family

2 Month Moving Update

We were crazy excited to find my favorite coffee at Winn Dixie. I should write this company and ask them to sponsor my blog, like permanently. Just FYI, those are Alan’s arms, not mine. I just thought, “Oh no! What if people think I have man arms!!??” Yes, it matters.

I guess life has settled down into a new normal here at our new casa. Thus begins the 1st year that you move somewhere. Oh, how I love that first year. (That’s sarcasm.) This is the year when you walk around confused because you don’t get it yet, and you don’t know how to fit in either. You leave extra early to get places because 8 times out of 10, you are going to get lost. It’s a year of frustration and flipping out in the driver’s seat.

It’s a year of meeting tons of new people. It’s a year of very few commitments because hardly anyone knows who you are, which means no one asks anything of you. See, now that’s positive, right? Or maybe it’s just lazy.

I love moving. Moving’s fun. I mean it’s a giant pain in the neck, but it’s fun. We’re adjusting quite well. The boys hop out of the mini-van every morning and enter the building looking happy and ready to go. (Not sarcasm. The boys are life-savers, they’ve handled it all like pros.)

We’ve all met plenty of people already. We each have at least two people a piece that we could call a friend already. They probably don’t know our last names, but by golly, we are clinging to them.

Here are a few tales of our most recent adventures:

John David about gave me a heart attack at the pool. He has no fear. He floated around the deep end, with nothing but a pool noodle!!! Don’t worry. I was so helicopter-mom, I can assure you of his safety.

I re-framed a large photo. The glass kept trying to come out and cutting me to pieces, but it is done, so yay!

Re-framed photo: See, doesn’t it look nice? I found that frame super cheap at a yard sale. Then I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a mat to help the photo fit the frame.

Take your baby’s poop with you when you leave. Wow. I took this photo at the pediatric cardiology office. Thankfully, I’m past the diaper phase, but man! What a reminder! It’s a HARD life out there for a baby’s momma.

We discovered a local park with trails, playgrounds, and water fowl galore.

a beautiful Saturday in the South

JD has gotten really into baseball. He uses this little bitty light weight bat, and I throw a medium-sized, light, rubber ball to him, and he’s getting good!

Joshua joined his school cross country team, so we’re learning all about this sport. He did a fantastic job on his first race. Go, Joshua!!

This is JD, sleeping on DaddyO. I’ve always said that my children can sleep anywhere.

most adorable self-portrait ever

We are doing quite well, I think. I’ve even started attending a Beth Moore Bible study. We’re doing Entrusted: A Study of 2 Timothy. I’m excited about that.

A note about the heart thing:

I’ve learned a valuable lesson about moving. If you have medical problems, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS get copies of your records before you move. My new doctor won’t see me until I get him my records, and his staff is apparently incapable of getting the records themselves, so they kept making me call California, and ugh. It has been such an ordeal.  Thankfully, my other doctor’s office wasn’t so shy and handled the record retrieval themselves.

Also, I learned so much more about what is actually wrong with me than what I knew before I read them. There are so many things doctors don’t bother to tell you. I found out that my heart beat is over 100 for 8 hours of a day, and of course that varies. My average heart rate is over 90. My v-tach was 210 beats per minute. I had not known any of those things before. It doesn’t change anything, but it’s nice to know. Don’t worry. I faithfully take my beta blockers every day. Those stats were while I was off of beta blockers.

Always get your medical records before you move! Lesson learned.

I hope you are all having a great week. I want to leave you with a beautiful quote I came across recently, from the Kendrick brothers who make all those Christian movies, like Fireproof and Courageous.

“Love positively acts; it doesn’t negatively react. Love rises above the cloudy circumstances and soars above the storm. It defies common, self-centered logic.”   –Kendrick brothers

I have had my low-grade fevers and hip and shoulder pain lately, and Alan has done a beautiful job of this love-in-action thing, handling so much of the house work because it’s such a struggle for me to keep up. Thank you, Alan.

Have a wonderful week, y’all!!

aprilmomoffour

April is an upbeat, Christian, blog-obsessed, military wife, and home schooling mom of four little boys. She writes about education, travel, and humorous adventures in parenting. Follow along if you’d like a little bit of encouragement and a whole lot of crazy.

View Comments

    • What, you don't like losing things, living in hotel rooms, or dealing with cable, electric, and water companies all on the same day? :)

  • My last pediatrician's office had that exact same sign on their trash cans. I was so glad when we went back to our old pediatrician's office...who even provides fresh diapers during the visit!

    Moving is tough stuff, but it looks like you're coming along well. Thanks so much for joining in at the #happynowlinkup!

  • That poop rule drives me nuts. I wouldn't leave poopy diapers in a babyless friend's garbage, or a regular business garbage, but a pediatric doctor should have a diaper genie. If you deal with babies in your business, a diaper genie should be an expected part of your service!

    My heart rate is high like that all day, too! It's exhausting, isn't it? Is your resting heart rate low/normal? Mine is. I have a pulse oximeter that takes my heart rate, so I did the clinical test and I diagnosed myself with POTS before the doctors did.

    I totally agree with you about viewing your own medical records. There are all kinds of things they don't bother to tell you, and with the lackadaisal care that they give people with chronic illness, we really need that information in order to research for ourselves. I wouldn't have found out about either POTS nor EDS without doing my own research. Ten years of relying on doctors got me "oh, you're just pregnant. Pregnancy can do strange things to the body."

    Riiiiiight.

    • It is exhausting, and it's also horribly discouraging the way that docs don't actually try to help you find the underlying cause of your problem. I never realized that doctors are sort of a frienemy until I became chronically ill, not with the heart thing, but my joint/fever problem. I've sort of given up even mentioning it to them.

  • That poop sign is mean. So they want you to carry it around with you in the office? Geesh! Thst first year after a move is good and bad, but the freedom from varied responsibilities is pretty sweet!

  • Adventures indeed! I remember the smell of poop diapers. They can clear out a whole room for sure!
    Also, my kids can sleep anywhere too - just like JD. Oddly I couldn't as a child but I can now! Except on planes. Boo.

  • Had hoped the fevers were gone now with less stress. Sorry they are back. Thankful everyone is settling in so well. Keep thinking positive. Maybe this new doctor will be great once you get in to see him.

    • I had hoped they'd leave too. Eventually, I need to surrender my pride and go beg a regular doc here to help me.

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