The March of April May Do Me In

I haven't blogged since March. Unlike other times when I didn't write, I haven't mentally composed entries and then not gotten a chance to write them up. I just haven't even had the mental space to even think!

In March I was still waiting to hear from some programs I had applied to. Then I took a long solo road trip to visit Beowulf and take him his things that were left in our house. I visited my aunt and uncle and met a new cousin, visited old friends, and then went to visit a university. I loved it so much I didn't want to leave! Then I drove 11 hours home and collapsed. I still hadn't heard about funding.

In April, I was still waiting to hear from some programs and about funding. I was checking my email every two minutes and finally resorted to only allowing myself to check it between episodes of House of Cards. Then I got sick and watched about twenty episodes in two days, so there went that. As of April 15, when I had to tell universities yea or nay, I *still* didn't know about funding! I decided to tell my favorite university that I was coming if they were offering me funding, and deferring till the following year if they weren't. They replied that they would put me down as deferred. Then followed a long, upsetting exchange where I found out that they had known since February that they didn't have funding for me but didn't tell me so that I could look for another source. My eczema flared horribly and I thought, "Here's the proof that it's stress-related!" I thought I was going to have to wait another year, which meant staying at my job which had taken a nose-dive and also finding a new place to live as we had already arranged to move out of our house. We spent Easter weekend looking at possible rentals. I had already planned at trip to Alabama at the very end of April and had hoped that everything would be settled by then so that I could relax, but now it looked like it wouldn't be. I could still apply for funding but wouldn't know until mid-May or later if I got it, so we didn't know if we should look for a short-term rental or long-term or if we were staying in our current state or moving to another state! And we still have six children at home and jobs that we were trying to take care of and do during all this!  Siegfried (my husband) wanted to take a long weekend and go visit his mom before we had to move so he decided to squeeze it in before my trip to AL. I took him to the airport Friday afternoon, then went home and picked up my daughters from school, then took some of the children home and older daughter Isolde to ballet and then went to look at two possible rentals. The first one was adequate, but the second one I absolutely, totally loved! It had a gigantic map of the world in the foyer, and the entire house was gorgeous. I drove back to ballet, called Siegfried who had just landed, and told him about it. He said if I loved it that much to just apply for it without waiting for him to see it. We hung up and I checked my email and there was an offer of a teaching assistantship from the Spanish department. I literally (and I do mean literally!) could not believe it. Twenty minutes after seeing a house I loved and feeling like I was all right with staying for another year and THERE IT WAS - my funding! Now we had to decide our entire lives by Tuesday, the day my husband was coming back. Great timing! I asked all my friends for advice and most said to follow our hearts. The only reason to stay was that we both had jobs. I felt like I was choosing between financial security and our vision for our lives. I ended up writing a list of reasons why we wanted to move and then evaluating which option met the most reasons. Monday night when my husband and I were supposed to talk about it, instead he was really upset about something with his mother, which he told me, which got me really upset, and then we still had to decide our lives. We decided to go for it! The next day I accepted the assistantship and contacted the landlord of the house I had looked at while visiting the university, picked up my husband from the airport, went to work the next day, and something else really upsetting happened! I still hadn't packed for my trip and I was leaving right after school. I went home and threw things in a suitcase and drove eight hours to Alabama.

And that was April. If you thought that was a long paragraph to read, try living through it!

May started with a lovely vacation with my sister in Alabama (despite more upsetting news from work), and then went into high gear with informing my job that I was leaving, trying to figure out when to move out of our house, rehearsals, showcases, recitals, plays, concerts, packing, packing and more packing! To complicate things, we aren't moving directly to our new state, but the children and I are spending the summer with my mother while Isolde does a five week ballet intensive. We secured the house I had seen in our new state but couldn't move in until the end of July. So the majority of our stuff needed to be put in storage pods and then shipped there, while I also needed stuff to occupy the boys for five or six weeks in another state, while we would still be living in our house here for a few weeks. Oh, and did I mention that we still have six children at home and jobs to do? Yeah. May was nuts. It ended with our movers not showing up to load the pods.

And now it's June. The end is in sight: the end of school, the end of packing, the end of living in rural isolation, the end of stressing about our house. However, we still need to find a place for Siegfried to live for the summer, and he still needs to find a job in our new state or we will be living apart for a while. Sigh...you know Kriemhild couldn't stand to be parted from Siegfried!

And that, in a very big nutshell, is why I haven't had mental space or time for blogging.