Seven months later...

Totally quit blogging for a while, but I feel like I want a place to trace my thoughts again. So here I am.  Enter at your own risk.

I still miss my dad. He used to read this to keep up with what we were doing. That's largely why I blogged.

My brother, Robbie, lives on the family farm now. He may move for a graphic design job in either Atlanta or somewhere in Texas, but for the moment, he's cleaned out the mess that accumulated on the little 100 acres of fields and woods and is battling entropy in the farmhouse with all he's got.

Robbie and I texted a few times today. He found mine and Jimmy's wedding video. VHS. Archeological artifact. He also found a box of old coins. We know my uncle left them at the farm, but we don't know whether they were for just Robbie or for both of us. So we decided to sell them. We'll use the money to have the driveway repaired.

Kelsey went to Carolina. Loves it. Perfect fit. Joined sorority. Made Dean's List. Double majoring in Journalism and Psychology. Mission "Hark the Sound" = success.

Zane fought the Battle of APUSH. There were a few casualties, not the least of which was our Christmas. Overall, though, I think we all survived.

Zack hates math. We hate math on his behalf. We are not of the Math Tribe. Zack is also playing his second season of i9 flag football.  Apparently we are of the Football Tribe.

Head Coach Jimmy is at it again.

Full-time teaching kicked my butt.  Spring semester is better so far. We're just one week into it.

I'm teaching Honors English II, Honors Creative Writing, Journalism, and Middle School Creative Writing. I'm sure my butt will get kicked again at some point, but right now I'm in my happy place, so shhhhhh...

For reals, though, I love teaching 10th-grade English again. I never thought I'd return to a classroom other than as a parent, but it feels like home.

Last  Monday, Jonathan and April moved out of our house. That's right... we had people living in our basement for six months. It's a long story, but we learned a lot. It was fun. It was challenging. Wouldn't trade it for the world. They moved to a two-year housesitting gig for a couple that went to Kenya as entrepreneurial missionaries. Pretty cool.

We are coming up on a year of leading a small group at church... one of 300+. It's a big church. In the last couple of months, three of the families that began in the group with us have left the group because of scheduling conflicts or because they're planting new groups in the near future, and three new families arrived at the same time. Cool how God works like that. We can tell the Lord is getting ready to do something big. Something substantial. For the first time in a year, we feel like the group is complete.

Uncle Arvel passed away unexpectedly in August. It was almost like losing Dad all over again. I'm glad Robbie and I have each other, though. Losing Dad and Arvel in less than a year has been hard. Understatement.

My momma is doing well. She's moving slowly, but she's moving, which is a huge praise. Her house has been Zane's study center for the past few days as he gets ready for his first semester exams. She began writing her memoirs, and for Christmas we got almost 50 pages of her early years. Pure treasure. There are some finer points of Southern culture (before you judge my capitalization, know that her maiden name is Southern, so THERE) that are quite entertaining.

I wish I were still in a women's Bible study. I miss that a LOT.

I miss my outside-of-schwork friends. I miss coffee dates. I miss shopping trips. I miss road trips. I miss the old Summer Bible Study. I miss sitting by the pool and laughing. I miss long walks through the neighborhood and longer walks on the beach. I miss ladies' nights out. I miss HUGE group email prayer lists. I miss going to Super Walmart for groceries and coming out with supplies for a craft project. I miss being able to park my car without having to have two empty spaces together.

I do love Pinterest, though.

Life changes. About the time I thought I'd never get out of the waking-up-and-packing-lunches-and-driving-carpool-before-sunrise routine, I sent my first baby to college. I like change, really. The same things over and over again are so boring. But I miss a few of those special things that belong to a different stage of life.