Accomplishments

I'm feeling pretty good about the many things I accomplished tonight.

- went for a walk with Jer (exercise & quality kid time)
- thawed potato soup and made biscuits for dinner (had a salad too! I'm feeling healthy.)
- played pbskids.org with Jer
- put Jer to bed after reading a book and the regular nightly routine of brushing teeth, treatment, talking to Daddy and snuggling
- made a lasagna to take to the sitters for dinner for Jer and the crew tomorrow night
- ran the dishwasher, emptied it and put dishes in again, in addition to washing some by hand
- cleaned the bathtub (while fuming mad about how the people I pay to clean couldn't manage to use a little elbow once in a while)
- took out the trash
- swept the floors in kitchen and dining room
- organized clutter on desk
- managed to post something here

Now I'm going to go get on my pajamas, call my husband and crash because we have a corporate visit for the next 2 days and come Thursday night I'm going to be exhausted!

On a side note, I can say that week #2 seems to be much easier than last week and the great heart-felt conversation with my husband over the weekend helped a great deal too! I, actually, can't believe tomorrow is Wednesday already. This week is flying!

A love/hate relationship

Who doesn't love Fridays? It's usually pretty nice to see the weekend come around. However, I'm even more delighted to see Friday come now. It means JT comes home! It was so fun this morning to share with Jeremiah that Daddy was coming home TODAY!!!

In the past, I've noted how I even enjoy Thursday evenings. Perhaps it's my addiction to ER (which will soon come to an end), but Thursday evenings have often signaled to me that the excitement of the weekend was soon to come. I felt a very big relief last night that I had survived the week. It wasn't too bad professionally, but plenty busy for what was supposed to be a light week with break.

That's the love part, now on to the not so lovey part. I have more recently (and back when I was younger) appreciated taking time on Sunday night to detox and gather myself for the week to come. I believed Sunday evenings were an important time to spend as a family. When I was younger we might go out for pizza or enjoy a quick grilled cheese dinner, but it was pretty certain we were together. In college, I was often one to get homework done on Friday evening or Saturday to ensure that I could relax and emotionally prep myself for the week ahead. That's when I loved Sundays. However, there have also been times when Sunday evenings brought the "Sunday Night Syndrome". After JT was home from college on a weekend in high school, or when we were together for a weekend when I was in Milwaukee, or even sometimes after we had been back home together when we were first married, I suffered from SNS. I would find Sunday night as a let down after a great weekend together. I think I may be headed back to those particular feelings on Sunday nights. They will mean packing him up and sending him back to Iowa without us for a few weeks to come. However, I'm hoping to treat my SNS with plenty of relaxing and not pushing myself to hopefully balance what I love and now will hate about Sunday nights.

On a separate topic, thank you to all of those that have called, e-mailed, etc. in the past week. You are all wonderful. Also, please know that I'm open to suggestions on how to pass the time, help Jeremiah deal with the separation or generally cope. What I wasnt' doing well with was people telling me how I should feel or what I should or shouldn't share with my husband. In my opinion, those are very personal things and each person deals differently. So, anyways, bring on the coping hints! I'm open to those...and I'll do my best to filter any ideas/advice that I'm not so agreeable or open to. Thank you all for your friendship!

Changes

To say that there have been some changes in my life in the last month might be considered an understatement. I'm sorry for not sharing with many sooner, but there were so many details being ironed out that the timing really wasn't right.

Bottom line - We're moving....to Iowa.

Less than a week after my grandmother's funeral, my hubby received an offer to be the Community Development Director for the Village of Tipton. I was an emotional disaster, to say the least. Thanks to a very patient husband, wonderful friends, a listening ear from my mom and a pastor with down-to-earth approaches to faith, I've found my way back to only occassional crying. I hit bottom pretty hard and was in a very dark place for a few days.

John starts tomorrow and left yesterday with a truck-full of things to live in Tipton in a rental house during the week and come back to Jeremiah and I on the weekends. We'll try to live with this arrangement until the house sells or until I can't stand it anymore! Hopefully, either way it isn't a long wait! I don't know how much more of Jeremiah asking for Daddy I can take.

On a bright note, my job has agreed to test out telecommuting. I will return to campus a few times a month, as needed, but use our house in Tipton as a base office. This was a HUGE relief for me, as I wasn't looking forward to searching for a job in this not-so-lovely job market. I also appreciated having one less thing uprooted. As noted in a previous post, I don't do change well.

For those interested, Tipton is half-way between the Quad Cities and Iowa City. We'll be much closer to all the grandparents but it will likely still warrant overnights at both sides.

We hope to put the house on the market in the next few weeks. We have just a few more projects to complete before we're ready for that. Having John making the weekly trip will hopefully assist with getting some of the clutter out of our house. I'm a little nervous about getting it sold for a good price, but we'll do our best!

In regards to further changes, I finished my master's degree this past week. It was bit anti-climatic, given all the other craziness in our lives, but I'm happy to be done either way. However, I'm thinking that the "When I am done with class list" that I was keeping of various projects may be waiting a bit longer. And, now, with no homework or husband, I'm a little nervous that the evenings may be harder on me emotionally. Having homework didn't allow for time to dwell on other things.

I'm trying to take all these changes with grace and remember my own Grandmother's words that "it is all god's will," but there are also times when I just have to be who I am and deal with this in my own way. I don't need solutions or "you shoulds" from others, just an understanding that I need to be able to handle this in the best way I know how. I need for people to spend time with Jeremiah and I and call to check in, not to give advice. I have to say that JT was WONDERFUL yesterday when he told me that he would be more worried about me if I wasn't a mess as he was prepping to leave, when others were reminding me that it was a time that I should be the strong partner. He knows me so well!!

So, stay tuned for the many adventures that I'm sure are set to come our way in the months ahead!