Your ticket, please

This fall has been a bit of a wild ride, but it seems to be settling into a routine at last.

A little more than a week after my three oldest boys started school, just when I was beginning to figure out what the new shape of my life might look like, Jason received a job offer with a start-up branch office of an IT Services company. Unfortunately, the job would have required us to move to Fort St. John, B.C., a nearly 3-hour drive west of here.

The job was appealing because it offered Jason a chance to gain shares in the company incrementally over time, which is not the kind of thing that comes along in his industry all that often. However, the initial salary offer was not enough to make us think of the decision as a no-brainer.

So, after much prayer, and research, and two fact-finding missions to Fort St. John, Jason sent them a counter-offer that we could live with. They couldn't, and that was that. The process described in the last three paragraphs was about four weeks of limbo and turmoil in our lives, though, which made for a rather emotional September. But at least, in the state of "are-we-going-to-sell-our-house-or-not?", I got my kitchen linoleum replaced—no more holes! Yay!

Thankfully, we have had a beautiful "Indian Summer"-type of fall again, which means that, while we did not accomplish huge chunks of our yardwork in September, we have been able to get winter-ready (for the most part) in October.

After Jason's super-stressful summer, he decided to take two weeks off in October so we could actually finish up a few of the "summer" projects he had been meaning to do--not to mention, get a mental break from work! Yesterday was his first day back at the office.

While he was off, I managed to butcher the last of my spring roosters, so I now only have one remaining (which Jason pithily named "Lucky"), other than one or two in a batch of chicks still too young to be certain about at only 2 1/2 months. The garden got taken in and prepped for winter, our collection of old appliances got hauled away, and on Sunday, Jason and Brian Stanley put our deck on at last! (Yay! It's been sitting on blocks in the middle of the yard for two years, ever since we purchased this mobile home.)

Jason is still hoping to build a roof over our woodshed before the snow flies (because wood burns so much nicer when it is dry).

Now that Jason is back at work, and the outside stuff is mostly done for the year, I find that I can be in the house focusing on my "inside projects"—except, not really. Levi has reached the stage where he needs almost constant supervision, and thinks all things electronic are things he must get his hands on—and throw. Or at least (in the case of keyboard), copy the typing action everyone else does on it. :-)

Ergo, office work while he is awake is pretty much out of the question. I can do some kitchen stuff (like the bread I plan to bake today), and have been making progress on some knitting patterns I have been designing, but I have been praying for God to help me remember how short this phase is as I try to subvert the frustration I feel at not being able to get even basic office work done some days.

Going back to the baby phase—and now into the so-called "terrible twos"—has been more of a change than I thought it would be, and I realize how much freedom I had with the ages of my other three boys. They were all old enough to be trusted with a certain amount of independence, and I had peace of mind knowing they were all looking out for each other while they were outside, too.

I think I'm going to have to find some friends with boys this age so Levi can start having play dates, and I can start having sanity time. And I'm going to keep praying. A lot.