Part Two: A Season of Change

Tuesday morning I sat with one of my midwives at one of our, now weekly(!), appointments, unsuccessfully trying to hold back the tears. Feeling overwhelmed, guilt, and a small sense of loss at what I thought would be, washing over me. With a shaky smile, I looked at her compassionate face (she was teary, too) and said, "I'm so sorry. I think I'm just really tired."

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I remember, months ago, talking to Nels about how sometimes I feel so restless. Like I'm ready for a new adventure. I felt so bold. Ready to take on the world. Ready for some new challenges. I felt envious every time I would hear of someone else moving.

For the most part, those feelings subsided and (as I mentioned in my last post) I've been able to feel incredibly happy and settled where we are. I've been able to feel that all will be as it should. All in the Lord's timing. But every once in a while, I'd recognize that those feelings were still there. Little twinges in the periphery.

Nels has continued to apply for jobs. When we spent a week at his parents' house in June, many hours were devoted to applying for a job with BYU's live video crew. It would be a good job. Stable, steady, different. Well worth the insane application hoops that the Church puts applicants through. Well worth the endless waiting game that hiring with any Church position plays. He had a good "in" with a friend who has worked with BYU TV for the last few years. We were feeling pretty confident in his chances of at least getting an interview for the position, but from past experiences knew that it would be a S.L.O.W. process. Great! Nels had Convention to get ready for at work and we have a baby coming at the beginning of September. We were not in a hurry.

A few weeks later, I was picking up toys in the family room before we went to bed. Nels had spent the evening doing whoknowswhat on the computer while I'd watched an episode of some silly British drama on Netflix. Nels mentioned in passing, "I applied for a job in Sandpoint. It's with a company called . . . Coldwater Creek?"

"Oh yeah. A clothing company. My mom gets their catalogs." I didn't expect to hear anything else from it and didn't think about it again.

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More than four years ago now we moved BACK to Idaho Falls. We'd lived here right after graduating from BYU-I for less than a year, run out of employment, moved in with my parents for a few months and found out we were pregnant with our third baby, only to receive a new job offer here in I.F. and move back. It was crazy.

I felt so sick with that pregnancy. And when I'm not feeling tip-top, I become a hermit. Thankfully, the Lord knew that I needed a proactive friend and even though we only lived in that rental house on Tendoy Dr. for about four months, the Lord sent me just such a friend. She only lived a few houses down from us and had two little girls, fairly close in age to Hazel and Lilie. Even though I was lazy as could be, she would stop by to chat, ask me to go on walks, and try to get to know me better. When we bought our house and were getting ready to move in, she was right there beside me - cleaning cupboards and washing walls.

Thank Heaven for people who are better friends than I am sometimes!

Stefanie has remained a faithful and devoted friend to lazy me over the years and I have thanked God for sending her into my life many, many times. 

In late June, Stefanie found out that her husband would be getting laid off "sometime" in July. The company that he'd worked for for the past umpteen years was going bankrupt. She was stressed. She was pregnant. She was due to deliver a little boy only three weeks before my due date. (She just delivered her little GIRL yesterday! LOL!) She was facing either unemployment or possibly moving to Utah - all around the time that her baby was due. Yeah. She was stressed. And would often call me to voice her fears and frustrations.

Me, being the wonderfully sympathetic friend that I am, listened but repeatedly told her that she needed to relax. Getting stressed would not help her or her little baby any. She just needed to be patient until she actually KNEW what they were doing. Stressing out now wasn't going to save her any of the stress that would surely come later IF they were to move. And maybe they wouldn't be moving at all. Relax! I told her over and over again.

The Lord has such a fun sense of humor . . . 

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The day after Nels submitted his late-night resume, Coldwater Creek called him wanting to see some of his work. He referred them to his Vimeo page.

Two days later, they set up a phone interview. It went perfect.

I started . . . getting worried. :)

A few days passed. I calmed down.

For months we'd known that Nels's hours throughout July would be crazy. They always are, in preparation for Melaleuca's big, yearly Convention. I was just happy to know that it wouldn't last forever and that Convention would be finished a month before the baby was even due. Thank goodness! We can totally do one month of crazy, right? Then he'd be home and we could enjoy some time together as a family, celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary, and get everything in order before the baby came.

A week after the phone interview, I got a text from Nels while he's at work. "Coldwater wants to fly me up to Sandpoint for an interview!"

The initial excitement was immediately tempered with thoughts of, "what??? right now??? in the middle of preparing for Convention? we have a baby due in less than 8 weeks! surely this isn't what we've been waiting for!? what if while he's there, they offer him the job? I've never even been to Sandpoint, Idaho!"

On a spur of the moment decision, we shipped the older girls off to spend a weekend with Grandma Chick, packed up the car, and headed to Sandpoint to check out the area together before the interview that he'd scheduled for the last weekend in July.

We fell in love with the beautiful mountains, stunning lake, rolling fields, forests, and small town.

During the two weeks preceding Nels's interview, he worked like a madman. Night and day trying to finish multiple projects. I'd like to think that during that time, I was gracefully "holding down the fort," but truthfully I was just a mess. Hoping and yet worried that it would be perfect.

And guess what? It was.

All of his interviews were comfortable and good. He said that he couldn't have imagined it going better. He really enjoyed the company and the team. Of course, the location is absolutely gorgeous. Nels even scoped out a couple of properties for sale.

Fun, fun, fun. And yet . . .

"Lord, did you forget that we have a baby coming in a few weeks???"

I was a stressed out mess. What if they want him before the baby comes? What about insurance? How do we sell our house that fast? I'm 8 months pregnant, I'm not ready to sell our house! What about school for the girls? It starts in a couple of weeks, too! Will we be able to buy a house? Will we have to rent? Coldwater had said that they really wanted someone to start before the beginning of September. He can't leave before the baby is born! etc, etc, etc, etc . . . . . . . . . . .

I hope they make him an offer. We've been waiting for so long to move on.
I hope they don't make him an offer. Then we could return to that "perfect, peaceful life" that I was feeling before.

Two days after Nels flew home from Northern Idaho, he was gone again. Gone to Convention before we'd even heard back from Coldwater as to whether or not he got the job.

I was an even bigger mess than I was before.

And poor Nels! He was working pretty much around the clock in Minneapolis when they called him to offer him the job. I was hounding him on the other end - trying to figure out details of what we're doing. Pretty much being a crazy woman. And all the while, Nels is surrounded by coworkers and Melaleuca Directors. Trying to squeeze in a few moments to calm his neurotic wife all while wearing blisters into his feet. :)

Which pretty much brings us to this week.

Monday morning Nels called Coldwater Creek and accepted the job.


We will be moving.


Thankfully, they've extended an olive branch and consented to let him start two weeks after my due date. They will also be paying for a moving company to come pack up my house for me! Hooray!

Remember that happy picture that I envisioned in my last post? Remember the peace and the calm of August with no planned trips, school shopping, making bedding for baby?

It's gone. It's not going to happen.

In the next (just over) five weeks, we need to:

• finish getting the house ready to sell (thanks to my sisters who graciously came to help me paint and clean last weekend, we are very close to this being completed)
• keep the house clean with three busy chickies and one crazy tornado still living here
• keep up with the yard work to maintain "curb appeal"
• remain pregnant until after we . . . 
• . . . SELL THE HOUSE! - hopefully without a realtor
• travel back up to Sandpoint to find somewhere to live - BEFORE the baby is born
• hopefully BUY a HOUSE
• somehow deal with the guilt that I feel about feeling so removed from the reality that we are going to have another baby
• keep this baby from coming before the 29th of August when my mom gets home from a two week volunteer trip to Haiti
• somehow be able to achieve the sweet, calm birth that I had envisioned for this little baby while preparing my family to move 500 miles away two weeks later
• recover from having a baby and find time to connect with this new little member of our family
• pray really hard that I don't get mastitis, with its accompanying 103* temperatures and immobility
• pray that somehow my sweet little Violet will be able to adjust to not only being kicked out of baby spot, but also to an insanely busy (and recovering) Mommy and moving from the only home that she's ever known
• decide whether or not to enroll the girls in school before we move and get clothes and school supplies ready regardless
• wash and set aside baby clothes - while trying to pack away everything else
• hope and pray that Nels won't be working insane hours at Melaleuca for the next five weeks, yet somehow remain employed until his next job begins
• find a way to be able to once again sleep for more than 3 or 4 hours at night
• pray that all of the girls (as well as their parents) will be able to beautifully adjust to all that is coming in the next month and a half

(to be continued . . . )