quick, sweet story...Sebastian is my sensitive, artistic child. Anyone who has spent a little time with him can vouch for that. Anyway, he was the one who I thought would have the hardest time with Adam being gone. But, the nine days pretty much went by without a hitch. So, Saturday Adam got home and he was giving out the presents and Sebastian burst into tears and ran into his room. I followed him to see what was wrong and he said, "I just want to be in here and cry." So I left him to be alone. Adam finished giving out the presents and then went into Sebastian's room and shut the door. When Adam got in there, Sebastian threw his arms around his Daddy's neck crying and said, "Why did you have to be gone so long? It was too long!" So, then they cried together for a few minutes and Adam just held him. Then he was fine and came out to see his presents. It was so sweet. He is so precious.

Our Adam-less weekend and week so far

Okay, so I have never been away from Adam for this long. His group made it to Uganda just fine and he is having the time of his life. We are able to text back and forth, which has made this so much easier. He built a mud hut for a woman yesterday and today they were headed to the Nakivale refugee camp. I cannot wait to hear all about his experiences and see all of his pictures! I know this has been a life changing experience for him! He gets back Saturday afternoon.
The kids and I are doing fine so far. On Friday, they were out of school because it was too cold and yesterday was MLK day so today was the first day I had to get them ready and take Zoe and Sebastian to school. We made it fine. Our weekend was actually a lot of fun too. Friday night was Parents Night Out at our church. I took the kids to that and then had dinner with my mom, John & Christine. (Thanks, John, for letting us crash your dinner party!) We went to Red Lobster and it was oh so yummy! After dinner, John & Christine left and then my mom went to her friend's house to watch a movie, so I went to Wal-Mart and walked around BY MYSELF!!!! It was wonderful! On Saturday, my mom and the kids and I headed out to get some materials for a cake I am making for tomorrow night. (More on that later) We were supposed to go to a birthday party, but never made it. (Sorry again, Christine!) But, I got all of the stuff I needed for my cake, which is going to be so awesome. I baked last night and tonight I will start icing it. I'm so excited. Saturday afternoon, a friend of mine and her mother brought dinner to us! Red beans and rice and shrimp ettoufe. Okay, not sure how to spell that, but at any rate the food was so good!!! Adam doesn't like seafood, so they chose this time to bring me seafood!
Sunday was a little crazy and we were late to the 8:30 service. I didn't budget enough time. Oh well, couldn't be helped. But, we did make it and made it to AWANA on Sunday night WITH all of the AWANA stuff! Last week, the AWANA books and vests were all in a box somewhere. But, I found it all and we actually made it to church with it!
Yesterday was MLK day, so Zoe went to work with my mom and the three other kids stayed with Jeannine while I worked. That was pretty much it. I baked and made candy for the cake I am making, watched 24, checked the weather and went to bed. Very exciting! So, today, the big kids are back in school and the little ones are with Jeannine. The rest of my week is a little busy. We have church tomorrow night, which is where the cake is going, and Friday night I am having dinner with a friend - can't wait!! Then, Adam will be back on Saturday!! Yay!

Uganda

Adam leaves for Uganda today at 11:15. He is so excited! I am excited for him as well. I am pretty emotional today, but that's just because I absolutely hate goodbyes. He will be gone for 9 days! He had to say good bye to the kids this morning, which, of course, made me and Zoe cry. The other three have no real idea where Africa is or how long 9 days is, but they'll miss him too. But, we did find out we can text each other while he is gone. He drives to Atlanta, then flies to Amsterdam and then on to Kampala, Uganda. I can't wait to hear all about his experience!

How to Move an entire 3000 square foot house using 5 boxes!

Okay, you’re going to think we are crazy, but that is pretty much what we did. We had only a few boxes. Since we moved over the course of like 3 weeks, we would pack the boxes at the house, take them to the apartment, unpack them and take the empty boxes back to the house, repack them and so on. We have a van and a truck, so we would take a load every day. For a few days, we only had the one bench in the van and the back was filled with stuff, so the three youngest sat on the bench seat and Zoe in the front seat. One time, I drove from the house to my mother’s house (which are about 3 miles apart) with the four kids laying down flat in the back because there were no seats in the van. (All of them had been threatened with death if they even thought of sitting up. Of course, they thought it was a blast and it was a very short trip.) We never rented a moving truck or hired movers since the biggest things going with us were the couches. We didn’t move any appliances, so we figured we could handle it. And it was fine. Adam’s dad and Jacob came one day with their truck, which made it so much easier. We put a full sized bed in each of the kids rooms for them to share (which was surprisingly a big hit with everyone!) The beds are actually being loaned to us so when we get ready to go to the mission field we won’t have to sell them or store them. A great big THANK YOU to Adam’s dad and to Christine for the beds! The move felt like it took forever since it lasted so long. We filled up the back of my van with the last of the stuff last Saturday afternoon and told ourselves we would unload it when it stopped raining. Well, it didn’t stop raining until Wednesday afternoon! We also were donating a ton of stuff (recliner, bed, trundle, dryer, chest of drawers, nightstand, entertainment center, coffee table, toddler fire truck bed, 2 toddler mattresses, a Barbie van, 2 bicycles, a plastic wagon, 10 bags of clothes and a partridge in a pear tree) to Bethel Bible Village, so they had planned to come pick up the donations on Tuesday. Well, Tuesday is when the torrential downpour came so bad that they had to cancel school on Wednesday. So, we had to reschedule for Thursday. At this point, I was just so ready to hand over the keys to the house! Finally, Thursday afternoon, Bethel came and got all of the donations and Thursday night we were able to turn in our keys!

So, the Major family was able to move our entire house while never using more than five boxes. (Some of our stuff in the attic was already in boxes, so I am not counting those.) A crazy endeavor, but we did it!

Ramblings and Catching Up

The last few weeks of December were absolutely crazy at the Major house. I started working at the church again on December 16, we had a huge Christmas program on December 21, then Christmas Eve, Christmas, on Christmas Day we actually moved most of our stuff. We slept at the apartment on Christmas night. The weekend was spent moving some more. Then, more working...New Year's Eve and Day...and now, finally, a five day work week! Work is going well. I have missed it. I quit working here in May 2007, so it has been so nice to get back. Somethings have changed greatly, while other things stay the same.
Zoe and Sebastian go back to school tomorrow and both of them are excited about it. It'll be nice to get back into that routine again.
That is seriously all that has been going on here. Our move was quite smooth, but seemed to take forever. The place we are donating furniture and stuff that we aren't keeping is coming to get the rest of the stuff today. I'm so excited. We are getting rid of a dryer, a toddler bed, a twin bed, an aquarium, two twin mattresses, a dresser, a nightstand, a coffee table, two toddler mattresses, a highchair, a stroller, a bunch of toys, and about 8 bags of clothes! We also sold a washer, a dryer and a refrigerator before we moved. It feels so good to have all of that cleaned out!!! Other than moving and organizing, we haven't been doing too much. But, I will say that I love my apartment! God is so very good!

Moving

So, in a couple of weeks, we are moving into a 3 bedroom apartment. We are downsizing and I cannot wait. Yes, I realize it's going to be an adjustment, but by doing this, we will be completely out of debt in a year or so. I am so excited. I can honestly say that any problems we have ever had in our 11 year marriage have always been directly tied to finances. Not disagreements on how to use the money, just general stress when there is not enough to go around. This past year has been very rough financially. God has provided in miraculous ways! If you look back on it, there is no other explanation for it. Our lives have become a testimony to Malaciah 3:10. If you bring the tithes into the storehouse, God will open the windows of heaven of blessings. It has been amazing. God has also provided us this opportunity to move into an apartment. He has opened all the doors necessary. We had a lease purchase agreement on this house, which our landlords have let us out of. Not only let us out, but with their blessings! And other little things, like the fact that we got a ground floor apartment in the complex. And, they were running a rent special that should have ended November 30th, but it got extended until we needed it. We will actually be paying about the same in rent as we paid for our 2 bedroom apartment 7 years ago! And other things too...we needed two double beds (one for the boys room and one for the girls room) and we had one friend who has one in her attic and Adam's dad has one at his house too! It has been amazing. We are so excited.
So, the plan is...we take possession of the apartment on December 19th, but we don't have to be out of the house until December 31st. So, we will begin making trips on the 19th, and moving the bulk of the stuff the weekend after Christmas. I know it will be crazy, but it will be worth it in January. We begin saving money immediately and we are both really looking forward to it. We were just at a point where we could either continue what we were doing and probably never be completely debt free (at least it would be a long time) or we could bite the bullet for a year and be done with it. So we have opted for the latter and are continuing to pray that God will bless our efforts and our sacrifice.

My Love/Hate Relationship with the Christmas Season

Now, just to be clear, I absolutely love Christmas. Celebrating the birth of Jesus, the baby boy who changed all of history, including my own personal life - what could be better than that?! Also, three of my four pregnancies, I was pregnant at Christmas. I looked at Mary in a completely different way after the first one. I saw her fears and tried to imagine what she must have felt like. I know how overwhelmed I felt with each pregnancy and can only imagine how overwhelmed she must have felt. I love Christmas. I love the Christmas Eve service we have at our church. I love the Christmas decorations! I love the way my house looks decorated! I love all that Christmas means and all the different ways there is to celebrate it.

Okay, that being said...I hate the Christmas season! Now, I also understand that some of my hatred comes from working retail. I get to see so many people complain to me about things that I have no control over. People threaten never to shop my store anymore...um, okay...would you like directions to another store? Again, I would say 99.98% of the complaints are things I have no control over and no way to fix.
I hate dealing with Christmas decorations. I love the way it all looks, but I absolutely hate doing the decorating. Again, part of this comes from the fact that three of my children are 5 and under and can destroy anything that crosses their paths. I know it will get better. But for now, it's so stressful and not fun. For example, we pull all of the Christmas stuff out of the attic and Adam and I head down stairs to get the tree up. Everyone helped put the tree up (it has to be artificial this year because we are moving the day after Christmas - that's a whole other blog entry) but, while we were putting the lights on it, the kids went back upstairs. In the ten minutes we are putting the lights on, the two little ones proceeded to shred the styrofoam that our breakable Christmas decorations were in. Yes, it looked like it had snowed all over the room. So, while Adam finished the tree, the kids and I cleaned the room. I was furious by the time it was over. We are also keeping the decorations to a minimum this year since we are moving. So, when I come down from cleaning the room, I am met by Zoe, my nine year old, complaining that this wasn't going to be a good Christmas because we can't put lights on the outside of the house. I was trying to ignore her, which she was making very difficult. Then, Sebastian is crying because Adam won't give him scissors and let him cut paper. At this point, it's almost 8:00pm and I am about at the end of my rope. So we sent every one of them to bed at 8:00pm. I couldn't take it any more. Ahhhhhhh...decorating for Christmas...
So, that's my love/hate relationship with the Season!