Nevermind that we actually DID get snow this past Monday and had enough for my girls to make a snowman in the backyard. I know that it’s mid-March and that proper homemakers of America have officially taken down ALL of their winter decorations and probably even have some spring ones up.

I am not a proper homemaker of America.

What’s this? It’s my front yard. See that little yard ornament there in front of the for-decoration-and-leaf-collecting-only bird bath? Need a closer look?

Yep. That’s my snowman in the spring. I also had a doormat out front with Christmas trees on it that, as of ten minutes ago, is now in the trash because when you leave a decorative doormat out for four months that should only have been out for, say, two weeks, you have problems.

Here are my excuses: 1) we rarely ever go through the front door and my whole life can be summed up by the mantra “out of sight, out of mind.” 2) I don’t know what to do with him – do I pack him away with the Christmas stuff? Do I toss him in with the stuff headed to Oklahoma in three days for a temporary vacation in my parents’ garage? He’s a man without a country, Frank.

I am this snowman in the spring. I need to pack, but what? I’m in that very uncomfortable spot of needing to clear out some excess so we can get our house ready to show, but also we still live here and need to until late July. And we’re still homeschooling and kid-shuttling and all the other stuff that makes up the sum of our St. Louis lives.

I’m really kind of a mess. I don’t know if my mind is in St. Louis with all the present realities we’ve got going on or if it’s in Oklahoma City with all the uncertainties that lie ahead.

So here I stay – kind of noticeably out of place, like a snowman in the spring. If I’m not careful I’m going to melt.

This is part two of the story of Something Different, Something Big.

So. I was right, right? Here’s more to the story.

The email arrived on Friday, February 4. I’m trying to remember what happened that evening. I believe it involved a lot of driving kids from one place to another and then picking them up again. I remember being exhausted that night and I remember we all went to bed pretty early.

And then I remember waking up at 4:30 the next morning because one of our wretched beloved cats had recently begun a pee protest in our bedroom. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure it was Ricky’s way of telling us, “I HATE THAT DOG ALREADY AND YOU NEED TO KNOW IT. WATCH ME AS I PEE ALL OVER YOUR FLOOR!”

Ricky wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, though, and he always outted himself by scratching the carpet as though he would be able to cover his deed. His scratching woke me up at 4:30 and I woke up in a crazy white hot rage. I don’t think I realized exactly what time it was or that my action of yelling at him at the top of my lungs might wake up the other five members of my family. I do remember thinking, “I’m going to find that blasted cat and I’m going to kill him. I’m actually going to wring his neck and kill him.” I started chasing this cat around my house at 4:30 in the morning.

As I ran down the stairs I was startled to see Craig was already down there. I thought he was still in bed ignoring my threats to undo the only other male member of our household.

Keep in mind, I was not actually coherent at this point. I was just exhausted and livid. He looked up at me wondering what in the heck I was doing tearing down the stairs after a CAT at 4:30 in the morning. I looked at him without asking why he was up and calmly said, “I’m going to kill Ricky and then I’m going back to bed.”

I proceeded with my hunt, but Ricky had gone somewhere only bad cats can go and I couldn’t find him. I conceded my defeat and sat down on one of the living room chairs for a moment. Craig asked me if I was awake. I gave him one of my best, “What are you, nuts?” looks and said I really wasn’t and was going back to sleep. He said, “Well, I’m not really good at this, but you are never up this early in the morning, so I’m taking this as a sign I have something to tell you.”

Keeping in mind it’s still 4:30ish in the morning, I’m barely awake, save for a desperate plea to avenge justice on one very bad cat and all I can think of when I hear this coming from Craig is, “Oh no, this can’t be good. There’s no way this is good.” My gracious response was something like, “I guess you need me to clear a spot at the table then, huh?”

He gave me grace and didn’t say anything as I stumbled into the dining room and shoved the latest visible proof of life from one side of the table to the other and sat down. He sat down. He pushed the email in front of me. I began to read. I began to cry. I said, “I know I’ve been saying I thought something would change and we would find out in February, but that didn’t mean I really WANTED it to!”

Truly I’m a piece of work.

He’d already begun a pros and cons list and asked me to add to it. I did the best I could at what was quickly approaching 5 in the morning. He asked me what I thought. I said I wasn’t sure what I thought but I think we both already knew how this was going to go down.

God had been preparing me for this since November. I knew the second I read that email that this was the change I had been expecting. What I didn’t know was how emotionally wrenching the weeks to follow would become as we walked through the process of determining if this was, indeed, the direction we were to go in.

To be continued…

Last November I started having this sense that something was going to change for us. Something different. Something big. I didn’t exactly know what that something was, but something told me it was going to happen and we would find out in February.

Does that sound as weird to you as it did to Craig and the handful of people I actually confessed it to at the time? I know. It sounds crazy.

I was having dinner with a group of friends one night in mid-November and someone asked about my role with Classical Conversations for the next year. I slipped and said, “Well, if we’re still here next year…” my voice tapered off. Why in the world did I say that out loud? I had absolutely nothing to base that on other than a “feeling” and I’m not usually one to act on feelings in that way. I was shocked I said that and talked my way out of it pretty fast.

But it sort of became the family joke. Whenever we would talk about a future decision, I would throw out, “Just wait until February and then we’ll know whether to do that or not.” We had different friends over one Saturday afternoon in January and they asked us about our future. Craig joked that I was convinced our lives were going to change in February and then he looked at me grinning. I turned 1,000 shades of red and laughed it off.

I was convinced but I didn’t know why.

Craig turned 40 on February 5. He entered into a 40-day period of intense seeking and reflecting on what God would have for the next 40 years of life should God so grant that for him. This 40-day period came to an end on his birthday. The night before he received an email from a friend of ours. It was an email that would begin the change I’d been waiting for since November. It was the email that would usher in this new phase of our lives.

To be continued…

Part 2 of Something Different, Something Big