Mrs. Maverick

Movement

Has it really been eleven days since I last wrote? So many ideas churning that it hardly seems so. I write in my head throughout the day. Thoughts on baking, talking to toddlers, reinventing my wardrobe or skin routine and the prospect of living once again with one's parents flit around up there. I tell myself to write it all down for real, but then the baby cries and I clean the floor and the day is gone. Funny how I feel so productive and then Shawn asks me what I did all day and my response is a genuine, "I really don't know. Made dinner?" 

I have been feeling in flux for a month or so. After making two quite definitive decisions to first, sell our car and next, move out of our condo, the quest then became to find a place to live. The humblingly obvious answer for us was to move in with my parents for a period of time. Just until we figure things out. Until Shawn gets a promotion and finishes, finishes, finishes his Master's degree. Until we pay off some debt as well. Ah, debt. Seems like the noble product of capitalism that will propel us into a shiny new freedom but actually has this awful capacity to turn on you. 

Back to being in flux. I am packing up our lives room by room and going through the scriptural process of repenting, paring down, being pruned. I talk and pray to Jesus about His plans for us and am thankful for every little thing. His grace (which we will need or, should I say, my parents will need), His constant provision, a roof over our heads, juuuust enough money, health, sun, legs that can walk and run. 

Each day I trek up and down the stairs several times with the end goal in mind of loading the kids up the stroller and heading out for a jog. I am armed with my trusty sneakers and  a Timex with the stopwatch ready at zero. I have been doing this for five weeks now which seems to have somehow flown by! In the begining I was walking mostly with short spurts of shuffling in between and now I am running steadily for most of thirty minutes. It feels amazing. As a friend pointed out to me, so many things are happening at once that makes running feel like the best thing right now. I am becoming stronger, My hips are stabilizing, the skin is snapping(ish) back into place. Breastfeeding is helping me shed those last pounds little by little so I feel lighter each time I run. The weather has been glorious and even if it isn't, the sun is obligated to act springy now--so the light is glorious really. I love seeing the horizon and keeping my head up while simultaneously focusing on the smallest detail like achieving a mid-foot strike and a short stride. The latter things help to prevent strain to the knees and shinsplits. So, I am learning new things too. 

A house in flux

 

 

 

 

Throw it down

Eleanor has this little box containing one book for each letter of the alphabet. They are poorly designed, cheap, cardboard impersonations of literature, but she loves them. Next to her budah (blanket), her bock (box) is it. Shawn and I try our darndest to keep each tiny volume in the bock, but to no avail. They find refuge under the crib, the piano, the couch, the dog bowl. Anyone who thinks there are only twenty-six letters in the English language should come to our house. We live by a different truth here. 

I was recently asked to recommend some baby gear for a first time mom. Funny how when I was pregnant with Eleanor so many things seemed essential. With Charles I think we could make it with a swing, a car seat and a carrier. Oh, and a bouncy seat. And a double stroller. So the question remains...which swing, car seat, etc?

Everyone's moving to Nashville and no one would believe me if I told them that I called it first. I've been scheming our transplantation down South for years and now several of our friends are fleeing New England to the greener, warmer, more affordable Tennessee grass. 

We move out of our place on April 26 and I have been steadily cleaning and packing. I am struck by how much we have accumulated over the years. When is optimal happiness achieved as far as stuff goes? Fourteen pairs of socks as opposed to thirteen? Five dresses as opposed to four? I am asking those questions, ridding our lives of excess and finding lightness along the way---a side benefit of drastic downsizing to be sure. 

I'm just going to write it: $7,000 a month when we were first married, $5,800 a month leading up to the time when Eleanor was born. $3,400 now. Full disclosure as far as our monthly income goes. I actually discovered that a friend of mine and her family are living on a similar amount and I felt encouraged and relieved to have the comradery. I also felt embarrassed because she does the living part with much more grace than I do. 

A walking we will go, rain or shine, in this sixty something degree weather. I am not eating as much sugar and I am putting quinoa, kale and avocado in a bowl and calling it truly yummy. I am praying more throughout the day and would not want God to have placed us in any other circumstance. I want to be here. It is amazing all of things you can do, the perspectives you can adopt when "less" is the rule.