I’m not going to church this up. Let’s just call it like it is. Moving was a j-o-b.

Getting our Georgia house ready to sell, selling it, finding a rental, and moving in was exhausting. Helping all our boys adjust to life at a new school…that part was far more difficult than I expected. I am not always the best at realistic expectations.  Moving is a task that keeps giving and giving.

Moving, ah…moving.

This is the first time we’ve moved back to a duty station where we’ve actually lived before, so that has made a world of difference in adjusting to this one. It was 100 times easier this time, but there was still so much change.

You know what I’ve done to get through it?

Now this is the part where you’re expecting me to say, “read my Bible and pray,” if you know me at all.  Well, that’s true. I have done those things almost everyday, and the importance of that cannot be exaggerated.

But what I was actually going to say is I’ve been taking this transition s-l-o-w-l-y.

I have signed up for a fractional amount of things. Seriously almost nothing. On Thursdays, I pack folders for a couple of my sons’ teachers at school. It takes me maybe 20 minutes. Even that I have trouble remembering!

At church, I am responsible for nothing at all.

Now this isn’t always how I intend to live, but when I first move, I’m not ready to go out and meet the city and save the world, ya know? I’d rather have a circle of friends who I chat with and then go home. Let me sort of ruffle my nest and adjust the hairs and twigs for a while. I gotta make sure each little egg is safe and sound, and there are FOUR of them. Once I’m sure I have our nest all shored up good and ready to face the wind, then I will be more ready to go flying about to help the other robins.

There’s enough on my mind and in my home to keep me busy for a while yet. It took me until November just to figure out where I unpacked the “fall decor” box, and now it’s about time to hang Christmas decorations. I’m debating whether I should even bother with the fall stuff.

It’s been important for me to not go overboard in taking on too many responsibilities right away. Seeing everyone through the transition has been enough stress on its own.

However, it IS equally important to not be isolated. 

We still all go to church together as a family, walk together to school most mornings, and socialize with neighbors. The boys also each have an activity they enjoy, well, except for our 5-year-old because I only put tiny mites in activities if they beg for it, (and I’ll save the reasons for that for a future post).

I had an advantage in moving here that I’ve never had before. I already knew people, not just people, but people I actually like, so right off the bat I had a support system. Normally, when you are new in town, you have no support system at all.

If you are reading this, and you moved this year, I hope you will make an extra effort to build a support system.

Don’t wait for people to come to you. Usually they don’t. Go out and find your people. Join a military spouse club, or a MOPS, or church. When you go to church, don’t just attend the service without joining a “small group” or Sunday school class. Invite people you meet for a play-date or a cup of coffee.

Friend people you meet in your new town on Facebook, when you don’t even know them that well yet. You need to get that news feed hopping with local events rather than stuff from far away that you can’t go to.

The newcomer phase can get depressing fast when you aren’t plugged into anything, and you have no one to share holidays with.

I’m not saying sign up for a ton of leadership positions your first year in a new place, though. I’ve found it best to participate the first year, get to know the people, and then you can decide if you want to serve or lead or keep on participating. Believe me, I have found out the hard way, there is an actual limit to the amount of stress a person can handle. I’ve reached that limit a few times over the years.

The Kids

Seeing the kids through this transition wasn’t a piece of cake either, but our boys are pros at this too, bless their hearts. This was their 3rd move in 4 years, as crazy as that sounds. We left here in 2014, lived in California until 2016, and then lived in Georgia until 2018. That’s three moves in 4 years.

When we left here, 2 were school-aged. Now all 4 are school-aged, and that took the challenge level to a whole new level. Helping four separate humans navigate a total world and school change was work.

That first quarter at a new school never results in our best grades. Each school has different rules, methods, and expectations. Yes, I even tried home-schooling to mitigate this problem, but that wasn’t so wonderful either. You can read more about that here.

going down the slide at a local pumpkin patch

Don’t lose patience with your kids when the transition doesn’t go as smoothly as you’d hoped.

A quiet lunch with no one to talk to is depressing for anyone. Figuring out which classes are ahead of your last school and which ones are behind doesn’t take too long to figure out, but then you have to rise to that challenge too.

Which kids are the nice ones, and which kids are terrifying? There’s no way to know but observation and trial and error.

The #1 Best Thing We Do For Our Kids to Make This Transition Easier

I have found time and time again that the best way to help our children to make the social part of the transition, which let’s face it, is just as huge as the academic portion, is to look for families like our own and hang out with them before school starts.

Sometimes meeting people is easier than others. The best way to find like-minded families is to attend a church near your neighborhood and get involved in community events right where you live.

Don’t drive 40 minutes away to find a good church or swim club if there’s one right in your backyard. Having friends that live too far away to see everyday is not going to help your kids nearly as much as having friends down the street.

For example, is there a local pool you  can join? Do it! And take your kids regularly just so they can start seeing familiar faces and making connections. Observe which families don’t get on your nerves, and invite them to meet you at the pool the next day.

All of that is exactly why I prefer to move in the summer– early summer, so we can do as much of our adjusting as possible before school even starts.

Don’t ignore the Facebook Groups.

What about when you just don’t seem to be meeting anyone at all? Some places are like that. Hop on Facebook, and search for your community name to see if there’s a group you can join. I know when we moved here we met one of our friends because she put on the local community Facebook page that she was looking for someone in the neighborhood with a 2nd grader to meet at the local park. So I took my 2nd grader on over to the park and met them!

eating lunch at school with Daniel

So how are we this time, 5 months in?

All considered, we’re doing well. This was not an easy year, but it wasn’t a bad year either. My oldest played flag football for the first time. That’s a neat thing about moving. It seems like we try new things with each move. He’s also learning Spanish, so I’m getting a good refresher on mine, as I study with him.

Our 5th grader is learning to play saxophone as well as taking an after school computer class where they are teaching them how to make movies on iMovie. I’m hoping when he’s done, he’ll share the wealth and teach me some of what he learned.

Daniel, our 2nd grader, is going through a phase where he wants to sign up for sooooo many things! He’s ice-skating (so he can eventually play hockey) as well as taking karate. He’s asking me to sign up for baseball and swimming too, and somewhere along the way, he’s going to have to let go of something!

John David is loving kindergarten. He sings “This land is your land, this land is my land,” constantly, and the neat thing is he knows verses that I don’t know. He’s suddenly Mr. Independent, no longer sitting in my lap (breaking my heart with that)  and putting on his own socks and shoes.

All of them seem quite content. Alan and I are doing well too. It think Alan is doing a little better than me. I’ve been going through sort of a crisis of life with all the changes, with no longer having a preschooler at home. And yet I still never feel like I get enough done.

Now that I think about it, out of all 6 of us, I may be doing the worst, and I’m not actually bad. I have close friends and plenty to busy myself with. It just takes time for me to fully feel settled in spirit at a new place, you know? Every single time it takes me about a year, and that is okay. You have to figure out what kind of adjustment phase works for you.

I was driving down the road to our house this morning with a car full of groceries, and all I could think was, “Wow. I can’t believe I’m living here again, in this beautiful neighborhood, in this bustling suburb of our nation’s capital.” I still love it, and I feel blessed and relieved to get to return to this place that I love. Yes, it takes me a while to adjust, but I am still so thankful to be here.

P.S.   Apparently moving is a huge deal for us too because my website is crawling with articles just like this one. Want to read more thoughts about moving? Go here for the “year after moving,” , or here for the 4 month moving update from our last move.

The post 5 Months Since the Move: How I Handle the Transition appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I resisted posting their picture for as long as I could, but it’s just too good. Such a blessing to share the retreat with these ladies!!

“You can change your life by changing your thoughts.” —Denise Cunningham

I’m still benefitting from my retreat. In fact, look at me. It’s been a week, and I’m STILL talking about it.

This thought-changing lesson is one that God is really drilling into my brain lately. First, it came up in the book I’ve been reading, Unglued, by Lysa Terkeurst. Then Denise brought it up at the retreat.

The importance of our thought life cannot be overstated. It will change who you are! I used to look at any mess in my house and think, “I am such a mess,” allowing that mess to define me and weigh me down.

Why must I be my own worst enemy?

Forget that mess. It’s not ME. It’s just stuff. I’m raising four children here. That mess is just a chore and nothing more.

“Boys! Clean up this floor before you even think about going outside.”

There. Done. My floor is no longer a total mess, and neither am I. I wasn’t a mess before they cleaned it up either. I was just doing that stinkin’ thinkin’ thing.

Let’s be done with that.

What thoughts do you need to turn around?

Let’s level with those thoughts, focus on what we can fix, and pray about the things that we can’t fix.

Figure out what is stealing your joy, and go to war with that. Sometimes we can only pray. Don’t count that out, though, as a small contribution. I have felt powerless about so many things, where all I could do was PRAY. Yet it turned out to be exactly what was needed, and God solved those problems FOR me.

For example: I pray crying babies on airplanes to sleep. Laugh all you want, but crying babies bother me. I know. I know. I can’t help it. I pray them to sleep. It’s never taken God more than a minute or two to get a baby to sleep that I was praying for on an airplane. Now you may snicker and think that’s small beans. It is not. As a mother of four who has flown more than my fair share with all of my babies, I can tell you that crying babies usually elevate stress in the mother the most. Past that, it aggravates those with flight anxieties, headaches, etc. Therefore, praying babies to sleep is a precious gift to many. We all need a little more peace and quiet in our lives, right?

Sometimes we can take practical steps too.

One thing that was stealing my joy was the complaining or negotiating that my boys would do at school.

I have one son in particular that complains and negotiates. That had to go. I can’t live like that. We’re still working on it, but the little chart I made is paying off!!! Big time! Now when a student whines, instead of increasing my heart rate and beginning to unravel myself, I just say, “Go and remove a check mark.”

No need to let someone else’s problem ruin my day. Perseverance is winning this race.

I set up that chart so that every time some one obeys WITHOUT whining or complaining, I give them a check mark. Once they get 17 check marks, they get a prize. They’ve all already earned their first prize: going to see a movie with Mom.

We saw Hotel Transylvania 2. (You can safely skip that movie.)

For the next completed chart, we’re going to Cold Stone Creamery.

I read somewhere that giving toys as prizes increases materialism, so I’m choosing activities instead. This sweet boy is the only one that has already earned his second prize:

My thoughts are still very much a work in progress, but this is not something I have to fix by myself.

When we belong to God, He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us along. We need only to rely on that help.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22-23

“But when they arrest you [for your faith], do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”                Matthew 10:19-20

God will always answer our cries for help, when we are asking him to help us with the right motive. It is definitely his will for us to have positive thoughts, tuning out the lies of the devil, and living happy, productive lives– lives that benefit not only ourselves but also minister to others.

Therefore, we know that if we ask God for help with our thoughts, he will be faithful to send exactly what we need.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”       Philippians 4:6-7

This is the kind of stuff I repeat to myself over and over on days like this, with multiple tutoring sessions, play dates, soccer practices, and meals to get on the table. Phew! Life is exhausting, but if we rely on God and even enlist others to help us, we can feel renewed rather than weary! No one ever said that we need to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. I will no longer be ashamed to reach my arms up and out for help.

My friends and I, on our way home from retreat

“We pray that you will be strengthened from God’s boundless resources, so that you will find yourselves able to pass through any experience and endure it with joy.”   Colossians 1:11

It took going away for a weekend for me to see my life for what it actually is:

My life is adorable!!! No, life isn’t supposed to be easy, but gracious, it ought to be FUN!!

Sometimes we all need to take a step backwards to look at the whole picture. Wow! What a lively, large, laughter-filled, lavish, light, liberated, lovely, lucky, Lord-honoring lot that I have in life!

Today I am thankful, and being thankful brings joy, and joy cannot help but spill over.

The post You Can Change Your Life By Changing Your Thoughts appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.