Summer in Texas

The Dallas Arboretum in May.

Summertime has arrived!  I love the sunshine and despite the heat, it's an ideal excuse to drink lots of sweet tea or whatever cools you down. It's been raining off and on a lot in the last few weeks here in Dallas which is a welcomed site since the state has suffered from drought conditions in seasons past.

It's all been an absolute whirlwind since mid March to mid June....12 weeks!! Wow! Sooooo much change in our life has occurred that it almost takes our breath away when we focus on it too much. It's been a blessed opportunity to come home (thanks to Baylor) but overwhelming to process all that's happened. Moving in general is a major ordeal but moving state-to-state kicks up the chaos even more. Plus, we take great pride in the tight organization of routine and structure in our life. So, it's been really challenging turning off 10 years of everything we set up in Colorado and re-establishing it here...in the blink of an eye! There have also been many unexpected expenses and occurrences that have caught us off guard since mid March from things we "scotched-taped" together in Colorado to buy us some time  While we're not surprised that things can only "hold on" for just so long, it's still a lot to manage in the midst of so much change.

As the pace simmers down to a more manageable speed, we are now beginning to reflect back on where we just came from. In the last few days, we are visiting a lot more about our journey in comparison with where we were last summer. Things are soooo different now compared to where we thought our life was headed.

Other than that...what more is there to share? Our Plano landlord is amazing, our renters in Colorado are great, and our cat Juliet seems relatively content. All in all, we're doing fine. We look forward to the summer and hopefully some lazy weekends filled with R&R and time to just grill out, hang out, share good times, and rekindle our favorite comforts of living in Texas.

Texas Bound!

Well, we are soon headed back to Texas! We are overjoyed to have this amazing opportunity to "go home".

As many of you know, I will be working for the Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing in downtown Dallas as the new Director of Marketing and Communications. It is such a fantastic new time in my professional (and personal) life. John is equally excited and is diligently trying to find a new job for himself (your prayers would be welcomed that he lands something great too...sooner than later).

We will be living in Plano in a cute rent house and on the reverse side, we were blessed to have an awesome family rent our house in Colorado. So, with all the stars aligned, we are confident that this move is truly the right thing to do even though the sudden timing caught us off guard.

Our extended family seem to be very happy that we are moving back to the Lone Star State as well as so many of our longtime friends in that part of the country. However, we will certainly miss our dear friends we now have in Colorado (and those in California that USE to live in CO...you know who you are! LOL!)

Overall, we are truly amazed at the turn of events so far in 2014. We did not expect any of this and it is a complete gift from God for sure. We are so grateful for this bright new experience despite being a tad stressed in having to pack up our entire life and transition to a new set-up...but it will be worth it. Life is definitely quite a journey of peaks and valleys. While the end of 2013 was really hard with our foster/adopt dreams coming to an end, we now have hope that there is sunshine ahead.

New Year Off and Running!

Well, all I can say is Thank God a new year is now officially underway! Can I get an "AMEN"? It has been a hectic first few weeks here at the start which is not unusual. Here's an entertaining slice-of-life look into our world over the last few weeks of January. To kick off 2014, my mother visited from Texas for four days for my 41st birthday. We were also happy to welcome Downton Abbey back to our Sunday night TV line-up and Justified on Tuesday night...I know...we're lame but hey, the shows are a nice escape! John has also been a devoted Broncos fan and is thrilled they are now going to the SuperBowl (I better stock up on cheese dip). And despite serious consideration of keeping Christmas up for 12 months to streamline the 2014 holiday season, we finally packed up all the endless decorations (well correction...we stacked them in the basement and then came back a week later to actual PACK them away). Things feel refreshed but the house looks barren! What's funny is that we are still trying to find all our regular decorative do-dads that we stashed away before Christmas to make room for all the oodles of holiday stuff. Anyway, we also proudly managed to write and mail all our thank you notes (whew!) and deal with some holiday returns! Only today did we post our New Year's Resolutions inside the pantry door after brainstorming them on NY's Eve. Additionally on the docket was to get a handle on our new 2014 expenses (prep for tax season a little) and lament over the "damage" of end of year purchases and holiday "fa, la, la" must-haves! LOL! What else? Oh yes...the gym! Well, I proudly went with my girlfriend  Traci on day one...January 1, to a spinning class no less...for the first time! Whoop...whoop! I've been back to the gym a few times since then and started trying to follow a new 5K app on my IPhone for motivation (although two treadmills I tried to use last week broke on the same night...yikes...hopefully this week will be better).  We also finally brought John into the modern age and got him his first Smartphone however as luck would have it, two weeks after purchasing it the stupid thing malfunctioned and broke! After multiple trips over to the Verizon store for help and John threatening to go back to his old-style flip phone, the store manager gave up trying to figure out why the phone kept freaking out for no reason and replaced the entire unit. Crisis averted! Other than that...the new year is off to a bang. Work has been typical...crazy and demanding. So, now the daunting task at hand...what to plan for Valentine's??!! LOL! Well, as a start...lots of chocolate and wine...past that is gravy right?! ;-) Happy 2014!

A Lifetime Journey Since this Summer

Well, since my last post in July, so much has happened. It seems like ages ago! In fact, my crazy blogger account password had apparently expired when I tried to log on today and I had to reset the entire thing to access my blog. Oh good Lord!! So, at last, here I am...and now it's snowing outside after days and days of lovely sunny yet chilly weather. It's late Saturday evening, December 28, 2013 (and John is entertained with a movie downstairs). I'm finally sitting down to try and catch up on my blog. Where to begin and what to say to you? Hmmm. So much in our life seems to be upside down and quite unsettled and it feels like all we have been doing since July is trying to put it all back together like a jigsaw puzzle scrambled into many pieces on a table. As some of you may know, after a very long certification process involving multiple years of preparation and much deliberation, we were blessed with a foster/adopt placement in our home in August. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, everything came to an unexpected end two months later. We were truly heartbroken and remain devastated. Following that experience and after serious discussion, we closed that chapter of our life and the possibility to ever be parents. Since that time, work and life in general has been strangely demanding for us both and things has seemed to be a blur. We are actually only now beginning to reflect on the loss of what we had hoped would have been a forever family with our foster/adopt placement daughter. The Christmas holidays have been quiet for us which for good or bad has given us the chance to talk about what is on our minds and hearts from all that has happened since this summer specifically. We are grasping the reality of a lifestyle ahead that is quite different than anticipated but we are trying to find God's reason in it (which may take a while). We have good days and heart-sinking days when we embrace all that this year has provided and taken away but we "walk on". We look forward to a new year ahead with hopes for happier days and disappointment that is gradually softened. I love Victoria Osteen's FaceBook posting today which really spoke to us both, "Today let me reassure you that God knows right where you are, and He knows how to get you to where you need to be. Even when things don't go the way you planned, His hand is on you."

Reading Fun

This summer I'm happy to volunteer again for the Louisville Library's Steering Committee for its third annual On-The-Same-Page summer reading program. Three neighboring communities will read the same book at the same time. This years selection is, The Night Circus. I'm reading it on my Kindle and love it! We've got all sorts of great programs planned for this fall related to the book. So, be sure to get a copy and read away! The libraries in Louisville and Lafayette have copies of the book if you need to check one out! Enjoy!

Meeting Survival

Well, I lived through my ninth NITA Board meeting this past weekend. For those that don't know, NITA is where I work and we have two Board meetings a year that I more or less orchestrate. We have 22 national Board members from all over the country that fly in for three days of "solving world peace". Since NITA stands for National Institute for Trial Advocacy, the Board is mostly comprised of corporate lawyers and judges so things can get a bit intense at these meetings. At the same time, the Board members are also some of our most generous donors to the NITA Foundation which is my area of the organization. So, I try to make sure the Board is happy and the meeting runs smoothly. I'm always mentally wiped out after the meeting and it takes me a few days to recover. Plus, for the weeks leading up to the meeting and all the preparations, I tend to let things in my personal life slip. By the time the meeting is over, it takes a while to catch up on stuff at home. Anyway, I survived!

Giving Back Is Good for the Soul

Last weekend John and I drove to Gypsum, Colorado (about 15 miles north of Vail) for a service day at Roundup River Ranch. The event was arranged for the second year in a row through my Sustainer Council with Junior League of Denver. We recruited some of the Sustainers and their families and friends to help the camp get ready for its summer season. We did everything from taking inventory/sorting tons of board games and items recently donated by Walmart and Hasbro, to organizing bins of multi-colored beads for a new camp program, to planting seeds in the organic garden, and pulling weeds out by the boat dock! It was a fun day and for such a great cause. Check out the camp's amazing Web site and the all that it does for medically fragile children in Colorado thanks to the vision of actor Paul Newman and his legacy of his international organization called, A Serious Fun Camp. Here's the link, www.roundupriverranch.org