The Last 2 Years ~ Part 4

In June 2013 I accepted a permanent teaching position at a small Christian preschool, and life continued for a few months. Then Kevin felt he had grown all he possibly could working for Robinson Helicopter, and we watched as the housing market began to ever so slowly climb. It seemed like the right time to both find a new job and buy a house.

I remember one Sunday evening, driving back to South Bay LA after spending the weekend in Riverside with Kevin's family. I don't remember who brought it up. It almost seemed simultaneous. But somehow we started talking about moving to Riverside. The house would be cheaper. We could be near Kevin's family. Kevin could work for the family  business. We could never have to move again. We would actually be closer to my family, but my mother could be crushed. Even with all the positives associated with moving to Riverside, thoughts of my mom feeling like we chose Kevin's family over her encouraged us to keep things quiet.

We continued saving and working and trusting the Lord, and also browsing Riverside home listings.

I kept waiting, begging, crying, and praying for children, all the while thinking of my body that had proved lacking in one of the major necessary components for bearing children. I prepared myself for what the journey could look like when Kevin was ready.

The Last 2 Years ~ Part 3

I aplied to all kinds of jobs. But the only, ONLY jobs I heard any response back from were preschool jobs. You see, most of my experience is in teaching preschool, and my degree is Psychology and Child Development. But I didn't want to teach preschool anymore. It's a hard job. The days long, the pay low, the benefits non-existant.

And yet, this was the Lord's best for me. I worked in long and short term sub positions from January 2013 until June 2013. Kevin and I continued saving to buy a home, meeting with our church group and visiting family as often as possible.

I also continued begging Kevin to start trying for kids. I've expressed in past posts about how being a mother is all I've ever wanted to do with my life, and during these years I felt like I was searching for some sort of next best career to fill my time with. But he didn't want to consider having children until we had bought a house to bring them home to, and he was right.

But it was hard to live with. At this point in my life, I really wasn't functioning the way a woman should function. I never really had. So for me, the idea of starting to try to have kids was just getting the ball rolling on what I was convinced would be a long, painful process that inevitably ended with us adopting. But instead I waited, and cried, and prayed.

The Last 2 Years ~ Part 2

Kevin and I began to fight about the business. A lot. Though I should preface that with the fact that I have a very empathic and calm husband, so "fighting" is more like "serious discussions". His heart was for me to take on a job with a reliable paycheck, and he was right. But I had felt so burnt out by my last job. So used and undervalued and squeezed in every way that I wanted to be my own boss. I was willing to give up everything for that, but not my marriage. And one night after a particularly difficult conversation with Kevin, I went out for a walk. I'm not proud to admit I was steaming. And then, through the wise words of my mother on the other end of the phone, the Lord spoke truth to me and changed the whole situation.

"Is this business more imporant than your marriage?"

I came back inside humbled and repentant, and God restored what my pride had been ripping apart.

I began the next day looking for a job, and God displayed his good and perfect plan and control once again.

The Last 2 Years ~ Part 1

Tonight, or I suppose now this morning (it's hard to keep track anymore), I had the urge to write a blog entry. But guilt tapped on my shoulder, reminding me that it has been over 2 years since I've written a post on this blog, and I can't just start with the now and skip over everything that happened in the middle.

I thought about starting a new blog. Toyed with the idea of deleting all my old posts and beginning fresh. But then I read through those old posts, and though they annoyed me and often made me cringe, they are a genuine representation of our early days and months. Destroying them would be destroying a piece of history that I could never retrieve.

And I want this blog to be genuine, even if that wasn't my highest intention before. So instead, they remain, and I will attempt to quickly update all that has happened so I may begin writing in the moment again.

Last I wrote, Kevin and I were starting an interior organizing business. I had so much fun with it. Well, with the concept of it. I loved designing the logo, making business cards, setting up my office, and spending hours of "research" time in The Container Store.

I continued my nanny job, but we moved to a town father away to live in a house, and the drive became horrible. I would get home with usually less than an hour before Kevin went to bed, and it was so difficult.

Moving in to our house in San Pedro, Ca

Plus the job was extremely hard on me emotionally. So because children were involved, I gave the family about 4 months to adjust and find someone for me to train before leaving. I ended that job in October of 2012 with the intention of taking on Grace Interior Organizing full time.
I continued to work on marketing materials for the company and did organizing projects for family and friends. It's hard for me still to sort through exactly what happened next, but I know the Lord is sovereign, and it was for my good, even if I don't understand or, truthfully, remember how it came to pass.

To be continued...

Featuring Grace

Today Grace Interior Design (graceinteriordesign.blogspot.com) has the awesome honor of being featured on Kevin's sister's blog, natyouraveragegirl.blogspot.com! Be sure to check her out- she has awesome posts about her baby, home, fashion,and great wisdom!!

Saving Grace

I know I was incredibly secretive in my last post. For good reason, I promise!

I wanted to wait until Kevin and I had a name, logo and DBA (like a business license- kinda) before revealing anything about our business.

But I am now pleased to present:

Grace Interior Organizing!!! :)

Read about how it all came to be through a text message:

http://graceinteriororganizing.blogspot.com/

TMI

It has been way too long since writing a post on our blog. I will never claim to be a consistent blogger, but letting a couple months go by is a little ridiculous. My deepest apologies!

I want to keep you updated on what has happened in our lives since my last entry- so very much has happened! The last few months in a few words run-on sentence.

Interviewed with the family in Manhattan Beach, got the job, Natalie delivered Blair Olivia Bushman, she was premature and in NICU for 10 days, we prayed, she is home, healthy, and beautiful, went to San Diego with high school friends, reminded how much I love them, had two free weeks before work, hung out with my mom, Cat came home from South America, hugged her, talked for hours, started my job, felt humbled, questioned why I was there, celebrated Easter, thankful for salvation, applied for a home loan, no responses, struggled to find time to see my husband, thought I was pregnant, started coming up with baby names, pregnancy test- negative, can't stop coming up with baby names, humbled but faithfully sticking out my job, dear friends had their baby, her name is Holland Mercy, she's beautiful, everyone we know is pregnant, sometimes it drives me crazy, had a sleepover with my college roomies, minus Megsie, my husband was on the couch, we all woke up and went to work the next day, growing up is weird, decided to start a business, on weekends only right now, early stages, hoping it grows, and now accepting grace for a new day and seeking purpose in what's in front of me.

Whew. It has been a time of transitions. Transitioning into both working full-time on schedules that are really off from one another. Kevin leaves at 6:30 am and I don't get back from work until 7:30 pm at the earliest. Then we make dinner and it's time for bed since Kev has to be up so early. On top of that there are Bible studies and other church events, family events, and get-togethers with friends that are total blessings, but having around 2 hours a day with my husband is wearing on me. Sometimes I just cry about it.

Transitioning into my job has been interesting as well. I'm working from 11am to 7pm as a Personal Assistant/Nanny. From 11 to 3 I do anything the family needs, from cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, random errands, and helping with the new home they're renovating. From 3 to 7 I'm with the kids- homework, resolving conflict, playtime, dinner, resolving conflict, bathtime, reading, more conflict. The hardest part of this job has been how humbling it is. In college towns, many young, educated women work as nannies, but in Manhattan Beach, it is almost exclusively older non-citizen women, who aren't treated fairly or given many rights. Though I am a citizen and have a college degree (in Psychology and Child Development- which I feel like I use daily), I still feel a bit treated like "the help" and there are days where I wonder why I went to school to be essentially a part time house keeper. I am humbled, and I'm convinced that is not a bad thing.

Jesus, the Son of God was a carpenter until he began his ministry in his early thirties. If I feel that my life's ministry is to be a mom, and I have to spend 5 years being a surrogate mom to another family, it is no where near the humbling fact that Jesus' ministry was to save His people from eternal suffering with His life and spent decades working with wood. That's not to say that my ministry has not started. I do believe that there is a purpose in being placed with this family, and daily remind myself that my life's purpose does not begin the day I find out I'm expecting. It begins now. But I am at least encouraged to remember that Jesus understands my situation in an ever more intense way than I even do.

As for my business Idea, Kevin and I are really enthusiastic about it, and I'll be describing it in more detail later, but it's just wonderful when skills and experience seem to be pointing toward something that you need to do. I feel like the idea came to us organically and we're both able to use our current jobs as experience to put in our portfolio. More on that later.

My sweet, cuddly, beautiful niece, Blair Olivia.

Easter with my sister and her husband at my parents' house.

Hope March and April have been wonderful months for you as well. Excited to see what May has in store!