A Frustrated Move

This is our house.  Specifically, this is our living room, from various angles.  I know that I have posted these kids of pictures before, but, it since it bears on me every day, in my mind, it bears repeating.

As you can see, we have floor to ceiling boxes and supplies in our house.  Here's another view:

 

And here's a view of the kid's toys:

And yes, those 3 cubbies are pretty much all of them.  I mean, we have others, but they have to be brought out in shifts because there's nowhere to put them.  Not that this is a bad thing, but you can see how playing with those toys in the small amount of space on the floor while both Jimmy and I are working would pose a problem.  In addition to the fact that it is impossible to keep the toys organized!  And the blocks, which Jo always wants are on the bottom!

And, lest you think that we have other spaces in the house, let me just tell you that we have 4 small bedrooms:  my inlaws share one, Jo and Elizabeth share another, Jimmy, Gabriel and I have the 3rd, and our roomer uses the 4th.  Other than that, we have a minuscule dining room that when people are sitting at the table eating, you can't walk past it to get into the kitchen.  And that's about it.

I tell you this so that you can understand some of the frustration that we deal with daily due to working in our house.  Yes, it is an awesome opportunity to be able to be home all day, but we can't really be with the kids in the capacity that we want to because we have to work, and then, when the day is over, there is nowhere to go...nowhere to relax. 

This is as good as it gets, which in reality really stinks because this is the same chair that he is in all day working. 

So, Jimmy and I decided to talk to our boss and let him know that we really need to move the business out of our house.  This will be a pay cut for us because we won't be receiving the rent money for the space, but it will ease our lives and our minds considerably, so we will figure out how to make the rest work. 

I spoke with my boss in January and we set a deadline of the middle of March to get the business moved out of our house and ultimately he has decided that the most economical option and the one that would work best for the business would be for us to move our workspace into his basement. 

Jimmy's and my anniversary is this week and Gabriel's birthday is on Monday, and we were really hoping to be able to get the house cleaned out by Monday at least enough that we could put the rest of the stuff in a bedroom and have some space for a get together for Gabriel's birthday, but I got a call this morning from my boss saying that it just isn't going to happen. 

AHHHHH!  Disappointment and frustration!  I understand.  I really do.  He has a lot to clean out to get ready for this move, but we were really looking forward to this.  We had a chart on the fridge where we were putting stickers on every day that we survived counting down to the day that we would have our freedom.  The kids all knew, our inlaws knew, and we, in our hearts knew that there would be an end.  A tangible, touchable end. 

It will happen, I know, eventually, but it's just a matter of patience and understanding and waiting.  But it is so much harder now that there is not a date on it.  I mean, what does it really mean to say that it will get done soon...maybe in a the next few weeks? 

Well, I'm hoping that it means just that.

But then, I know that I will also miss being here.  I will miss being able to see the kids playing outside my window, and I will miss going up to get Gabe from his crib everyday when he wakes up from his naps. 

But all those things are really just frustrations for me.  I want to play with my kids, not watch them out the window.  I want to have the time to snuggle them to sleep, not just run up really quickly between phone calls and data entry to give them a hug on the way to Gramma Uita's room (that's what they call my mother-in-law...a combination of Grandma and Abuelita). 

So, while I really want to move because I want my family to have more room for us when we are here, I don't want to move because I know that I will miss my kids so much and my heart will be here, no matter how hard I try to drag it to my computer desk in its new location. 

Miss Carolyn was talking about change tonight in Women's Bible study, and I was one of those who said that I do not do change well.  I don't want to stay the way we are, all piled up with nowhere to sit, play or sometimes even breathe, but I am afraid of all the implications that the change will bring...less income (by quite a bit), less time home, missing my kids, commute to work...but I just have to hold on to the truth that God has this in His hands and in His plans.   But as a friend of mine reminded me a while ago, He knows the desires of my heart, and as long as I line the desires of my heart up with the truths found in His Word, I can be assured that He will work out the plan for me and our family in the very best way for all of us.

But you know, I just really wish that He would just give me a clue as to how it was going to all work out.  A burning bush or even just a message in the clouds would do...