The other half of the story

I expect many of you assumed that I'd be back to my regular blogging schedule after the announcement of our new pregnancy. No doubt you've been disappointed. However, perhaps a few of you may have notice that I mentioned that news was only half the story of my blog silence. How brilliant of you :) I am now at liberty to share the other half of the story with you all.

About a week or so before we found out we were pregnant, we got confirmation of something we'd seen coming. The school where J teaches is not able to pay his salary for next year due to low enrollment numbers. Essentially he's been "downsized" out of a job. Sucky economy finally hit the Shen Valley. So there you go.

The last two months have been filled with uncertainty, searching, praying, wondering, waiting, STRESS and not relaxing-into-this-pregnancy. It's been hard.

But on the other hand, God has given me a wonderful gift. I've seen the affirmation from disinterested third parties of what I've known about my husband since I first met him. He is a unique and talented individual, an excellent teacher, a brilliant logician and a scholar. In his job search, after a brief foray into possible computer tech jobs, locally (not successful), he applied to a dozen or so classical schools in the eastern half of the US. Almost ALL of them emailed back with interest in his resume. It's a brilliant resume-- the man's a genius. I should post it some time... Further interviews and research narrowed the field to three schools who all very much wanted him. After flying thither and yon for more in-depth interviews and visits with faculty and staff, we were able this week to decide that we will be joining Geneva School in Winter Park.

Florida.

We will be leaving behind us the family, friends and memories of nine long and happy years in this lovely city. Nine years in which we married, moved away from home for the first time, gave birth to our two child, lost two others, made dear, dear friends, helped start a church, bought a house, watched our children make their first friends, taught our daughter to read and ride a bike, bought our son his first sword (which may, in retrospect, have been a grave error on our part)... and many other wonderful things.

As we've been researching communities all over the eastern US, we've realized something about our town. There's really no other place quite like it. Despite the occasional drunken college riot ;) The unique blend of academia, suburbia and farm-land-- all in a pint-sized county-- is something we will miss indescribably. I think we will never find another town where three colleges meet and form a decent sized city in the middle of cow country, where you can bike pretty much any place you want to go, where front porches are still used as a "social scene", but the world's only replica of Shakespeare's Blackfriars Theater is only minutes away.

Ooooh, we are going to miss this place.

We are going to miss these people. All of you-- you people who reached out to a new mom who was desperate for company, you people who listened to my ranting about natural birth and decided to give it a shot, you people who entrusted your children to me for a half hour every week so I could pass on a little of the music my parents gave me, you people who prayed us through our losses and made us casseroles and laughed and cried with me over Judah's arrival. The ones we've known for many years-- who watched us grow from college kids to middle-aged parents of two three-- and the new ones we're just beginning to realize how much we like!

It's going to be a rough move. I'm glad I can finally blog about it. It's been bottled up for too long and it feels good to let it out.



P.S. More details will be forthcoming, I promise. Just wanted to get the basics down for now...