ready. set. go.

alrighty.

sorry it's been a few days sans blogging. Phew. lots to do, stuff that is usually what happens when you move to a new town and your kids start school, all within a matter of one week. This blog won't have pictures... maybe in a few days i'll post pics of the house all moved in and set up. Would you like that? Lemme know.

for now, i present to you, my stream of consciousness.

things so far are going really, really well. i confess that i had a moment of sadness on saturday morning when i realized i felt a little lonely. it's funny, because our dear, dear friends live right up the road from us, plus their entire extended family is here, so feeling lonely is sorta lame since we've been hangin' out with them ALL the time. so i was confused by my own feelings... i had to really reflect on where the loneliness was coming from. then i realized i was grieving my old routine, not necessarily disliking my new one. you follow? basically, we've plunked ourselves into brand new communities, and i'm impatient and want it to feel all friendly and fun immediately. which is impossible. i haven't really connected with anyone at the gym or at my kids' new school, and i realized i miss those old relationships, the casual, everyday people i saw at the Y or at my daughter's old school, or at my favorite coffee shop or at our totally funky, granola, intellectual, small, quirky church. those were my people, my community. we traveled for a month and then moved here, so i haven't seen any of those regulars for 2 months now. and it just hit me... that's the past, and i can grieve that. but it's time to find my new community, my new every day normal.

well. it's about to get all kinds of REAL up in here, because Z starts school on wednesday. that's right. this wednesday. so here we go. this is REALLY happening... this dream we had, this goal we've been working so hard to reach... is upon us! so i'm embracing the present and thanking God for this blessed time in our lives. i want to focus on where i live right now, and not look back. i want to love well the people i encounter here every day. i want to be a light in this community, even if i don't quite fit in. (this doesn't mean i'm better or worse... it just means i'm not "country" if you know what i mean :). but i really do LOVE it here :). i'm praying that i can be a good mama to my babies, even if i'm feeling lonely on a particular day. i'm praying that i can be a good friend to all i encounter, even if i'm different politically or religiously or culturally. i'm praying that i relish this time of extreme budgeting and stress over money, and then laugh at my stress and trust that it'll all work out, even if i have to scrub a few extra toilets to make ends meet. i'm believing and claiming that this is where we're meant to be, no matter how hard it may get. it'll be hard to carry on with this attitude without Zach at home with me every day, but i can do this.

i do believe the universe gave me a little gift for turning my attitude around on saturday. i decided that sulking wasn't going to do any good, and that night my bff dragged my butt to a little hippie town 10 minutes down the street from our house. this little bubble of love opened my eyes to how much this area has to offer, and how there are like-minded people all around me. i just have to know where to find them :).

we will spend the next few weeks (months?) exploring churches and signing up for soccer and dance classes and packing lunches and doing laundry and counting how much loan money we have left. zach will attempt to absorb the most information he's ever been drenched with, in order to be the best doctor of dental surgery in the history of the universe. it will be thrilling and exhausting and fun.

we will love it... but i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to sincerely say "go tarheels." :)