hnelson's Journal

it's been quite awhile since I've found time to sit down and blog and today seemed like a good time to do it.  At my last entry I ended my rant with this paragraph:

So here's to the most hectic, wonderful, crazy, exciting, scary, hopeful, thrilling, terrifying, blessed, blissful, exhausting, and fantastic time in our lives.  It really is true what they say... "God is good....ALL the time....it's just a matter of faith and trust!" -- AMEN!"

 Boy - HOWDY - did I not know how true that statement was.

For starters - this move has not been the hurried bliss I was anticipating.  I mean sure, I knew it was happening quickly, but I had no idea just HOW stressful it would be.  I mean, I had literally 6 days to get my little family ready to live out of a hotel for what we thought would be around 2 or 3 weeks.  That alone, with a then 9 week old baby, was a bit of a task but I figured, "I can hack it....no problem".  The reality of that was a bit more than I was prepared for.  We had to finalize getting our old house leased, coordinate movers/packers/loaders/get ourselves packed into as few suitcases as possible, get our dog checked/certified to fly, get flights and hotels finalized, get baby vaccinations and scrips filled and copies of medical records, etc before leaving.  Not to mention that Kevin had to start his new job three days before we left (the days the movers would be there) and, by the way, ALL our friends were scrambling to see us and all our families were scrambing to talk to us on the phone for details.  Throw in a little medical panic with Kevin's mother and I was pretty much stressed to my max by the time the day arrived for the packers to pack my house.  THANK GOD for Susie and Jenny who not only helped me watch Jackson on Packing Day...but gave me a place to escape to on Loading day when I was just about in tears from the utter chaos of it all.  I'll grant you that having a company professionally pack and move you across country is the only way to go...I would highly recommend you NOT BE THERE when it happens.  The noise was unbearable, couldn't get the baby to nap and literally didn' thave a chair to sit on...it was nuts.  As much as I thought I was at my wits end, we had some nice bright moments when visitors came to see us which was very sweet.  By the time we got on the plane that Saturday we were utterly exhausted but at least it was all done.  Our only major regret from it all was that there were SO MANY people we didn't get to see that we so wanted to.  The timing of all this fell together so fast and it was great in a way, but we would have liked a little more time with our friends who had become like family to us is many ways.  So to any of you reading this who we missed out in seeing - we are VERY sorry.  It certainly wasn't intentional on our part...just the way things fell together. 

Once we finally arrived in Chattanooga the first order of business was to, yet again, find a house.  After our initial trip out we had found a house but it failed inspection and we had to start from scratch.  Only now we were told we were on a clock as it could take as much as 3 weeks to close and we only 30 days of paid corporate housing to use.  Doing the math, that gave us 1 week by my calculations to find a house.  Not just a house....THE house.  The house we would live in harmony and raise our little family in that would be convenient for kevin's daily commute to work and close to church and near good schools and in a good area with nearby conveniences, have Kevin's perfect office space, my perfect entertaining and master suites, and oh by the way lets throw in wood floors, granite counter tops, perfect neighbors and a song from angels on high when we walk in the door!  NO PRESSURE! As Kevin had started his new job that left me, in the hotel, with the dog and the baby, coordinating daily searches with our realtor.  Now our realtor was and is an ever-patient saint of a woman!  She not only juggled mine and Kevin's conflicting likes and dislikes, but catered to the baby and me with all we needed.  We would go out each day and hunt as much as the baby could take which would account for about 7 to 9 houses.  Each day it was a routine of bottle ever third house, diaper changes in the back seat, and trading off who held the baby while I looked around houses and made notes of what I liked and didn't like.  Each day we would further "refine" what we were looking for but by the end of the first week I was MEGA stressed out!  I felt the looming deadline hanging over my head, and had a baby that - by that time - was beyond cranky from all the change.  I would hunt in the day with the realtor and see any repeats with Kevin in the evenings/weekends and no matter what I liked, he would hate and no matter what he liked, I would hate.  I was beginning to think we'd NEVER find a house we both loved and it would be a matter of us either renting indefinitely or one of us just NOT being happy wtih the house we choose....the pressure was suffocating.  Kevin then swooped in and removed any pressure from me by telling me that we could just rent a furnished apartment for as many months as we needed and that we could limit the house hunting to just a few days a week to give me and Jackson a break.  That helped.  We did find a house that we both loved and agreed on and put an offer on it that was accepted.  WHEW!  Next was inspection and landscaping issues with the house but at least I could take a break from hunting....

And you heard me mention my darling angelic baby boy right.  He was great to a point...and I mean, he's a GREAT baby but in the past three weeks we had flown him across country three times, and completely upset his world, his nap schedule and more.  By the end of each day of house hunting, he would just have a complete meltdown in the car and me and the realtor would just have to listen to him cry for 10 minutes till we got back to the hotel.  The realtor would then be relieved to leave and I would have to find a way to CONSOLE the poor overly exhausted baby while I was frazzled myself (see aforementioned home pressure).  Thank GOD he has been healthy and happy otherwise and not gotten sick from all the travel, but with his daily nap schedule tossed out the window somewhere at 30,000 feet, he no longer was sleeping good at nights and I was back to getting up 2 or 3 times a night with him.  Which, lets face it, WHO NEEDS SLEEP ANYWAY! hahahah  I've also just this week, finally given up on trying to nurse him.  I was struggling to keep my supply strong enough BEFORE all this craziness set in and with all the travel and house hunting nursing became a major liability for me.  My supply struggle to keep up with what little I could give him and by the time I'd get around to sitting down long enough for him to nurse, he'd be too tired and it would be a fight to get him to stay latched.  I gave it my college try....and we hung for a good 3 months....but I'm so relieved to be done!

Keep in mind, during all this time, we have to LIVE in a hotel.  That may sound glamorous at first but in reality it kinda sucks.  The dog must be let "out" to the teeny patch of grass at the far end of the hotel twice a day and hope the grass was dry enought that she wouldn't be covered in mud.  The laundry must be cleaned still and there is an onsite laundry room for hotel guests to use.  Woo hoo.  How hard can that be!?"  Yeah...RIGHT!  It's on a different floor and takes 1/2 an hour to wash and 1/2 an hour to dry.  So that means I have to bundle up the dirty cloths, the detergent and fabric softner, the quarters for the machines, and JACKSON just to go one floor down and find a place to set Jackson while I get the laundry going.  And yes...out of the two washers they had, one was broke...cause that's just my luck.  Then bundle up baby and detergents again and come back up to our room and chill for 1/2 an hour (just enough time for baby to doze off) then repeat to switch stuff over to dryer.  Dryer is smaller than washer - good to know - and the cloths don't actualy GET dry.  Then pack it back up to room to wait another 45 minutes (another cat nap for baby) only to come down one final time and pack it ALL back up to the room to fold/hang/put away.  And since there is only ONE "laundry room" for the entire hotel, and half of the washers/dryers in it don't work, about every other time I would go through all this, they'd be taken and I'd have to start over and wait.  EXCELLENT!!!! 

And with all this, I've been cancelling our Idaho utilities (didn't have time to do that before we left...whoops) setting up new Tennessee bank accounts, finding pediatricians and chiropracters and pharmacists.  We still have just our one car so on the days I need the car I have to shuttle Kevin to and from work amidst my errands but all in all it's been bearable.  This week - BLISSFULLY - has been the first full week of NO house hunting.  The house we choose passed inspection, offer was accepted and signed off on, and now our mortgage lady is racing to get us closed by the 5th.  This week I've focused on getting my poor but so flexible baby back on a nap schedule which has made my world a better place.  He's sleeping btter at night, which means MOMMY is sleepign better at night and DADDY doesn't get his head bit off quite so much.

Living in a hotel sucks - I don't mind saying.  It's not glamorous or fun or carefree...just a pain in the butt.  But we'll survive.  Eating out every day sucks - I don't mind saying.  It's not fun and easy....just a pain to the waistline and a hassle.  I'm jealous some days that my darling hard working hubby gets to "escape" to a job he loves each day and not be in the hotel listening to our dog bark as housekeeping comes in to clean JUST as you put the baby down for a nap (never fails) or you have to juggle the baby, quarters, room key card, etc for laundry twice a week, etc.  But i know in the end....THIS IS TEMPORARY and what doesn't kill me will make me so much more funny at parties!  ;-)

My book deal has been stalled by all this madness.  I finally sent the contract in yesterday and they are ready to encourage me (or rather PUSH ME) to finish things.  I'm anxious to get into the house and get settled and get my life back into some sort of normalcy.  I am hoping that once we get settled into the new place, I can find the rhythm of my life again that will include taking care of the house, baby, hubby, myself, and have time for finishing my book and being involved in a church again etc.  I think I can do it...I mean after all this, what CAN'T I do.

oh - and here's a funny ending to this rant.  I've been strugging for two months now with horrible pain in my back and hips.  I thought it was post-pregnancy stuff but it's lingered long enough that I felt it was time to see a chiropractor about it.  As my husband would watch me LIMP down the street to dinner EACH night with him....and take 3 or more advil before bed EACH night....and see me exhausted from a non-sleeping Jackson...he looks at me with love in his eyes and says, "so when can we start trying for baby number 2".