So Long, Starkville

Of all the posts I've written in my head, this one is by far the longest running. I started compiling a list of things I will really miss about this town...as well as things I won't miss...about a year ago when we thought we would be moving. I refused to let myself put them to paper, so most of them have been forgotten. But I can think of a few things I'm really gonna miss. And some more that I won't mind doing without.

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I will miss the slow, laid back pace of Mississippi.

I won't miss the idea that appointment times don't matter and you can just up show "whenever".

I'll miss seeing people wear their Sunday best for Mass and getting to church at least ten minutes early.


I won't miss having only one church in a 30 mile radius and only one opportunity a week for confession.

I'll miss seeing little girls in their sweet Feltman Brothers dresses.


I won't miss seeing little boys in their girly Feltman Brothers dresses.

The kiddos. I'll miss my speech kids and all my friends' children. Thank goodness for blogs and facebook pictures.


The drivers. I won't miss regularly getting behind a driver going fifteen miles under the speed limit. No, that is not an exaggeration.

Smoke free restaurants and gas stations. Ahh fresh air.

Mugshots.

Tailgating.

Crawfish in everything.

Taking walks around the ponds near our apartment.

Free golfing any time we want it.

A pool just down the road.

A priest that gives great homilies.

These people.

The great group of mom friends that have welcomed me into their ranks.


I absolutely will not miss having to scour the town for fresh food. It took me two a half years to find pastured eggs. I found them a week before we leave town!

A six hour drive home. I didn't think this one would be on the list, but six is looking pretty good compared to the twelve we're going to have once we move.

Our Mississippi Fish Family.


Ted complaining about the horrible fishing. I fully expect fish in our freezer at all times now-we *are* moving to the fishing capitol of the world!

Standing in my bathroom remembering the first time I saw that positive pregnancy test.

Driving through downtown at sunset.

Seeing deer on our lane while driving home at night.

Great friends that don't mind hanging out on a Friday night but each just eating our own leftovers because we're both too cheap to cook for each other.

The awesome support system I have for breastfeeding, natural birth, and all things motherhood.

An awesome consignment store that has supplied me with a virtually free wardrobe.

Sonic just a half mile from our apartment.


Living in an apartment. (We're moving into a great duplex!)


Neighbors that throw their grease and uneaten food off the balcony and into our front yard.

Did I mention I'm going to miss these guys?

The beautiful examples of Catholic family life in our parish and amongst our friends.


I won't miss not having  a Target!

Wearing maroon on Fridays.

Roadside cowbell stands.

Fantastic co-workers. Absolutely fantastic co-workers.

My little office on the stage.


The snake that scared the hell out of me in my little office on the stage.


Mild winters. Ha! I'm moving to the beach!


Dreadful summers. I can't believe we're actually moving further south....

And of course, those Landry's.

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Last night in town. Last night in our apartment. So many thoughts and emotions but none that I can articulate. I'm grateful for the past two and a half years. I'm so sad to be leaving great friends behind. But I'm ready for our next adventure.

So long, Starkville! Florida, here we come!

An Opportunity

May 2009: Move to Mississippi for two years. Get Ted a master's degree and move back to Missouri. Get a job near family.

That was the plan anyway. Two and half years later......we're moving to Florida.

After months of being a terrific stay-at-home dad, Ted has been offered a dream position as a Fisheries Biologist. We are so grateful. And excited. And scared. But excited.

If you refer back to our plan, you might think this isn't something that we want-but that's not the case at all. Actually-if you had asked me a week ago if I wanted to move to Florida I would have said, "No way!" Two days after Ted's interview in Florida, he had an interview in Missouri. And not just anywhere in Missouri. The town where we met, fell in love, shared our first home. The job was in the same office that he had worked in, with the same co-workers he had worked with. Perfect. Right?

I wanted him to get the Missouri job so badly. We employed St. Rose Phillipine Duchesne to pray for us to get the job. She is Hannah's patron and patron of the diocese that the job is in. We prayed, not one, but two novenas asking for her intercession. I found myself walking around whispering, "Please Lord. The job in Missouri."

So we went for the interview. We hadn't been to our beloved town since the day we moved out in May 2009. Our excitement and anticipation was palpable. And when we pulled into town.....nothing. I can't put my finger on it, but something was different. Yes, the town had changed and many friends were gone-but I was prepared for that. It was something else. After just a few hours in town I turned to Ted and said, "This feels weird." He agreed. The job we had been hoping and praying for suddenly didn't seem like a great fit.

He went to the interview. He did well. I had an interview too-for my part-time "dream job" with a place I interned with in grad school. They offered it to me on the spot (oh how I love my career field!) I would have worked just two or three days a week. I just needed to find someone to watch Hannah.....Then my sister (who now goes to college there) informed me that she was looking for a job just two days a week. Wow. Perfect. Right?

As we drove back to Mississippi we were both filled with the sense that we wouldn't be returning any time soon. And suddenly, Florida started to feel like a very real possibility. By Tuesday, I knew he was going to get the job. I just knew. And I was strangely ok with it. When I got home from work on Thursday and Ted excitedly announced the good news (via Hannah holding up a little sign) I wasn't shocked. I wasn't scared. I was....at peace. A week ago I would have freaked out. But that was a week ago. And today-today I'm excited.

Excited for this next adventure. Excited for the chance to grow even closer as a family as we rely completely on each other in a town that neither of us has ever stepped foot in.

When I was searching for a novena to St. Rose I got an email about a novena for the Immaculate Conception. Something prompted me to say the novena, but I pushed it aside. "No-I'm praying to St. Rose because she will help us get the Missouri job!" Funny how I thought I could manipulate the situation.

Ted got the Florida offer on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Perfect. Yes.

The last line in the gospel at Mass that evening: "Let it be done unto me according to Thy word." Of all the passages in the Bible-that's the one I chose two years ago to display on my blog. More Like Mary. Have I lived up to it? Far from it. Is God giving me another chance? Another opportunity? Always. And this one's a big one. So I'm opening my heart and my mind and trusting that He has something great in store for us in Florida.  He has prepared my heart as only He can do. He has gently led me along the trials of this job search and brought me to a place of peace and willingness that I didn't know I could get to.

Sometimes I struggle with the idea that God is really "in control." I tend to over emphasize our free will and wrestle with the notion that God really does have a "plan" for us. But I promise you-this wasn't our plan. I couldn't have even come up with this plan! It's only from God. Ted applied for so many jobs in Missouri and in surrounding states. And many of them would have been settling. He was willing to settle on a less-than-perfect job so he could provide for our family and move us closer to family. The fact that he didn't get some of the jobs he applied for defies logic. And, as with so many things in retrospect, I can see that God's hand was in it the entire time.

So, while it won't be on a donkey and I'm not pregnant, this Advent provides me with yet another opportunity to become more like Mary. Follow my husband. Trust my husband. Trust my God. And move to Florida.

And We're Back

Wow. It's been a month! I'm not sure how long I expected this break to last-but a month seems like a long time. Did you miss me?

The blog fast was surprisingly easy. I knew I was spending too much time online and a good clean break was what I needed. It was hard for the first day or so. Then, honestly, I hardly thought about it. I did still formulate blogs posts in my head, but I wasn't torn up inside to not be able to post them.

A few things I learned during the break:
I'm dangerously close to thinking that pictures are only worth taking if they're shared on some type of website. How horrible. All the picture of my childhood have only been seen by those that visit my parent's house. And they're priceless. I've taken lots of pictures of my sweet girl in the last month that I'm dying to share with facebook, but I'm not going to. I'm going to keep them to myself. Mostly just to prove to myself that I can do it. But I am gonna share some....

I'm also crossing the line over into the notion that every great memory needs to be blogged about. We've had some fun times in this past month. And none of them got a blog post or even a mention in a Quick Takes. But they still happened. And they were still fun. And even if I forget about those moments completely, they're still special.

I overvalue my own opinion. I read a great article by Jen Fulwiler during my break (I only allowed myself to read  her and Simcha Fisher's blogs on National Catholic Register-I just couldn't give those up.) I can't find the exact line I'm looking for now, but it was something to the effect of thinking that every thought in your head is worthy of a facebook status update. Ugh. Who cares about 99.9% of the thoughts in my head? Not even me!

I can't focus on my family if I have one foot in blog world. It was nice to just......be. To come home and just play with her all evening (Well, that never really happened. There was dinner and dishes and laundry and cleaning and and and) But even with all of that I was able to focus more time on Hannah. And that is precious time that I can never get back.

I love my "blog friends" but I don't need to read about their lives every single day. You want to know whose blog I missed more than anyones? This girl's. And she lives about six minutes from my house. There is no reason I should miss her blog-I should be hanging out with HER. The actual person. And hearing her interesting perspective and adorable kid stories from her own mouth. So while I missed reading the blogs, I realized that I don't need them. I like them. But I don't need them. And that's a good thing. Because I was beginning to wonder.

But...I did miss blogging. There were times I really wanted to work through some of my thoughts in a post. Or times I took a picture of Hannah that just screamed "My View" and begged to be shared with the world. I like my blog. I don't want to leave it. Not yet. So I'm back.

And now for random thoughts that want out of my head and can't be bounced off my husband because he's not here right now:

Garlic is amazing. A friend told me to rub it on Hannah's feet when she show signs of a cold. Cold? What cold? It's gone in just a few hours. And I was miserable yesterday. Sinus. Sneezing. Runny. Yuck. I swallowed some garlic before going to bed last night and woke up fine. Did you read that? Fine! Amazing.  I never want to take medicine again.

Hannah's favorite book has been Polar Bear, Polar Bear for several months now. It got put in the diaper bag a week or so ago and I just pulled it out tonight. She read it six times in a row. Isn't it funny how someone so teeny can have favorites? It's just fascinating.

I said teeny, but she's still a chunk. And those rolls are all mine!

She'll be ten months old next week and I swear she learns something new every. single. day. Sometimes several new things each day! Right now she gives kisses when we ask, waves bye-bye, pulls up on everything and lets go to see how long she can stand, crawls around the house but only until she finds something she can pull up on, pulls all the books off the shelf and sits in the middle of the pile and reads each one, blows raspberries on my tummy (my personal favorite), signs "dog", is just about to figure out the sign "more", only laughs at me when I try to get her to sign "milk" and refuses to do it, says every variation of "buh" you can think of, sometimes says "mamama", refuses to say "dadada", and makes us laugh at least 10 times an hour.

One of the most amazing things about having a kid is sharing the love you have for her with someone else. Ted and I have always reveled in our love. Is that the word I'm looking for? We've basked in it. We've appreciated it. We've acknowledged and enjoyed how much we love each other. But it's an entirely new experience to bask in the love of our sweet little girl together. To know that as head-over-heels, crazy in love with Hannah I am, that Ted is just as in love with her. It's so fun to love her together. It really does make me love him that much more.

Still dairy and wheat free. But we are going to start testing a little in the next month or so. Fingers crossed.

We've done some amazing improvements to the way we eat in the past few months. I'm really proud of us, but know that we still have a long way to go. I just ordered a bag of 30 pastured chicken feet. Is it weird that I'm ridiculously excited about that? No, I'm not going to eat them. Not whole at least ;)

I had to laugh when I read an old post about Hannah not sleeping. She was only three months old at the time and started to have some rough nights and I asked for advice. Now, nearly eight months later....she sleeps even worse. She's a terrible, terrible sleeper. But I'm not really all that concerned about it. There are times it gets tough. But  most of the time I can handle it. But it really amazes me how other people are bothered by her bad sleeping. Perfect strangers are so alarmed when I say she's not sleeping through the night (ha-not even close!). Why do you care people? You don't have to get up with her so why are you upset by it? Ugh. People.

It's so weird to me that bloggers who I waited with for that first positive pregnancy test are already thinking about baby number two. How can time possibly go that quickly?? And we're getting the question, "So when do you think you'll have another?" As if we could plan that? But it's an issue that deserves its own post-probably several. And it's an issue that I like sorting through in this public forum. Call me weird-but it works for me.

And because I can't take a month long  break and come back without at least one picture.....

Thank You Jesus. A million million thank Yous.