The Big News

Please, Lord, don't send me to Africa. You hear a lot of missionary testimonies about how this prayer was uttered, yet they ended up in Africa. My prayer has always been, Please, Lord, don't send me anywhere that's cold. Like Connecticut. I guess like Brer Rabbit, I should have been asking not to go to Africa. I should have been asking to please be sent to the Arctic. Of course, the difference is that God knows my heart, whereas that wily Brer Fox did not know Brer Rabbit was born and bred in a briar patch.

Although it's only been a few weeks since my husband received a promotion...in Connecticut...it's hard to remember life before The Big News. I do seem to recall, however, a summer filled with furious and right-down-to-the-minute planning. In fact, there was so much planning, I had a few glimpses into the children's high school careers, still 4 years away. But, you know, best laid plans and all...

And I do recall the exact moment I received the news. It was an ordinary day where the only cares I had were to ensure the children got to church camp. (I didn't even have to worry about making sure they got home from camp as that was a carpool friend's worry.) And I needed to clean the house up a bit for the arrival of my friend whom I had gallantly offered to accompany to the Homeschool Expo.

I was making spaghetti sauce to throw into the crockpot when Mark called. "I need you to stop what you're doing and listen," he said. I knew he was in Connecticut at his company's headquarters, and as so many others are experiencing, I was expecting news of a lay-off. What I was NOT expecting was to be asked how I feel about living in Connecticut. Not that the whole wide world does not already know how I feel about living in a cold climate such as the one that Connecticut endures for a majority of the year.

Surprisingly, my immediate response was, "OK, let's move." I think the whole wide world also knows how I like to move and how I make off-handed remarks on vacations about wanting to live in the vacation spot of the year. In fact, I can recall uttering such words on my last visit to Connecticut.

Since then, life has been a whirlwind, and I still wake up many mornings remembering a wild dream I had in which our family was asked to relocate to a state not so far from Canada. That Homeschool Expo? It went well. I had a great time with my friend. Thankfully because of the Big News, I wasn't in the buying mood and spent only $25 the whole weekend. Oh, and that spaghetti sauce? It wasn't very good. My friend was polite enough to eat it anyway. And I started school, had 3 days of it, and then decided we would stop, regroup, and start over...in Connecticut.

I would say we've been working hard to pack, but we're moving in style this time. With movers. Never done it this way, but I'm afraid this experience is going to spoil me, and I'll never want to do it the old-fashioned way again. Yes, I've done some sorting, tossing, and giving away because, even though someone else is packing for me, I certainly don't need them packing all of this junk we've accumulated over the last 20 years.

Speaking of 20 years, I said to Mark the other day, "Do you realize if we stay in
the Arctic Connecticut as long as we've lived in Atlanta, Alex will be THIRTY?" That's weird.

There has also been a garage sale. And a family trip to Connecticut. But I'll save some of those details for another day. I only wanted to get back to recording our Chapters. I wasn't able to release this news on such a public forum until now because the Big News had not yet been announced to the company. And who knows? Some reader who makes up part of my HUGE audience may know someone who knows someone...it is a small world after all, a fact that makes me feel better as I get ready to say goodbye.