I’m humbled when readers and friends ask about our family, and I owe you an update. Thank you for caring and asking. Where to start?
Last August I wrote about how we were reeling because my husband was reorganized out of his job, and then I went silent about it. There wasn’t much to say really, we’d been there before.
It started over two years ago.
In November 2011 my husband was reorganized out of his job.
We panicked, we prayed, we braced ourselves.
We said, “No matter what happens nothing can take away our family or our faith.”
So we trusted and waited. We bonded like never before, with purpose.
I had a dream about water, adulthood anxiety and how I longed to swim again.
In December 2011 my husband accepted a new position, but in New York. Relief!
In January 2012 he moved to NY without us and lived in a hotel during the week.
Whoa! It was harder than we thought it would be.
I stayed behind in Massachusetts with six kids, trying to sell our house.
In March 2012 we went on a house-hunting trip in NY.
There was one house we could afford right away without selling the other one first.
It was this 100-year old lodge out in the Adirondacks, with a lake.
Decision: Do we wait for a fancy house or do we buy the lodge and be together again?
My husband said, “It will change our lifestyle radically.” (I’m an anxious neat-freak.)
I said, “We need to be together again. My priorities are clearer now.”
So my husband bought the lodge for us in April 2012.
In June 2012, we moved and were together again after a six month separation.
I started homeschooling the youngest children.
My oldest son stayed behind in MA with his older sister to finish his senior year.
Now he’s courageously enlisted in the Navy!
My daughter became Catholic and is engaged to be married in September.
She has three beautiful children, and is a wonderful mother. (Yes, I’m a grandmother.)
We fell in love with our home. For the first time, it felt like home, not just a house.
I felt it so strongly I had nightmares that we were forced to move.
In August 2013 my husband came home late from work with bad news.
Reorganized out of his job—again.
Panic, fear, anger. How could we come this far and lose it all?
Decision: Look for another job and move, or find a way to stay here?
He would have searched for a job and moved again if I asked him to, and I knew it.
I told him we couldn’t move. “We have to stay here. This is our home.”
He wholeheartedly agreed and told me to trust him. He promised to keep us here.
He searched for a local business investment, total radical change for him.
He almost bought a body shop. The owner decided not to sell.
He almost bought a paving company, but…
…a company from his career industry (insurance) called him and wanted to talk.
They are nearby.
He accepted a position last week.
Now he can continue his almost 25 year long career.
And we’re not moving.
Me? Since Mr. T was going to be home, I decided to write a thesis to finish the M.A. in Theology. He knows he’s married to an opportunist. I published it as a book. A publisher is working on the paperback now. I accepted a few new roles. The academy we use for homeschooling, Kolbe Academy, asked me to teach online science courses beginning in the Fall. Holy Apostles College and Seminary, where I graduated, offered me an assistantship reporting to the Vice President of Administration to help with accreditation work and serve as President of the Alumni Association. In the Fall I plan to begin as an Adjunct Professor teaching online science courses for Holy Apostles as well. My #1 role is educating our own kids at home, and these other roles help me to do that better. That’s why I turned Ignitum Today over to Julie Baldwin. (See me nervously passing the torch on YouTube here.)
God led us here, and our home is a gift.
Never in a million years would we have looked at our tidy, suburban, McMansion lifestyle and said, “Hey, let’s pack up and move to the Adirondacks and buy an old lodge to call home!” But that’s exactly what we’ve done and we needed it. Our marriage is stronger than ever. My anxiety is healed. I love the grit and realism of our home. I love seeing our youngest kids grow up confronting nature in almost all they do. I love homeschooling them out here. I love the peace and solitude and simple life. I love building fires. I love cooking. I love our dogs. I love that I can write and educate from home without compromising my obligation as a wife and mother. I love our lake and trees, the water, the air, the sunshine, the snow, the beauty, God’s handiwork.
I love that my dear husband just had an extended vacation from work, a time he used to bond with us and do some things he’s never had time to do—build a shed, chop our wood, work on his fountain pens, play. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, and that makes me happy. In a way, we fought for our home. We chose it, and now it is ours.
We realize that things certainly could have been much worse. We realize that tragedy could strike today or tomorrow or next month or next year. We know we will suffer in life because everyone does, and we know that this suffering wasn’t terrible. We are not heroes. But what we’ve gained in this process is a stronger faith, in ourselves, in each other, in Christ. When tragedy does strike, it won’t break us and we know that now. We have peace and joy so deep nothing could touch it. We have love bigger than the world.
The other day I said to my husband, while he was standing in my office doorway, me in my overalls and rubber boots writing a paper, him in his camouflage coat and orange hat just inside after plowing the snow from our quarter-mile long driveway and splitting the wood we use to heat our home, “Honey, you know what just happened. God gave us back our six months. That’s what this was, wasn’t it?” Boy did he smile at me.
That’s the other thing we’ve learned. If you look for miracles, you will find them.
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