So. Many. Things.

Christmas Eve. Seriously? It's been since Christmas Eve?? I am the world's worst blogger. Okay, not the absolute worst, but pretty bad.

So, what has happened since Christmas Eve? Well, for one thing: Christmas. It was a low-key, frugal, and somewhat bittersweet holiday because it was our very last one in our House on Hudson Creek.

That's right - we moved! After nearly 13 years there on the banks of Hudson Creek, we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly....Hills, that is. Okay, not Beverly Hills, just the Wyandotte Hills. We moved back to Paul's and my hometown - Wyandotte, OK. We're about 30 minutes from the other house, which means that since my sister and I were neighbors, sadly we are now 30 minutes away from her. We're now about 45 minutes from my Mom and Pops. The distance between us and my Dad hasn't really changed, we're just in a different direction now. It's been an experience, moving with two teens and a tween this time. We had 13 years of accumulated crap, three kids, two dogs, four hamsters and a whole lot of memories to pack up and relocate. The house we moved to was in pretty bad shape per the previous occupants and we did a major overhaul before we moved. We started at the end of November and moved on January 18th. And did I mention we did all of this in the midst of the worst winter Oklahoma has had in a few years? Yeah. That was fun. Fortunately, we picked a great weekend to do it and assembled our amazing family, collaborating the move like a well-oiled machine. We are now across a field from one of Paul's brothers, about a mile from his mother, and less than two miles from the other brother. There are also uncles and nephews in the close vicinity as well. For 20 years of our marriage, we lived closer to my family and Paul never complained. I figured it was time to return the favor. When I was younger (and the kids were younger) I'm not sure I could've lived this far from Mom (Momma's girl, right here, totes guilty), but I'm a big girl now. Some days, anyway.

The week before Christmas my sister and brother-in-law announced the forthcoming addition to the family! They were married on November 1st and pretty much just got busy. We now know that he is a sweet, active, perfectly healthy baby boy and I am just itching to get my hands on him. Because of my sister's clotting disorder she will be induced a week or so before her actual due date, so we are expecting him around the end of July, first of August. The name is a big secret, something I find so very rude (cough cough Heather cough secrets suck cough) but they're enjoying watching us all squirm and try to figure it out. I'm determinedly praying red hair onto that kid.

Paul and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary on New Year's Day. We were exhausted and punch-drunk from packing and remodeling and painting and cleaning (oh, so much cleaning) but we celebrated with the church youth at some friends' house (since ours was full of boxes). The party was scheduled to be over with at 12:30, but those kids party like we old folks do and were ready to go at about 12:05. We didn't go to dinner on our actual anniversary. In fact, I think we just worked on the new house. Now that I think about it...I don't know as if we've ever gotten around to dinner for this anniversary. It's April. Ooops.

I turned 41. We had moved only three days before. The only celebrating was done by way of sleeping in.

Paul and I resigned from our youth ministry positions at our church. We had been feeling an unease of spirit for awhile before we actually resigned. After much prayer, much soul-searching, and plenty of tears, the decision was made. When we sat down with the pastor and made the announcement, nothing but peace followed. We don't miss it, although we miss some of the kids. (Frankly, most of the kids didn't care much for us anyway, not that we were in it to make friends and gain a fan club - we were simply being servants) We have peace. And we have restoration in our health and our marriage as well. It had taken a toll on us both physically and relationship-wise. Probably because at the end we knew we were resisting God's urging to resign and continued longer than we should have. If God chooses to put us back into ministry positions, we will go. If He doesn't, we are okay with that. We have since realized that being called into a ministry position doesn't always mean a lifetime position - sometimes you are called for a season and a reason.

In February I started feeling this weird numbness and tingling on the left, lower side of my back. I figured it was leftover neuropathy from the spider bite because I still suffer from random bouts of pain and numbness/tingling in my face and left arm as a result of that whole debacle. I mentioned it to my favorite pharmacist while picking up my medicine refills one day at the clinic and he said I just needed a higher dose of my nerve pain medicine. He visited with my PA, she tripled my dose, life went on. I mentioned offhandedly to my mom one evening about the tingling/itching/numbness and she said it sounded like Shingles. Yeah. I got the Shingles. It is April and I am just now not feeling like I want to claw off part of my skin all day long.

We are six weeks from the end of school and Abby's graduation celebration. EEEEK.

Last week my dad got a cancer diagnosis, so after the initial shock, a full day of intermittent crying, I am at peace with the news. I am concerned, but not worried. After spending the evening of what I refer to in my head as Diagnosis Day with Dad, I drove home and started crying again. I turned on the radio and found KLOVE. During two songs that will forever be dear to me (just like Chris Tomlin's "I Lift My Hands" will be special to me because of the comfort it gave me when Pops had his stroke) God really impressed upon my heart that my tears were unnecessary and He assured me, His precious daughter, that He was entirely in control of things. I haven't shed a tear of worry over Dad since. I do think we all are realizing the absolute precious nature of life now more than ever.

So now we are settled in, settling down, enjoying life a little more, and I am determined to keep up with the blogging - and writing in general - from now on.

Heh.

I've said that before.

Someone should hold me to this....