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Sorry, been a bit busy. Trying to sell a house sucks. Will write when I can!

Happy Easter

Went to T-ball practice this morning, then baseball practice. Both went really well - I think this will be a good year for both boys. Good coaches, good teams, some skills seem to be kicking in. Kind of exciting! Froze my patootie, but managed to get a little sunburn on my forehead. We then went to Granny's for an early Easter celebration...5 cousins, lots of aunts and uncles, two violin and one flute recital...lots of noise and merriment. Don took advantage of a lull to say, "We have a little announcement..." which has previously always been followed by a pregnancy announcement, so moving was almost anti-climactic. Got home and did the Easter bunny thing...thinking about what I need to do tomorrow to get ready to pack up and head to NY for Grandma's funeral. If I had a second to stop and breathe, I might be more able to focus on contemplating the reason for Easter, but for now I'm just trying to keep my head in the game and do what I need to do. Love to you all!

On a completely different topic...

I stopped at my favorite consignment store today to look for a pair of baseball cleats for the boys, and discovered they're no longer selling children's clothes. I was bummed, and then I found out the reason why, and now I'm really bummed! Check out this website:
http://handsandhearts.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=98
This could mean no more kids clothes at thrift stores, no more kids books, no more used toys...that's where I do a LOT of my shopping! This is really crazy and kind of scary too. Way to make things even harder in this economy!!!

VA Beach bound!

Well, we've officially told the kids, so I guess we're going!
Lots of decisions yet to be made, but this one is at least done.
I'm feeling better about it every day - Don still struggling.

The kids reacted about as could be expected. They all cried - Tarzan first, loudly, with big wet tears. Cinderella second - louder, but no tears. Scooby last, lots of tears, but trying to be brave. None of them want to go. They brought up missing their school, Granny, their friends. Cinderella wanted to know if we were bringing her stuffed animals and her mattress. Tarzan wanted to know if we were going before spring break was over. Scooby had lots of questions - he came downstairs after the other two went to sleep and we cuddled and talked for awhile. We told them that right now we don't know the answers to a lot of their questions, but we'll let them know as soon as we can.

My brain hurts.

Well, finally...

Well, I finally tracked down the bas-tuds at BU and got them to admit that they weren't making me an offer. They took 1 student for directing and 2 for theater ed. I guess I can't feel too bad with those odds!
So, now I officially have all the information I need to make a decision. Notice, that's all the information "I" need. We are looking for a job in the VA beach area for Don - it doesn't look encouraging. The pay scale there is even lower than it is here!
Will have to make the decision "official" by Monday, and will have to tell the kids shortly afterwards, as we'll be seeing family over Easter, and will probably want to announce it then.
Schnikees - remind me why I'm doing this again?

The hole of silence

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)


So, jumping out of silence.

First the easy part - we got a van. It's not that great of a van, but it was within our price range. We decided, with other decisions looming on the horizon that have the potential to be extremely costly, that we would scale back and get what we could afford now, rather than reaching for something nicer that was somewhat out of our comfort zone. It's a burgandy (again) Chrysler Voyager, 2002, with 83,000 miles. It's very similar to the one we lost, but slightly smaller on the inside. It's very basic, not many bells and whistles, but we don't need those. I just hope it keeps running. We bought it from a private owner, who was the only owner and took great care of it (service records, oil changes, garage kept, etc.) Hopefully it will turn out to be a good buy.

Now the harder part. We are strongly leaning towards going to VA beach. However, neither of us it totally peacefull about the decision. They would like us to tell them TODAY whether or not we accept, but I'm thinking about asking for a couple more days. For one thing, I still haven't heard anything from BU. It's probably a negative, if I haven't heard by now, but I don't like making a decision without having all the information in front of me. Don thinks the fact that I would consider BU if they offered means I'm not 100% sold on Regent, and I should be 100% sure if we're going to uproot our whole lives. Well, I don't know if I'll ever be 100%, because I'm very aware of how disruptive this is going to be for everyone. But as I said, we're leaning that way. Right now my plan is to wait until the mailman comes, see if there's anything from BU, then decide from there if I need to ask Regent for more time. I'm hoping they won't have a problem with giving me until, say, Friday.

I believe in taking a step of faith - making a decision based on the belief that it is the right thing to do, even if you don't steps 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. all figured out ahead of time. Don has asked me if it wouldn't also be a step of faith to see a "good" opportunity, but pass it up for what might be a better one ahead. (A better one meaning reapplying to Pitt next year and hoping that I get in this time.) I suppose it could be, but I think if we went that way it would be more about fear and less about faith.

Is this a great time to be trying to look for a job, sell a house, get financial aid? Hm. Let me think. No. It's not. But this seems to be the time that we are in - the time that the opportunity is there.

So anyway, that's where we stand. It's very hard. Please keep praying and stuff. I'll try to stay more on top of sharing our process and not crawl back into the hole.

UPDATE: Well, the mail came, and still nothing from BU. I've sent an email to Regent asking for a couple more days.