When your life changes direction

Tuesday morning dawned bright and early like any other day but a few hours later our world turned upside down when Bill got an unexpected call telling him he had been laid off, starting immediately. Man, that is a shocking feeling. We have really settled into the idea that we are going to settle here in the PNW, and now everything has changed. We've hit the ground running, brushing up resume, reaching out to contacts, sending in resumes. I almost haven't had time to think about it, but every once in a while I get a calm moment and the thoughts descend and it's hard.

It's hard to have your world turned on its ear. It's hard to not know where you're going to live in two weeks or two months, where your kids are going to go to school. It's hard to be looking around for a new place to work and a new area to settle in because there aren't a lot of ready options here, so we expect we'll have to move. We made this our dream and it feels like it got ripped out of our hands when just 18 months ago everything fell perfectly into place to get us here.

Something will work out. Bill has a strong resume. People are looking at it and interested. We just have this feeling of homelessness again. We had chosen to make this home and it feels like a rejection in a way. I wonder where the new home will be. I hope we figure it out fast. Heck, maybe it will still be here. Who knows. This job hunt is young.

I cut Aaron's hair this weekend for the first time since quarantining in March. He looks good!

Chloe is so funny. She gets a kick out of the oddest things, but her laugh is infectious. 

Aaron got hit with a very random stomach bug on Sunday. He woke up throwing up and threw up so many times until he took a nap in the afternoon and it's like it never happened. He ate everything in sight and has been fine since.

I've run out of projects and hobbies and so I finally picked a new quilt pattern with the help of my mother-in-law this weekend. I'm making two quilts. One for me, one for Bill. In the summer our duvet gets too hot and we usually switch to a single quilt each. But we don't have matching ones. So I'm making on in turquoise and white for me and one in dark purple and white for Bill. Those are our current favorite colors. I haven't decided yet what pattern I will put the squares in. This was just a test square, but maybe it'll get put into the quilt. We'll see.

We spent the weekend at our cousin's house and they have the best climbing tree. We had nerf gun battles and played outside and it was so nice to hang out with family. We haven't spent time with much of anyone since March, so it's such a treat to be together. And now, since we may be moving, it seems like I want to hang out way more because oh my gosh, how did we not take enough advantage the last 18 months??

A stay at home sort of week

We did very little this week, just went on a hike on Friday. Otherwise we stayed home and followed the news most of the week. I don't feel like I'm in a place where I can easily go to the protests, but I support their aims. It's really intense watching things unfold, even supporting from the sidelines. We're still in school as well. This is the last week of instruction. It can't go by fast enough. This summer is going to be weird in a lot of ways. Hopefully there will be plenty of good to go along with all the different and hard.

I finished reading Harry Potter book two to the two littles yesterday. We've already started book three. They love it. They stayed with me for two plus hours yesterday playing legos while I read. I love how much they're pulled in. 

From our hike, here's a few shots. I bought a new pair of chacos. They're comfy as can be. 

 This is the best I got when I asked for a quick shot of all of them. The rest of them Chloe was turned around backwards in protest. Haha!

 I introduced them to salmon berries. The girls loved them, especially Chloe. They're pretty tasty.

 We have tons of extra milk from school lunches, so I took a page out of my sister-in-law's book and made chocolate pudding. It's tasty! And I have so much of it. I doubt we'll get through it, but that's okay. It was fun to make.

 New clothes from Grandma.

 The boys are letting their hair grow indefinitely. Aaron the Hobbit is pretty stinking cute.

 Genevieve made a Minecraft bee. Pretty creative. I've taken to leaving our legos out on the living room floor and the kids have played with them constantly. I push them back into a semblance of a pile pretty regularly, but otherwise let them play away with them and I love all their creativity.

What a week

Wow, this was a hard week in our country. Coronavirus still chugging along. The death of George Floyd, leading to protests, many of which have turned violent. I read something this week that resonated. It's not time anymore to be quietly non-racist. We need to be loudy anti-racist. I think that's so true. The experience of Black Americans in the United States is so different than for me, a white female. I have a tiny inkling of some issues being female and not always feeling safe, but that in no way compares. I don't have eloquent words to explain how I feel, but racism is wrong, and it's high time we make better progress to root it out.

In my own little quarantine world, things this week were calm. I took update pictures of my garden. I made a new mask, which after I washed it is now a bit snug, so remember that. Pre-wash if it's one of the tighter fitting styles. My kids played lots of Minecraft, did school, and we actually got to go to a little lake near us with our cousins. It was a good week.

Aaron wore this headband all day one day. It mad eme chuckle.

 I made this cute new mask but didn't wash the fabric and now it's kind of small. Whoops!

 Setup our AC unit for summer in our kitchen. The next day it got cold again. But we're ready now! No more 90 degree afternoons in my kitchen.

 Chloe got really excited to draw in this learn to write book. I had thought she might be a lefty like Spencer because she's been very ambidextrous her whole life, but looks like she's settled on being a righty.

 Slugs are destroying my baby zucchinis and I have tiny cucumbers I want to live too. So this is the new solution and hopefully they can get past the state of being tiny and beat the slugs.

 Four sweet pepper plants are doing great and this is a second batch of sugar snap peas after I planted some in a big planter with a hosta because I thought they'd grow faster than it, but I was wrong. The hosta filled right out and we'll see how the peas under it do. They're not dead and they're still growing, but we'll see if we get any peas.

 One tomato from the store and two tiny little things I'm growing from scratch.

 Carrots

 And if you look close, you can see the pea vine climbing up through the hosta.

More projects finished

I've posted most of these pictures this week already. But since this blog is as much a journal as anything, I'm reposting here.

I finished my table over the weekend. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I'm tempted to make another one to match it sometime. I don't need one though. I'd like a cabinet for my piano books, so maybe that will be my next project. 

 I made two more garden boxes. I used up the last dregs of this paint that was originally for my picnic table, so four is my final number on these. I like them in this spot on my side porch. I've filled them with dirt now and planted my last two peppers in one, but I ended up with an extra, so now I get to think of something else I want to grow. I've got carrots, zucchini, sweet bell peppers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and pickling cucumbers so far.

 We get so many oranges and apples from the kids' school lunches. They eat the apples or I dry them and they eat those right up, but the oranges sit and sit. I ended up juicing 40 oranges to get this one single pitcher of juice. It was so good, but I'm definitely not doing that again. My poor hands. Haha!

 I was driving over to get school lunches one day this week and at an intersection what do I see but a teenager riding a horse?? There are horse barns a mile or two down that road, but it still seemed very odd to see her in the middle of town.

 My plants are so happy. I love all the pots and plants I've acquired. Most recent is the gray pot and fiddle leaf fig. I've wanted one for years but never got around to buying one. I got a small one so I can see if it will flourish here. The bright colors of the pots and plants justbrighten my house. I keep looking for new places to put plants so I can get more, lol.

 I got a ladder and a garden cart/wheelbarrow today. Another purchase I've had on my list for a few years but never got around to getting. It was very satisfying to get them and then I laughed a bit about what sorts of things satisfy me now compared to when I was younger. Chloe approves as long as we tow her around.

Genevieve makes cool things with Legos. The latest is a baptismal font. She turns eight in August, so it's on her mind and I love her creativity.

 This was Chloe's post church outfit on Sunday. She's so funny. She runs around most of the time with nothing but underwear on, no matter how many times we ask her to get dressed or even put clothes on her, and then she comes up with these sorts of outfits.

 She is a big fan of wearing me and Bill's hoodies.

 Genevieve is looking so much older to me when she puts jewelry on and some lip gloss. It's crazy how time flies and they grow up so fast.

Masks, headbands, and hand me downs

We're still in the early stages of reopening and masks are highly recommended, so I let my kids pick their colors and made some smaller ones for each of them. 

 Genevieve channeled her inner Harry Potter this week. I'm reading book one to the two littles and she joins us pretty regularly.

 Bill's work gave us all chili and cornbread to make together for a company party of sorts. It was tasty. Chloe helped Bill out with the prep.

 I made a few headbands to try out some new patterns because I was bored and had some fabric I could use. I like several of them.

 A cute family picture yesterday before we started home church.

 Pulled out a few new hand me down clothes, including this adorable swimsuit my sister made for Genevieve a couple years ago that fits Chloe perfectly now.

 Chloe played with a bunch of my jewelry yesterday too. Good times.

 Curly hair coming in so nicely.

 New chacos for all the kids. They love them. I love that they love them. Everyone is happy.

 A few steps closer to done with this end table.