Oh look, it’s time to move again.

goodbye

My brain is starting to get that tingle. The half sickening / half exciting realization that rooms need to be cleaned, belongings need to be sorted, boxes need to be packed.

 

Sometime in the next 4 to 6 weeks we’ll be saying goodbye to this lovely, furnished Canadian house that has been so good to us. It’s odd moving into someone else’s house. But the new wears off pretty quickly and before you know it, what was surreal just feels regular old mundane. We’ve gotten comfortable in this house that isn’t ours, with this stuff that isn’t ours. But it’s almost time to say goodbye. We’ll be moving out in the next month or so and hopefully into another furnished house for the summer.

 

Which, will be fun in it’s own right. A new kitchen to explore, for one. Yes please.

 

But in the mean time it’s time to do all the unsexy, nitty gritty, logistic work of moving. Even though by most standards we own practically nothing, there’s still a decent amount to be sorted through. Also, it’s crazy how much you can accumulate in one year. Seriously. I wonder how our current homeowners might feel about “inheriting” a few new toys and art supplies . . .

 

The weirdest part, for me, is not keeping clothes for more than one season. It’s a strange dance of faith that feels downright impractical / irresponsible. You can wear that sweater again next year! But we came here in a few suitcases and we’ll leave the same way. It’s not worth the time and money to ship most stuff back to Georgia. And, if this year has taught me anything, it’s that GOD CAN PROVIDE. Surely he keeps a secret stash of sweaters in Georgia, too.

 

So anyway, I’ve already back-burnered the blog a bit in the last several weeks and I suspect it won’t get any better anytime soon. I need to clean this house, y’all. And donate a lot of stuff to the Value Village. And ship a few boxes home. And hug and kiss these blasted kids who refuse to quit growing!

 

Sigh. The joy of being nomads.

 

-Jessica

Birds Of The Air – Flour, Flour, and Friends

birds of the air

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

 

-Matthew 6:26

 

 

Okay, so I know it’s been a few, um, weeks since my last Birds Of The Air post. My bad. It’s been a hard month. First my back was all “I hate you! Die die die!”. Then as soon as I recovered from that my sinuses were all “I hate you! Die die die!” I’m still slowly recovering from that last assault on my life. Seriously. Sinus infections are the worst.

 

Okay so, we got another box full of rice and coffee goodness a couple weeks back. That makes a total of 20 lbs of rice that we got within about a week’s time. You’d think that would last awhile, but rice is my friend and I like to hang out with her a lot. Especially since we started cooking vegetarian I tend to rely on her. We’re already at least half through one bag.

 

like the birds of the air

 

I put out a few pleas for flour via the facebook fanpage last week and y’all came through. Back sometime in the end of 2012 you guys had sent a total of 75 lbs of flour. Well, we finally ran out. Thanks mostly do Twelve Year Old’s new affinity for baking. She’s a cookie and pancake making machine.

Unfortunately, we ran out with two Wild Boys staring down impending birthdays. That needed chocolate cake. A local friend saw my plea and came to the rescue with some whole wheat flour from her own cabinet that she had bought and abandoned once upon a time.

birds of the air

 

And another 25 lb bag came a bit later. The chocolate cake near catastrophe was saved.

 

birds of the air

 

Speaking of Wild Boy birthdays, Eight Year Old turned Nine and Six Year Old turned Seven.  They both may or may not have received candy from their great-grandma.

 

Everett and Lucas

Everett and Lucas

 

Their great grandma (and great aunt and uncle) pretty predictably send boxes for every holiday and birthday.

 

birds of the air

 

Their grandma also sent them backpacks, which they’ve been wanting for some reason. Silly homeschool kids. We’ll probably use them for hiking.

 

back packs

We’ve also had several dinners with friends lately. We’ve been in Canada for nearly a year and I’m still impressed that we manage to eat one meal out pretty much every week. We went to a spontaneous BBQ this past weekend on Nine Year Old’s birthday, which was the best party he could’ve asked for. Ten little boys jumping on the trampoline and eating hot dogs.

 

But the biggest Birds Of The Air moment in recent weeks is nitty gritty bank account related. We’ve been in Canada for exactly 11 months now and we’ve slowly but surely drained our savings. I’ve mentioned before that between Jeremy’s GI Bill and the small bit of money I bring in online, we make enough each month to almost cover our rent. Everything else, bills groceries, luxuries, slowly drain our account. Thanks to you people, that money has drained much much much slower than it should’ve.

A couple of weeks ago, for the first time since moving, we walked around with controlled anxiety just under the surface, knowing that there wasn’t enough money in the bank to cover our next rent check. Literally, within a week, we were reimbursed for some tuition from Jeremy’s school, and our tax return came in, weeks sooner than we expected it to.  Now we’re all, “Hallelujah, we’re rich! Let’s buy cheerios!”

 

Again, thank you guys so so so so (insert more so’s) for the help you’ve been so far in our journey. When we moved here we quickly realized that, not only could we not afford to keep spending like we had been in Georgia, but groceries were way more expensive here, to boot. (Seriously, cheese here costs 3 times what I was paying in Georgia. Needless to say, our cheese intake has reduced greatly) We would’ve run out of money months ago without you guys.

 

***

Speaking of the awesome, if you’d like to help through our amazon.com grocery wishlist, we’re out of oatmeal (again. We burn through oatmeal, coffee, and peanut butter like crazy). The reason we use it up so fast is that we eat hot breakfast every morning (because to buy good old fashioned sugary delicious cereal in Canada cost roughly the price of your first born).

 

Twelve Year Old informs me that we’re out of chai. She drinks a cup of it every day so I reckon she finally slowly used up our last stash.

 

We’re also getting low on honey. Gotta have something to go in all that tea and on the peanut butter sandwiches.

 

I’ve also added a few new things like spaghetti, spaghetti sauce (we’re out of both) and a 72 pack of applesauce cups! Yay snacks! Click the link below to see our whole list.

 

Amazon Grocery Wishlist

Sorry this one was so long winded. That’s what happens when you don’t write for three weeks.

-Jessica

When You Want To Make The Gospel Fresh Again

god's favorite place

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Okay, so sometimes I just feel like a huge loser.

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Be Kind To The Cynics

Bear with us. I know it’s not fair. I know it’s not always easy. But be gentle with the wounded, be kind to the cynics.

  It’s no great secret that the last few years I’ve been wrestling with the demons of doubt, depression, and the general human condition. I’ve been carrying my cross through a road littered with guilt, legalism, traditions, theology, and elitism, stepping carefully around each obstacle that threatens to trip my soul. Sometimes I fall anyway. [...]

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Remember When I Used To Blog?

  Yeah, that was fun.   I’ve unexpectedly entered a blogging hiatus in the last few weeks. There are a few factors that fed into this.   One – all the computers have been taken. My husband is always doing homework and my boys are super into Minecraft and other things these days and I [...]

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