Three Meahls a Day

You can now get a full day's worth of Meahl cadets at the West Citrus Cadet Squadron, part of the Florida Wing's Civil Air Patrol program.


Yes, Chase decided out of the blue last week to join her brothers in CAP. Fortunately, we were able to outfit her in BDUs without purchasing a single thing since Gerren has grown out of his original CAP uniform. We may need to get a new BDU blouse before long, but we can put it off for awhile. She will get a free blues uniform from the AF. We'll just have to purchase her shoes (the boys may have some of those as well) and the cap device (which is a pin that goes on the cap). Much less expensive than when the boys joined. :)

She decided to join CAP to become a meteorologist (I have no idea how those two things connect). Carys and I have the house to ourselves on Monday nights now. Ahhh!

Promised Moving Pictures

These pictures are more of the packing than the moving, but I promised pictures so here they are.

We started piling boxes in the dining room since it really isn't used much.


We quickly outgrew that into the front hallway.


When we couldn't walk in the front hallway, we started moving boxes into the garage.


It took me an entire week to pack up the school room. I couldn't believe there was so much stuff in one room!


The closet in the master bedroom was probably the next worse place. Thankfully, we just threw our clothes in the back of the van and brought them over. What do people do who move across country? The last time I did that I owned next to nothing!


We're finally getting settled and actually accomplished a full week of school!

The Hazards of Moving

Since we've been packing up our house in preparation for moving, we've had stuff sitting everywhere - especially packing tape, scissors, and permanent markers for writing on boxes.

A few nights ago, I went to bed and noticed that Carys had written with permanent marker on the top of my nightstand. Later, Chase found it on the side of my nightstand. This morning when I was sitting in my "quiet time" chair, I found more permanent marker scribbles on the end of my cedar chest. Then later, Chase found some on the back of my oak mirror on a stand.

Sigh! Murphy's Oil soap faded the marks, but I'm afraid they're never coming all the way off.

Craziness!

Well, I've been too busy to blog, but I just had to post something to record all that's been going on in the past 2 weeks.

While we were at our timeshare, we got the news that my Aunt Virginia had passed away unexpectedly. Her children and sisters (including my mom) were devastated. Although I have missed family funerals before (due to the 15-hour drive between us as well as a pregnancy at one time), I really wanted to go home for this. So, we left our timeshare early, and on Thursday, August 26th, drove to Belleville. We left Landon with Greg's brother and his family so he didn't have to miss his college classes.

It was a great time together with my family despite the awful circumstances. We looked at houses in St. Louis and got a feel for the area. We're really praying that God will make a way for us to move up there soon.

We arrived home at 3:40am on Tuesday, August 31. After sleeping until about 10:30, I began the arduous process of packing up this huge house. I can't remember ever being so exhausted! The kids worked along on school as they were able. They will try to accomplish 2 more days this week, then we'll break until we're completely moved.

I got a phone call on Tuesday night from an acquaintance who has a house for sale nearby. They think it will show better if it lived in. So, we are moving there temporarily to cut the grass, care for the pool, and pay they power bill, while it is still for sale. This is such a blessing as we didn't have time to buy another house, and all the 3-bedroom rentals we looked at were so expensive!

We will look for a 3-bedroom foreclosure for under $30,000 near Greg's work in Ocala to purchase for cash. This will allow us to have a place to live for now and also keep a great deal of the equity we get out of this house to put on something permanent wherever that may be.

I had a garage sale Sunday. Made $940. Still have tons of stuff left and am finding tons more as I continue packing. Because our packing time was cut short by the funeral trip, I didn't get through every room in the house before the garage sale. We will probably donate all this stuff to The Path's thrift store.

I took some pictures yesterday to document the packing and moving process. I figured I'd want them later. Will try to post them when I get a chance. It is such a blessing to sell our house, but sad as well.