Klutz

I've been known to be sort of accident prone.  It's ironic that my middle name is Grace, because rarely do I live up to the expectation it may precede for me.  Usually this adds up to funny, self-depricating, occasionally embarrassing moments that I can chuckle about and turn into a good story later.  And, while I'm about to tell one of these stories, I'm not quite laughing about it yet.

Ten days after we made our gigantic move across country from Southern California to Nashville, Tennessee, I fell down the stairs.  But, I mean, I really fell down some stairs.  Obviously, I've lived to tell about it, so I'm fine. (Thanks, Jesus!) And usually I wouldn't want to linger on something so depressive...but, this really made an impact on my life (pun intended) so I'd be remiss not to share the experience with you.

It was stupid, really.  I wish I had a glamorous tale to tell of how it all happened, but I don't.  It was about 10pm and I was already in my jammies heading to bed.  Mind you, I'd been reprimanding my daughters ALL WEEK about stair safety and they even had a small topple of their own that led to some stern talkings-to about how we behave going up and down the steps.  (It's okay, you can laugh at that!)

I had heard our cat Zuzu (the painfully shy one) running around upstairs, so I went up to snag her.  No reason.  Just simple, stupid, normal-life stuff.  I went upstairs and picked her up, and turned to go back downstairs.  On the second step, I felt my left foot slip and in one of those awful-slow-motion-moments, I knew I was falling.  It was a perfect slip-on-a-banana-peel sort of klutzy move that perfectly landed me on my back about five steps down from the top, and then I slid a few more steps on my back.  If I was auditioning for a Buster Keaton film, I definitely would have nailed the part.

I gasped to draw breath for a laugh, when instead my face turned to utter anguish as I felt the most debilitating pain I've felt in my whole life.  I'm not kidding.  (And I've gone through natural labor pains for hours and hours.  I've felt pain!)  Josh was at the bottom of the stairs, his facial expression a mixture of disbelief and fear.

"Call 9-1-1.  Something is wrong."  I've never uttered those words in my life, so he knew I meant it.  I couldn't move the right side of my body.  He couldn't move me to the couch.  I was stuck on the stairs, crumpled over on my side, and my lower back and right hip felt like they were on fire.  What in the world did I do???

By the time the paramedics arrived, I was in shock.  I had vomited and nearly blacked out, and they couldn't find a pulse or my blood pressure.  But, I could move my toes and state my name...Thank you God, I thought.

Moving me was excruciating.  I've never heard myself sound the way I did.  I kept involuntarily screaming in pain, tears bursting out of my face.  I was screaming at the top of my lungs and my daughters' bedroom was 15 feet away where they were sound asleep.  And I'm the person who, on a normal night, will mute theme songs and commercials on the TV a whole story away just to ensure they don't wake up from the sound of the television!  It is a miracle in and of itself that the girls slept through the entire ordeal.  Again, thanks be to God.

I'd never ridden in an ambulance before.  I barely remember it because my eyes were shut almost the entire time as I focused all my physical resources towards tolerating the pain.  My brother had rushed over as soon as Josh called him (after calling 911) and so, he stayed there until my sister-in-law and their kids came over to stay at our place to be with the girls in case they woke up.

Josh and my brother followed the ambulance to the medical center just a couple miles away (though, it seemed like one of the longest rides of my life).  Everything was bright and weird and blurry and unsettling.  I just wanted answers.  Answers and massive amounts of pain killers, please.

Two CAT Scans, an IV, a catheter, and about six hours later, I was released with a very boring diagnosis.  A bruise.  Okay, not exactly just a bruise...a to-the-bone-deep severe contusion on the right side of my lower back/hip.  The muscle had basically been ruptured by the blow of the fall, and so I was sent home with four prescriptions of pain killers and muscle relaxants.

I had no idea what was in store for me when it came to recovery.  All I knew was, I'm going to be okay.  And for the moment, that was enough relief for all of us.  The healing process would be a whole other ballgame.

(Stay tuned tomorrow to hear what I learned through my recovery and how I'm doing now.)

Home Sweet Home

Well, as you can imagine, I was just itching to get inside our new home.  Since we'd travelled over 2,000 miles and waited weeks and weeks to see inside our new home, I was at my wits end to get inside this apartment I'd rented for our family sight unseen.

I think I exhaled the deepest sigh of my life upon entering our new abode.  Parquet flooring (real wood! no laminate!) welcomed my eager feet on our first level.  The space was clean and open and smelled of fresh paint (ah, sweet relief!)

The dining area was ample, with a new light fixture hanging in the middle of the room.  And the kitchen was small but adequate.  I quickly noticed it's charm in some of the mismatched cupboard doors and a piece of the counter that was completely different than the rest.  I love those sorts of things - signs that life has happened here, and it welcomed us with all our creativity and flaws.  Character, if not love, makes a home.

Dining area, just to the left when you walk in

The upstairs bathroom. Yay!

Jesus mug, making his home in the new kitchen :)

And this place has plenty of character!  Some quirky tile in the bathrooms (yes! plural! a whole half-bath upgrade from our last place) and non-turning door knobs on the closets in the bedrooms (as in, they are just knobs) soon began to tell me that this was exactly the perfect place for us.  Not perfect, but charming...quite a bit like us.

The bedrooms are both good size, and for once, our massive king-size bed actually has room on both sides for walking around it.  The carpet upstairs was new too, just awaiting the many juice and crayon stains I'm certain my girls will mark their territory with all too soon.

Breaking in our space, one messy meal at a time.

And, above anything else, was the one space that captured my heart:  the laundry room.  Innovatively tucked beneath the stairwell, was a little closet that would hold my soon-to-be new best friends (Mr. Washer, and Mrs. Dryer).  We didn't have a washer and dryer in our last home, and so it genuinely is a game-changer to our lives as we get to wash and dry our clothes in our very own space.  Not only that, but there is a dishwasher in the kitchen!  Yahoo!  No more scrubbing out sippy cups!  So help me, I am determined to never take these appliances for granted.

Dance PARDY in the living room!

All in all, our new home is AWESOME.  We just adore it, and are eagerly and slooowly making it our own.  As we hang pictures and fit all our belongings into their new spaces, we're grounding ourselves into new habits and routines that will soon become "normal".  But, for right now, it's fun exploring all the new crevices of our castle.  We proudly hang our "P" on our door, marking our territory (pun intended) for all to see where we reside.

The closets are filled with clothes.  The cabinets hold our dishes.  And as these early days fly by, we're doing our best to fill the rooms with prayers and laughter.  These walls await many memories we're about to make.  Thank you, Lord, for providing our new home.

Come visit!

Sight Unseen

One takes many risks when deciding to pick up and move across the country.  Sure, there's the cost, the inconvenience, and even the courage you have to muster in order to conquer the distance.  But, in our case, there was an additional mystery added to our venture.  We had never seen the apartment we were about to move our lives into.

Now, I've moved into a new space "sight unseen" before; but, that was way back before a husband or children were in the picture.  I figured I could just about get by living anywhere, and indeed I did.  But, this was a whole new ballgame.

When the final decision was made that, yes, indeed, we were officially moving to Nashville.  I started scouring the internet in search of our next home.  I had limited criteria, "safety" and "location" being at the foremost of my priorities.  Certainly, "cost" was a MAJOR factor as we anticipated the probability of moving without a job in place.  But, the nice thing was that when you live in California, just about anywhere is going to be cheaper than your used to, so that was a huge bonus in our favor.

I clumsily bounced around various websites, filtering out the scary ones and weeding through the unattainables.  Still, I wasn't really finding anything that seemed to fit our needs.  Then, a friend of mine in Nashville emailed me a very casual "maybe check out this place" as a friend of a friend of ours lived there years ago.  The thing was - there was no website, no photos, no nothing to go on what this apartment complex actually looked like from 2,000 miles away.

It was a Friday when I called their leasing office.  Against all odds (and the manager actually told me, they never have openings for their 2 bedrooms) there was an opening in mid-June.  On Sunday, I emailed our application.  On Monday morning we got a call that we got the apartment.  Done deal.  Whoa.  What had I just gotten us into???? 

This is when it started to really sink in that we were going to move.  We had a new home waiting for us.  We just didn't know what it looked like.

Fortunately, I was able to have my sister-in-law and my friend drive-by the complex and scope it out a bit.  It appeared well taken care of, and nothing scary on the outside.  I got a few photos sent to me of the premises and even our new front door.  But still, the inside was a mystery!

So...you can only imagine my anxiety, my hope, and my relief when we pulled up and I saw a clean, stable, brick building before me.  The grass was mowed, the cars in the lot were normal (nothing up on cinder blocks, thank goodness) and a few nice big trees dotted the lawn in front of our new home.  The time had come....ENTER!

Tune in tomorrow for a look INSIDE!  :)

Last Leg

BACKTRACK here and read about our ROADTRIP.

We were more than halfway there.  We just picked up our girls in Kansas – alive and well and bubbling with excitement to get to their new home they’d been hearing about for weeks.  I can only imagine this idea to their little toddler minds.  What did they envision?  What did they fear?  What did they anticipate?

All I could think about was “Just get there.  Just get there.  Just get there.”

Our plan was to drive about 10 hours the first day and get to St. Louis and stay the night at a nice hotel as a family, then we would only have about 6 hours to cover the next day before moving into our new home.  It was a good plan, but another flat tire brought a major time setback, and so it was 9pm before we checked into the hotel.  I don’t think the girls crashed in bed before midnight.  Oy.

crazy girls...crazy TIRED girls

The hotel was great (I would highly recommend the Drury Plaza at the Arch in St. Louis if you ever find yourself there) but we had our sights set on our own home and our own bed and our own everything – and sometimes when you just long for home, it doesn’t matter how nice your surroundings are…if it’s not home, it’s not home.

The next day brought as much frustration as it did fruition.  We were so insanely excited for this final day to be here; and yet, traffic and cranky toddlers have a tendency to obscure joy into pure anxiety.

We had invested in a DVD player for the car prior to the move.  This was gold.  [Insert judgment for my modern parenting skills here.]  It paid for itself tenfold before the first movie even finished.  Still, toddlers want to MOVE and their car seats aren’t exactly designed for energy-expenditure.  By the third viewing of Wreck It Ralph, I thought I was going to lose my mind.  I couldn’t take being asked “Where are we?” one more time.  And this was just about exactly the time we got stuck in traffic.  Again.  Seriously?

Suddenly it seemed like months of preparation had narrowed down to this final tunnel of squandered hope.  I thought I might lose it.  My last nerve was being frayed as we drove on and on and on, until a single vein of trust started pulsing inside me.  “Just get there. Just get there.  Just get there.”

Traffic.  Yuck.

And then, the city appeared.  Two thousand miles of road and fear and mystery and anticipation and anxiety and worry and doubt…now, behind us.  We pulled up to our new apartment complex.  We had never seen it before and not even seen photos of the inside of our apartment.  But, the sweetest sight was my family waiting there to greet us. 

My brother, sister-in-law, and their kids who live just minutes from our new home were waiting with open arms to welcome us to our new life.  My girls ran up and hugged them, and suddenly for the first time I felt a new clench in my heart:  “Finally,” I thought.   “Hugs of hello.”

We were here to stay.