Country Life

We've been in Texas for over a month now. Time seems to be moving strangely. The days feel long sometimes and our life in Oregon feels like a lifetime ago- like I was a different person then with a completely different life. But at the same time, it doesn't feel like we have been here that long. Or maybe it's just that things are progressing more slowly on all fronts than I expected they would. But I like living out here on the ranch much more than I thought that I would. I thought it would be hard to live with my in-laws but Trey and Patty make amazing roommates. The kids are doing exponentially better at sharing a room than I expected and life here on the ranch is just soo peaceful. It's quiet and safe and feels like a haven. There's a lot that I love about living here. I love that my kids are turning into tanned, bug-bitten, barefoot country kids with sun-bleached hair who love to be outside, swim, pick up bugs and play in puddles. Levi usually runs out as soon as he's done with breakfast and usually refuses shoes despite my warnings that he's going to burn his feet on the hot ground or get bitten by fire ants. And one of the aunts was cleaning out her garage and gave Papi and Nona a bunch of new ride on toys which my kids love. After breakfast we usually all get dressed and head outside before it gets too hot. Emery is obsessed with this little ride in car that I can push. She always "runs" over to it and climbs in first thing. And Levi loves to ride his y-bike or his trike and have races with Carson. Sometimes Cami and Carson and Katie all come outside and play in the mornings and I absolutely love seeing my kids develop these close friendships with their cousins. Levi always asks to stay out longer with them.

Emery is happy to just sit with Cami and Katie and "draw" with chalk or play with bubbles

The boys will race down one driveway and then up the other. I just love how much space they have to play!

Emery loves the ride on toys too although she's not yet tall enough nor coordinated enough to push herself on any of them independently. 

With Eric working in Plano three days a week though, the days can feel very long. He's often gone in the morning before Levi wakes up and doesn't come home till we've already started dinner. 11 hours of straight Levi with no respite can feel like a lot. He and I both get on each others' nerves! And this past week, Emery has been struggling hard with her afternoon nap even though she clearly still needs one and isn't ready to transition down to one nap a day since by about 9 am she is rubbing her eyes and super sleepy. But it's been taking her up to an hour some days to go down for her afternoon nap which is stressful. She is getting a lot better at putting herself to sleep though and she is finally back to sleeping through the night which is a huge relief. I thought I was going to die those first few weeks here when she was waking up so much at night. I've realized that although I don't usually feel tired during the day when I'm sleep deprived, it manifests in other ways- I get much more short-tempered with Levi and I start having a lot of negative thoughts about everything- which can get especially bad at night. The lack of sleep messes with my brain and takes it to a very dark place. So, I am especially grateful that Emery is sleeping again (at night at least).

But yeah, this is Eric's last week of his month-long trial with MedQ. I am anxious to see what Friday brings and whether Eric will be offered the full-time position. We have really been kind of banking on it, well at least I have. We've held off even applying to be pre-approved for a mortgage until he has a full-time job and I am anxious to get going on that. As much as living here at Trey and Patty's has been going so well, I still feel a little lost without my own space. With no space of my own, no car, no job and none of my old friends (except Shalece who we've been spending some time with which is GREAT!) I feel a little bit like I've lost myself. Like I'm drifting aimlessly out here. I take care of the kids, we go swimming a lot and go for walks and bake and do art (I've done two cool string art projects and Levi likes to paint) but it's a lot of "hmmm what should we do today?" I'm not used to having so much free time (well free for me and the kids- which is definitely not the same as free me-time!)

 

My first forays into string art! Levi was very involved in this project! He said he wanted an airplane with luggage so he picked out the design and the colors and he helped me hammer the nails. It was a fun thing to do together. And I LOVE how Emery's little birds on a line turned out. 

Levi said he wanted to paint something wooden so we went to Hobby Lobby and he picked out this snake to paint.

 

I took the kids down to Frisco the other day for a Touch-a-Truck event. Shalece brought Cassidy and Lincoln to it too. It was really cool with TONS of different trucks that the kids could climb up into and touch everything and honk horns, etc. Levi was not as into it as I thought he would be though! Emery LOVED it but Levi was a little unsure and hesitant, especially because it was so loud and noisy with kids honking loud horns regularly. 

They both had fun ringing the bell on the fire engine though.

Levi and Emery are both getting very good at climbing! Emery is fearless and will go down big slides all by herself. 

Two Wednesdays ago the weather was BEAUTIFUL and not too hot (high of like 89!) so I took the kids down to the Fort Worth Zoo. I took the kids on the train (which Levi loved) and we just got to spend the day looking at animals.

There's a lot of shade at the Fort Worth zoo and even though it was a bit crowded, we still got a lot of good views of the animals.  

 

Playing at the park by the Denton splash pad

 

On Friday Shalece brought her kids out to the ranch to swim and play with us. Cassidy and Emery were so cute in the pool together! And it was just so fun to have friends here to play with! I wish they weren't leaving to go back to Chicago in a week!  

We tried to buy a car for me yesterday but it was an epic flop that put me in a very bad mood. We've been to 8 dealerships now and test driven a lot of cars and after weighing a lot of pros and cons and looking at our budget and how much we have to put down and how much we want our monthly payment to be and all that, we think we know what kind of car we want. And so yesterday I found a few promising potentials on Car Guru. So I called the dealerships and set an appointment with one and then the other said we could come test drive any time that day. So we drove an hour down there and both dealerships totally dropped the ball. We did a ton of waiting around only to be told that the cars we were interested in were being serviced or otherwise unavailable which was so frustrating because we had called ahead and everything! So we ended up sitting around for like two and half hours and not even getting to test drive anything! I am so over it. And so ready to just have my own car again! Patty has been wonderful and lets me use her car a lot but I just need my own minivan!

And on the job front, I have heard nothing but crickets. I got my Texas license (yay!) but other than that have made no progress. I've heard absolutely nothing from my contract company, and I've applied to three different school-based jobs directly but haven't heard back from any of them. I've called and tried to follow-up but no one has called me back. But the positions I applied for are all listed as still open online. Sooo I don't know what's going on with that. Well, actually, with one of them I think I know what's going on because I saw that they are currently in process of hiring a new executive director of Special Ed. And since that's typically the person that would hire me, since that position is open, there's no one to hire a PT. So that kind of makes sense. But I don't know what's going on with the other ones. And school starts in just two weeks (which is crazy!). So Eric and I have talked about it and if the school year starts and I still don't have a position, (which at this point looks extremely likely) I will start looking into other options. The last time I checked there were two part-time outpatient peds openings in the area so that's good! It would be a huge learning curve for me though and super intimidating, especially with everything else we have going on right now! I mean, I just don't feel like I have a ton of time to commit to brushing up on the medical model, diagnoses, treatments, etc considering that we are car-hunting and house-hunting and all of that! But after reviewing our finances, I really do have to work at least part-time so I will have to find something! But we will let these last two weeks play out before I dive into that search too deeply.

So yeah, that's what's been going on here. I know this is a memorable summer and it feels almost surreal to be living it right now. Like in leaving Orgeon we kind of jumped off a cliff into the unknown and now I'm free-falling but it's more of a drift or a float- I feel weightless and un-anchored. With no house and no job to tie us anywhere, it's like we could blow away. And yet, I still have all my daily burdens of childcare and trying to raise my kids right-which with a very inquisitive and opinionated three-year-old and an active, mischevious little one-year-old can be exhausting!

"Family date" to Target to get new sunglasses! 

Levi is seriously such a little model! And Eric rocks those aviators.

So we have finally weaned Levi totally off his binkies! The day we did it, we took him to Target and let him pick out a special lovey to help him sleep at night without his binky. Well, this ugly thing is what he chose. And he named it Nate! Hahaha. And he LOVED it the first day and I don't' think he has played with it since. So Nate was a flop, but it doesn't matter because Levi is off the binkies now anyway. 

Emery and Levi have started playing together a little bit more as they've gotten older. The other day they were walking around holding hands and my heart just about melted. 

 

This weekend has been a wildlife-in-the-house weekend! First there was this cute little gecko running around our kitchen, then yesterday Levi said he saw a snake in the bathroom. Eric and I thought he had mistaken the gecko for a snake but then this morning Levi almost stepped on this little snake in the hall! He was a very cute little guy but it still freaked me out! Thank goodness Eric was around to take it outside for me! Haha I guess that's life on the ranch for you!