We’re Moving and Other News

We have some news. We’re moving this year and other news like job changes, changes to my Instagram and our new homeschooling year.

we're moving and other news
This post contains affiliate links. Should you make a purchase through one of the links I provide, I may receive a small percentage at no cost to you.

You may have noticed, I’ve taken almost a month-long hiatus from the blog. I’m sorry about that, but I needed a long break. There has been so much going on in our lives over the last few months, that I needed to step away for a little while. I hope to be back now. However, you’ll see that I will have a lot of change going on in the next few months, so my blogging may be a tad sporadic. Allow me to tell you why.

We’re Moving

If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you may know that for the last few years we have been facing job uncertainty. Like one thing after another. We’ve been office closures, layoffs, more layoffs, and now we’ve been acquired by another company. In light of that, we are moving to the Houston area. We tried to find something else that would allow us to stay here, but we couldn’t find anything.

I am not thrilled about it. All my family is here in San Antonio and I uprooted years ago. I struggled heavily with homesickness then and vowed I would never do it again! I am very concerned about being isolated without friends or family. Well, here I am, doing it again, mainly because we didn’t have any other options.

We have just started construction in a semi-custom home and I have a lot of heartache because of the cost just to stay in the same kind of home we are now. Still, I am trying to be obedient to God and trust in His plan and timing. Obviously, I’m also trying to get our current home ready to sell and that is taking a lot of my time right now. I’m sure I will be writing more about this later on when things get real! We probably won’t move into our new home until late Fall this year.

We Could Be Displaced for a While

So it is very possible that our family will be displaced because of this. My husband will have to report to work in Houston before our new house is finished. Therefore, we will very likely be separated for several months before we can be reunited permanently. I expect my boys to struggle with that. Also, we will have to sell our home around the same time. So there is a good chance I will have to live with my parents for a few months while construction concludes and we close on our new home. I have no idea how that will impact my blog schedule.

My Father Is Very Ill

My dad, who suffered a heart attack years ago in 2003, has had congestive heart failure since then. In recent years, his health has taken a serious decline and has needed a lot more care and help in the last twelve months. With every month that passes, he requires more care which has been difficult for my mother in particular who has her own health problems. Please keep him and her in prayer during this tough time. He has been in and out of the hospital since last June. It has been very hard on him emotionally and physically. It’s hard to see someone you love, suffer. Still, I must acknowledge how faithful God has been to grant us peace through all of this. Truly, His grace is sufficient.

Homeschooling

We are trying to also wrap up our homeschooling year. I admit, we are running a little behind in Math and Reading. We took time off throughout the year and we still need to wrap up some subjects. We finished Handwriting but should finish up Science, Geography, and Spelling in about a week. I expect that we will continue Math and Reading into July. In August we will start our new school year.

I have received a lot of our homeschooling curriculum and I will be creating a blog post that goes into detail about our choices. I still need to order a few subjects and should hopefully have the post up soon. Then comes planning the year out which is always a major undertaking! I’m not sure how all of this will play out including starting our new school year with moving so be patient with me and this blog.

My Little Guy Is Turning Six

My little guy is turning six this weekend and we are having a family party. I am so excited for my cute boy and his birthday request was very cute this year. Or nerdy? Maybe nerdy is the better word, but I think it is still cute. He absolutely loves Math and has really enjoyed the Netflix show Number Blocks and so he asked for a number block party (Math party).

I should note that they don’t make any number block party stuff, so this mama is going to have to figure out how to make that happen!

jack

My Instagram Has Changed

If you are following my Instagram, you may notice a huge shift in my content. I’ve gone from promoting this blog to promoting Christ. I had been so bothered by all the things going on in the world and to me the solution is simple. It a sin problem and the Gospel is the solution. I am still trying to figure out where my account is going to settle. I really want to keep sharing theology, but I feel such a beginner Christian compared to other Theology accounts. It’s odd since I have been a Christian all my life. I have been prayerfully considering what exactly God wants me to do with it. Either way, I want God to be glorified, not me.

I used to only share things about my homeschool life and life as a stay home mom and for a while there, boldly proclaiming the Gospel seemed most important. I still think that should take front stage, but I am also considering that glorifying God also includes living out biblical womanhood. Therefore, I think I will be interjecting more of my daily life back into my IG schedule.

Sharing the gospel and Theology has really been an interesting experience. When I first started sharing about Christ I lost about 200 friends. These weren’t strangers. These were people I knew. Five women from my mom’s group unfollowed me within the first few weeks. One, deleted and blocked me on every social media account. Another even removed me from all her accounts including her business accounts. Ten different old co-workers unfollowed me. People I had been close to. I expected to lose a lot of my atheist friends. I did not expect to lose friends who were professing Christians. But that just tells you that many Christians are receiving a watered-down gospel with no real substance or conviction.

I’ve Been Praying About My Old Posts

Over the last year and a half, my theology has changed dramatically. My theology has gradually become more reformed. Reformed theology seems to be a very love it or hate it thing in the Christian community, but I do think it is the correct lens from which to view scripture. It also radically corrected me on worldly ideas that I had adopted. In particular, things like self-love and other worldly things that I feel God has convicted me on. Therefore I think I will be going through my old blog posts and deleting things where I feel like I have misled my readers away from God.

I have repented to God for adopting secular world views that are masquerading as Christianity. I’m very glad that God allowed me to see the truth about where I was deceived because when you were deceived you don’t know that you were deceived.

I’ve also considered removing some of my journal prompt posts because as I dig deeper into scripture itself I feel that things like self-discovery or looking within yourself for answers is a very secular worldview.

The Bible is sufficient to understand ourselves, to understand the world to understand our problems. So I am seriously considering removing some of my journal prompts. I myself personally stopped journaling for that reason.

For now I’m going to continue to pray about it and to also see what the Bible says I am about things like that. Sometimes the Bible allows us some Christian liberty on secondary issues I’m also going to seek wise counsel from other women who I feel have very sound theology and ask them what they think before I do anything really drastic so bear with me.

No Television

One of the major changes that have taken place in my life in the last six months has been the fact that I have almost entirely given up television. I was always an avid reader when I was young but once I had children it just sort of fell by the wayside. Instead, I actually spent a good amount of time vegging out in front of the TV which is very unproductive. About six months ago, my husband and I felt like we were wasting too much time in front of the TV. We were also very off-put by the content on TV. As we became closer to Christ we could not fritter away our free time watching some of the very things that Christ died for. We started by cutting out some of our favorite shows because they glorified sinful things. We started to replace that time with bible study or reading and honestly, we just found we had little to no interest on TV.

In an upcoming post, I’m going to share the books that I have already read this year with a quick review I and links if you’re interested in reading them yourself.

That’s it for now, friends. I will keep you posted on our moving news.

Signature

Happy Planner, Jobs and Hope

Happy Planner, jobs, and hope. Today, I’m sharing a little about the things going on in our lives this week as we continue job hunting and chase dreams.

Happy Planner, jobs and hope

First, I want to thank all the good friends and readers who have asked about our job situation. It’s been a bumpy ride full of highs and lows. So, I thought I would write here about the recent plot twists that have occurred for those interested. If you need to catch up, read my prior post, The Next Chapter.

The Job Stuff

Easter weekend we drove to Houston for an interview and Dan got the job. We felt relieved. We received an offer the following week. However, it was lower than expected and over the next few weeks, hubby tried to renegotiate the terms, but they didn’t budge much. They wouldn’t pay to relocate us to Houston, nor would they allow us to push out the start date so we could afford the move financially. Talk about a rock and a hard place. The deeper into the woods we went, the more it seemed like maybe this isn’t the job for us. Honestly, this whole process has been so stressful and discouraging. But we keep putting our hope in the Lord, that even though we can’t see it, He is working on a solution.

Dan has another opportunity in Houston. So we will wait to see if that produces any fruit. We’ve passed the phone interviews so we are on our way to an in-person interview probably this coming week. Please continue to keep us in prayer that we find the right job.

The Happy Planner

Onto my news. This week, I applied for The Happy Planner ® planner squad. The squad is group of people (fans) selected to represent the Happy Planner as ambassadors online and on social media.

Until now, I’ve been too intimidated to apply for the planner squad. Too afraid of the rejection, if I’m being honest. But I’ve had so many people encourage me to apply this year because they know the deep devotion I have for the Happy Planner. They saw the transformation I had when I first discovered it in 2015. They see me share it enthusiastically with everyone I meet. As one friend put it, “you’re already an influencer because of everyone you introduced it to – this just makes it official.”

If you want to read my full sappy love story with the Happy Planner, read my post, How the Happy Planner Changed My Life. I realize the odds are against me. The Happy Planner fanbase is bigger than ever, but it’s like the lottery. Someone has to win and you’ll never win if you aren’t playing. It’s a dream of mine.

Can I tell you a secret? I almost feel ridiculous for even trying.

It feels impossible to be selected, but we have to chase our dreams no matter how silly or unlikely they might seem to others. Don’t give up on your dreams. Giving up is the surest way to fail.

happy planner, jobs and hope

Hope

The past twelve months has seemed like a “a losing season.” There was lots of loss (friends, family, jobs). But I have hope that things are about to change. Hope is the happy anticipation of good. It is the belief that good things will happen regardless of current evidence. Through hope, we know our situation can change, for the good, in an instant.

I have hope. I believe God has good things in store for us. He can give Dan the right job and me the planner squad. He’s bigger than any road blocks. But even if he doesn’t, I know he still has good, amazing plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11). I know there are still good things on the horizon, even though things feel bleak now. I have hope.