The unpacking is complete!

Everything is pretty much the way it's going to be so now I can take pictures of the whole rooms and give you all a better feel of the place. This first picture is looking down from the girls loft room.


Apparently people actually do use the fireplace here.. not sure exactly why.. but perhaps I'll burn paper in it for the ambiance for some holiday..


Now, from inside the master bedroom/craft room (sort of already had a picture up like this one..)
And for my mom's benefit ... the top of the hamper is actually an ironing board with hinges and the laundry "baskets" pull out individually so that I can carry them downstairs.. so much easier than a bulky basket on my hip. I hand the empty baskets on the door nob to the doors in front of the washer and dryer while I'm washing the loads so I can just fill the thing again when the load is done and take it upstairs. Makes laundry times SO much nicer because there aren't clothes everywhere like there were before. Lily likes to help put her clothes in the right places too. Hmm.. looks like the pink load is just about ready to be washed. ;]
Turn a bit to the right and you'll see the door to the hall/stairs and the bathroom...
We still don't have a bed frame which is only a problem because we are in a small space and it would be nice to put some blankets under the bed. I also have a bunch of my "small" clothes in the closet that I can't fit right now and it would be nice to have those put more away till I'll need them again. The top green tub has all my crazy quilt fabric but the bottom one just has blankets and sheets in it.
Big window and sewing area. I don't have a normal sized chair at the moment so the ball is the only option. It works okay though for now. :]
Last picture was taken from outside the masterbedroom door.. now turn a bit to the left and you see into the bathroom.. Lily helped me decide where to put the kitty wall hanging. (She really likes that one.. I made it a super long time ago...)
Turn to the left some more and you can see into the girls room, but I already took good pictures of that so won't add any more here. THOUGH I just got to thinking yesterday that I should have put Lily's bed on a different wall... this is what always happens as a homemaker. Constantly looking for ways to make things more efficient and easier to maintain. Check out the organizing pro for some great ideas! I went through her seven week course and it was really helpful in every area of my homemaking. I'm actually pretty good at organizing things and logically figuring out where things need to be to make it all the most convenient and so forth, but I'm TERRIBLE at maintaining it. So.. yeah.. I've been working on my systems and the every day stuff of maintaining because "it's easier to live organized than to live in disorder." Yes.. it actually is... it's not about having a "perfect home" ooooh no.. it's about making my days run smoothly and easily and I've got to get a handle of that NOW before the next one comes and while I'm not having to be too intense with the homeschooling too.
Turn a bit more to the left and you can see the family pictures in the hall/stairs. (Don't ask how I got that quilted wall hanging up... it was hard.)

Turn a bit more to the left (and back up into the bathroom...) and you can see the top of the stairs and how Lily decorated Milo's scratching post area. You'd think the scratching post would be in the way, but it's not at all! Super handy place to put it since we have to be creative in a small place. (I actually like living in small spaces because it's less to clean! I mean, how handy is it that I can vacuum a whole area without having to unplug the vacuum and move it? Of course, with the upstairs I have to plug it into a different place, but still... much less to clean. :]
Oh, and while I'm in the bathroom I have to take a picture of this little fairy so my Mom can see! THIS fairy was one of the decorations at my wedding! So, not only am I STILL using the fake grapevine garlands to decorate and other things from my wedding, this little figurine matches PERFECTLY in my lady bug bathroom.. because she's holding a ladybug! How great is that?! I was so excited when I found it in my memory trunk.
Oh, and the downstairs bathroom from a distance so you can see it all together a little bit.. notice the grapevines were from my wedding (also, in the last post you can see a little purple topiary tree in this bathroom and THAT was a decoration from my wedding as well.)
And now the kitchen! Still don't have nice counter-top containers for my flours and sugar and stuff... the containers don't match (notice in the corner over there), but maybe for Christmas I'll get something like that... I wonder if I can find green ones with red berries. Or maybe just red ones.. is that weird that I keep decorating with light green and bright red? but.. Red is so perky. :]
And the left side of the kitchen.. notice the far door.. that's the pantry area. The kitchen is small, but I actually really like the size because I don't have to walk very far to put things away and wash dishes and so forth. The only problem is that I can't open the fridge when the dishwasher is open.. not a huge hurdle to get over though.
In the bottom door pantry I keep the garbage... sort of weird I know, but there's no room anywhere else in the narrow kitchen. It sometimes smells weird.. not sure if it's because I'm overly sensitive to smells right now or if it really does smell bad.. but I put a dryer sheet in there and suddenly it's fresh as a daisy. ;]
My piano, a view of the stair's railing, and the tiny door that leads to the storage under the stairs and the water heater (I keep my vacuum in that little closet.. very handy.) Oh, and the last box, which I didn't notice until just now... Our christmas tree came in that box and was the last box that I unpacked.. more about that later.

Turn to the right a bit more and see the bookshelves that my big brother put together for me!!! He also mentioned when he was here that he thought the red roses (that Youssef had given to me when I first came and were in the spot where those red flowers are now) looked really nice with the black shelves. SO, when I was in the dollar store I saw those red poppy flowers and got them for this arrangement (I had all the other silk flowers and leaves and so forth already, but the flowers that were in there before were white orchids and I was tired of it.) I think it works pretty well with the red poppies too because of the red typewriter on the top shelf. I LOVE that typewriter for some reason... got it when I was 12 or something at a garage sale, but it needs to be high up so the girls to mess with it (I let them play with it on occasion) and I didn't want it in storage anymore. The organizing pro says that if you aren't going to display it than get rid of it! Very true. Why do we hold onto stuff if we don't use it or display it? I'm pretty sure I could get rid of even MORE stuff if I tried, seriously.. why do we Americans hold onto so much stuff?
Looking up at the high windows (I'm thinking of doing another artwork for above the sliding doors... a horizontal thin one.. maybe of a mountainous landscape.) :] Oh, and you might notice the pine tree peaking a bit on the left of the window out on the balcony....
THIS is our new Christmas tree!!! I heard how expensive it was to buy a christmas tree down here and people said it would be better to get a fake one. Youssef has been wanting a fake one for a long time anyway, but I don't like the overly full trees where you lay the ornaments on them.. I want the ornaments to hang.. perhaps I'm weird that way. Oh, AND I'm in a small space and didn't want the tree to wide. So, an "alpine tree" was the best answer! As it turned out I found one on ebay with a real wood trunk for $66 with shipping... note: all the fake Christmas trees in stores that I liked were closer to $300.. and I didn't even like them as well as this one! Lily had started making a beaded garland a while back and when we put it on the tree she wanted to make some more rings for it (with pipe cleaner and beads.)
Back in the house... not sure if I mentioned this before, but I wanted the pictures that are framed above the fireplace to match my art and didn't want to buy new frames for them so I used electrical tape! The electrical tape worked perfectly on the large metal frame and smaller wood frames and you can hardly tell what I did, but it matches the nice art frames now. ;]
Our couch/spare bed. :]

The girls are over at their little table beading for the Christmas tree. The screen there is pretty much the only real splurge that I did on the house. I've always wanted one and it hides the file cabinet from the other side really well. It also makes a nice room divider for the dinning and living room. Subtle yet effective. Plus, the litter box is behind the couch (only place we could think of to put it so it would be out of the way!) and it give Milo some privacy.. har har.. ;]
Notice? Not only can he go farther behind the couch to his letter box, but he can hide behind the screen to rest.
Right, so, turn more to the right and you see up the stairs and the front door is straight back beyond the piano
A close up of the girls doing the beading. Renna lost interest pretty quickly in the beading, but she switched to making Christmas cards! At this rate, we might even have enough cards to mail to people come Christmas. :]
Some favorite things! Going to the pool!
Renna is getting really good at swimming. Her little floater gives her just enough support so that she can do a pretty mean doggy paddle wherever she wants to go in the little pool.
Lily's getting super good at swimming too and has advanced to floating on her back a bit and doing more of a frog stroke rather than just the doggy paddle.
Swimming with the daddy. :] This was the first time I didn't swim with them and it worked out just find because the girls are good enough now that sitting on the edge of the pool is a sufficient help. I got a swim noodle at the dollar store the other day and took the girls out by myself and Renna held onto the noodle (with me holding the other end) and doggy paddled around. I could tow her back when she was getting tired or turned the wrong way.
This was the other week when the girls were painting. Lily got a window ornament from the dollar store as her project and did a pretty good job of painting it!
A little mermaid as you can see.. now graces the sliding doors to the balcony.
Not sure if you can see it in this picture, but I got a fence to go across the railing. I wired it down in many places and now Milo can go out there without any worries and the girls have been playing out there more (Renna could get her head through the rails and it was freaking me out that she might fall through!)
I planted some flowers and some seeds too, but I'm not sure how the seeds will do since it doesn't get much sun during the day.. hadn't paid enough attention to that before I got the seeds. *blah* Oh well... I should probably read some more about the plants that I get too to make sure they'll work with the amount of light that I have here.

The girls love to watch the squirrels outside and I've seen at least 5 blue jays here just in the not even three weeks that we've been here. They are so beautiful!

Decorating...

The downstairs bathroom is hard to photograph because it's so tiny.. so I took a lot of pictures. It took me a few hours to finish it the way I wanted to.
Looking down at the sink.... and then look up above the mirror and tada! Loveliness... I had most of this stuff.. just bought a new soap pump for 6 bucks on sale to complete the look... There's a trash can with a pop-up lid that is on my "wish list" that matches the soap pump perfectly. :]
What took so long to do was clean my collection of sand and put that little shelf up. I hot glued the cording stuff along the edge because I was tired of being worried that the bottles would slip off (and tired of taping some or something.. the taping is silly because they have where they are from on the bottom of the bottles.. so if they are attached down than no one can see where they came from.)
Youssef took me grocery shopping this evening and I got a new kleenex box and potty seat for Renna (who will be learning in a month or so!) and it's Tinkerbell and matches my purple theme! How perfect is that? Plus.. I found a little purple stool for her as well (it's shaped like a hippo, but you can't tell..)
The kitchen is all done now! It's also pretty tiny, but I kind of enjoy not having to move very far to put something away.. so the size doesn't bother me at all. I like the microwave.. I've never had one and have to make so many things from scratch that it's nice to have something quick. The kitchen really wasn't made for someone that does real cooking.. while the microwave is super nice and new the stove is a little tricky.. from what I can tell the stove top has a high setting and a warm... it's REALLY hard to find those in between places! Barely move the nob and it will stop boiling altogether and then turn it up a bit and it boils over. But.. I'll get used to it. ;] The fridge is really large and it has a nice pantry area. When I was organizing the kitchen I was getting down to the final stuff to put away and running out of room to put the stuff and then realized that I'd completely forgotten about two large drawers.. suddenly I had more than enough room... and that included a whole cupboard full of my new fancy glasses from the dollar store. :] I forgot to take a picture of them.. they look like martini glasses but the stems are green and a little waved. Goes good with my new dishes. I'm really liking this plan to spend less on moving stuff and use what we saved to get new stuff to replace the stuff I got rid of to move us down. :]
I can't seem to lose my thrifty/ingenuity bent though as I look for things and get stuff... The shelves pictured below were a 15 dollar purchase from Target and I love how they look.. they are super versatile as well. I looked at a lot of end table type things and priced stuff out and perhaps with a LOT of shopping (and wasted gas money driving everywhere) I could have found something better for the same price? Well... I liked this option. Anyway, Youssef wanted drawers for his and I *thought* the drawers they had with the cube-things would fit into the shelves.. nope.. they were a few inches too tall for these. SO! I cut them down and then seam ripped the casing on the part that I cut off and hot glued it onto the new edge. Now they fit perfectly. :]
Loving the "his and her" closets as well.. and the new laundry organizer. I left all my laundry baskets behind and this is so much nicer and space efficient.
My "dresser" pictured below... again.. using the shelve idea because it's so versatile and this one actually fit the drawer things perfectly. I actually like having some spaces for just shelves and then some with drawers. I can organize it better for some reason... I put the hook up for my robe and jammies and the door on the right is the bathroom upstairs and the door on the left goes into the hall and then into the girls room... the stairs are to the left of the left door.
The stairs with Milo's scratching post and toy and teddy bear that Renna keeps swiping. ;] I got rid of my two large teddy bears for the move (we downsized a lot and got rid of a LOT) and this little bear is just like the large one that Milo used to love.
I took this picture standing a few steps up on the stairs. I got a few flowers and plants to put in one of my outside pots... haven't had time to plant them yet, but they are waiting... I also found some veggie seeds to plant out there too.. lettuce and carrots and things that *should* be okay for a while.. I'll try it anyway. :]
Oh, and the upstairs bathroom... I already posted some pictures of it, but I added a few things.
I'm going with the whole ladybug theme and got these cute little showercurtain hooks. The girls had so much fun helping me put them up and exclaiming about them the whole time.

Again with the ingenuity thing... I kept envisioning a soap pump that was green with ladybugs.. do you think I could find one like that ANYWHERE on the internet? It doesn't exist.. until now. I bought a green soap pump at Target and got some scrapbooking stickers for a dollar and put them on just so. TADA! Exactly what I was wanting.
The girls room upstairs is pretty tiny and has a half wall which makes noise at sleepy times a bit of a problem, BUT it's kind of nice to be able to hear them really well wherever I am in the house. They aren't used to being together ALL the time and we've had some issues to deal with.. but it's good to deal with them now.
Renna has a new little toddler bed and netting/canopy that I'd had for a while and hadn't used in a long time. The girls have fun in their "tents" ... the kitty quilt was made by my grandma for Lily and it just matched so well with the quilt that Lily picked for her bed that I had to use it. Renna LOVES it too.. and her new bed in general. She can't go to sleep without her panda pillow pet (which is why it's not on her bed.. she was sleeping in my room with it when I took these pictures.)
I took this next picture standing in the closet so that you could see the whole room. Lily put up all her art already and arranged her toys. I got under-the-bed-organizers for their clothes since there wasn't room for a dresser. The butterfly curtains on Lily's bed close.. I just put them up with wire so they are super easy to open and close.. she likes them closed the best... they make me a little claustrophobic like that since the room is already so small.
Okay, now.. speaking of ingenuity again. You know how you never actually RUN OUT of the fingernail polish before it goes all gummy? Well.. there ARE other uses for fingernail polish.. let me give an example.
I had this red lamp shade that I loved and the lamp that I used to have for it broke... well.. I got a cheap WHITE lamp at target (without a shade) and used all those colors above (of fingernail polish) to paint it!
Lily had tons of fun helping me. It was super easy and fun to do. If you want to try this some time just start with the colors that are the most opaque and make dashes and blots wherever.. leaving some white space in between.. move onto the next color and the next always filling in the white spaces a bit more. Use the translucent polishes at the end and blot over wherever and give it that "finished" look. It has a cool texture now as well as a neat look. :]

Really, so much better than just plain white. ;]

I'll post more pictures when the other areas of the place are ready. :}

"The galleria"

Four levels of mall with an iceskating rink at the bottom... and palm trees at the top. It was a quick trip because (besides for the Starbucks) there was nothing that they were selling that we were interested in. It was all overly priced trendy clothes. I liked some of the things I saw, but don't have money to spend on it and it just made me feel dowdy as all these fashionable people would come out of stores with their bags of purchases and look me up and down as if I were a hick. Okay, so Daniel and Youssef said that was all in my head.. I'm sure it was.. but still.. we didn't stay long. It was fun to just see the place though. Perhaps one day we will go iceskating there.
Appropriately there was a choir singing the "Yellow rose of Texas" right when we happened upon them. Daniel teased Youssef about it, "Wow, how did you plan all of this?" .. yeah, he's that good... ? No, it was serendipity. ;]

After we got some Starbucks drinks we headed back out of the mall and went to one that was more my style. It had a kids play place and some more "normal" stores and a few interesting ones, but the prices were way better and I took note of where they were in that mall for a later visit. :]

We made it!

This first picture is of the girls before leaving. They were so cute with their arms around each other that I had to throw it in.
We managed to get everything into the 12x6 trailer, the landrover, and the car top carrier! Just to have a *little* more room I asked Mom to mail us a box of books that would have been a pain to fit in too. It was pretty crowded in there.
This picture is right before we left. Lily held Milo on her lap almost the whole trip! She was a big help and Milo was such a good cat and hardly cried at all. He just slept and watched cartoons with them. I let him out a little bit and all he wanted to do was sleep on my lap. Renna only got carsick twice in four days. My brother drove the WHOLE way... I was really really thankful that he did too because I could barely stay in the same position in the passenger seat for very long and kept having to eat so I wouldn't feel the morning sickness... I'm a little flabby after just sitting and eating for four days.. need to hit the Wii fit again. ;]
Milo, watching a cartoon..

The girls love their pillow pets! They were a going away present from their Grandma and Grandpa and came in quite handy on the trip.
I only took one picture in a hotel.. this was the first night and least nice hotel. It did have a hottub and pool though that the girls and I enjoyed. The second nights hotel only had a pool outside and it was too cold for that, but, I was too busy using their laundry for the "carsick" towels to do much else.. the girls had fun running down the halls to "help" me do the laundry and get popcorn that they had there for free. The third day we decided to pull a long one and put two days in one. We were on the road that day for 13 hours and went through 4 states. It was a really good idea! It was long of course, but the roads were boring and it gave us a good goal to shoot for. I had the maps and was planning out the stops to coincide with the gas stops and so forth. The girls fell asleep and so I got to watch a movie for a little bit before we got to the hotel in Dumas TX. I'm very glad that I'm not too far along... it was uncomfortable enough at this stage to ride for so long. The night that we got in to Dallas was Wednesday. Youssef said he didn't really believe we'd make it that day even though we told him where we were and stuff.. probably a bit surreal. We unloaded a few things that first night and then went out for steak and enjoyed the "hot pool" as the girls call it.. at our new apartment.

Daniel's been super busy putting things together for me! He put Renna's bed together and this table and chair set that they played at ALL day yesterday! Also.. yesterday we did some shopping for furniture. The money that we saved by getting rid of things and using just the trailer got to go for a few new things down here. It was fun picking out bookshelves that actually matched and stuff (and they were on sale!) I'll take pictures later when everything is arranged. Daniel helped me decide on a few things too.
Black or white? Black is classier.. and he was right. ;]
Here's a distance view of the living room. The ceiling in that part is super tall and I'm loving the light and windows! This apartment is only just over 1,000 sq ft, but it feels HUGE to me! There are so many closets and places to put things! I hardly have to be creative at all to put things away. It's great to be able to use our closets for short term storage rather than long term. The closet outside off of our balcony has our christmas boxes in it and a few other things and it looks really empty. I'm going to add some luggage and other things to it too. There's this little door for the water heater and storage off of the dinning room. It's under the stairs and is just the right size for a few strollers and the vacuum. SO nice to have little places like that!
This is the view from our sliding doors and balcony. It's lovely in the dark as well because there are lights under the water in the pool and waterfall. I took the girls out to the "hot pool" (the one to the left there) and helped them practice their doggy paddles. It was about the same temperature outside as inside and the water in that pool was like bath water.
Milo is really liking the new place and this is the spot he picked last night to sleep in.. the corner stair at the top of the stairs.. he blends into the carpet. :] We did have a hard time finding a place to put his litter box and food and stuff... might take a little adjusting. :]
Yesterday when we got the bookshelves we also picked up some new rugs for the bathroom and a showercurtain. The upstairs bathroom is this dark and bright green with ladybugs added, and the downstairs half bath is purple. It's so much fun to pick out colors for things! I don't feel like I'm very good at it though.. what I envisioned I couldn't find so I had to keep putting things back and matching and comparing till I found something that I liked. I REALLY like it now, but I was getting tired of looking... I'm sure Youssef and Daniel were a bit tired of that part of the shopping trip though too.

And today the trailer is empty and the guys are taking it back to a Uhaul place. Youssef is also dropping off the landrover to get the breaks changed out (they were grinding pretty bad after that long haul!).. it's REALLY REALLY nice to have my brother here! Not only for the driving and stuff, but there's so much to do! Putting stuff together and driving the cars to drop one off and stuff. It's really nice that I don't have to do those things with the girls and stuff. They are enjoying the new place and Renna is fixated on the pool and how fabulous it is. ;] Youssef and Daniel enjoyed the hot tub and relaxed in the jets last night while I fixed up the girls room as they slept, and this morning I took the girls out there right after the guys left. We still have a few more errands to do today, but I'm thinking dinner and a movie will be in order for tonight. Daniel flight is early tomorrow morning. :[
I'm sure he will be ready to see his own kids again, but it's been really great having him here. :]

Youssef says "Good bye" to the miner and the girls adjust to Daddy being away.

The little dude that's at the doorway to the Miner newspaper. A last farewell to him...
I used to say (as we drove by coming from grocery shopping) "Wave to Daddy. This is where he works." Now I say, "This is where Daddy used to work. Now he's a long way away in Texas."
So long reporting/newspapering
... Hello new opportinitues...
This little board puzzle was how I helped the girls "see" where Daddy was and get the distance and the time. I explained how many "Backyardigans" it was from our home to his first night's stay and we called him every night. He only had two nights of a hotel. The second night though took some navigating on my part to help him aim straighter to Texas.
Texting looked a little like this--
Y- heading to NM now.
L- really? The trip tic doesn't have you going through NM at all.
......
Later I got him steered to a better highway, but in the torrential downpour he missed something along the way and started going toward Kansas. Overall, it was pretty good to only have a navigational problem rather than anything else go wrong!

The night before Youssef left, Lily was playing games with him and I'd explained that he was leaving the next day and would be gone for a long time. They'd played games for a while and I'd gotten Renna asleep, but when I told Lily it was time for bed, she burst into tears. She calmed down a bit when I explained that Daddy would still be here when she woke up and she'd get to spend some time with him the next morning and he'd leave at lunch time. But... she was still pretty upset and I was having a hard time keeping my own voice under control. I quickly thought of an idea. I'd already had this little princess and the frog figures for her that she'd picked out for some time during the move and I hadn't figured out when to give it to her. Well I remembered how she'd said that she thought the prince looked like Daddy and quickly told her that he would look for her special prince and princess and send it to her. (On the "daddy express mail"..) We had a few days of gearing up toward this so that when he was in Dallas he could "send" it to her. I know this made her feel (in a tangible way) that Daddy was thinking of her and didn't forget her and so forth.
She was REALLY excited to see this
Renna was excited too and dubbed the prince "Daddy Prince" or "Prince Daddy" or just "Daddy"
You can see in the picture just how excited she was to "hold" her "Daddy Prince"
For the first half hour or so they both played with the dolls. Lily drove the horse and carriage around holding Tiana and Renna sat the "Daddy Prince" in the carriage too and followed her around.

Lily played with her new toys the rest of the day and into the evening. Renna went back and forth for a bit. She also has a "Night Crawler" action figure that she calls "Daddy" too because of the costume he wore a few years ago. When Lily was Renna's age and saw a Spider-man she'd always say it was Daddy because of the costume she saw him wear back then.


My thumb is bandaged btw because I sliced my thumb nail while cutting up a watermelon. No blood from the nail, just afraid it would get caught on something and tear more. My thumb is a little tender... it was a big knife.Another little thing I've been doing to help the girls adjust besides trying to help them focus on the new house we are going to and other happy sides to the move, is having them watch this Backyardigans called "Riding the Range" and that has a song in it with the words "Texas here I come..." Renna especially likes playing with this little lego horse and cowboy because of that.
While Youssef was still on the road I took pictures of all the girls toys! Not that many left to take and I'll soon put the pictures in a little catalog for them so that they can dig through the CATALOG rather than throwing all the toys on the floor to find what they are looking for. They posed with their animals... and yes, they have plenty.

I think we'll try to keep the number to about what they have right now. If I get them anything new, I like the idea of getting them books or clothes for their dolls or something that goes WITH something they really like to play with already. Seriously, they have so many toys.

I'm still organizing things and have another pile of goodwill items to get rid of filling the back of the LandRover right now! It's incredible just how much better I feel when there's LESS junk in our house. I've been pretty ruthless about it all.. with my own stuff especially. I've even gotten rid of "project" things. Yes, it's true. I figured if I wasn't planning on doing the project for a decade I should probably let someone else enjoy it. ;]

The girls seem to be a little more clingy after Youssef left. Renna has put her head in my shoulder more when I hold her. I think she could feel the sadness around her no matter how well I was trying to hide it. After he left and we came inside she said, "Sad" and I had a little talk with her about our feelings and about Daddy leaving. Youssef and I are old hats with the long distance thing because of our engagement time and I knew it wouldn't be fun, but it's a lot easier for me to deal with on my own... it's so, so sad with the girls. Whenever Lily talks about Daddy or the toy that looks like Daddy her voice is a little shaky. And when Renna talks to Youssef on the phone at night she turns her had with her eyebrows raised and the most HUGE look of joy as she looks out the window toward the driveway and squeals "Daddy?" ... as if he's just going to drive up any minute. Moments like that are harder than anything else... those are also the moments when I can't look effected for their sake.

Overall I've been doing good so far. It was harder right before he left because everything was a "last".. but now it's into the time when I can work on things to get ready for when we are together again. The girls are a great distraction too and I'm never lacking cuddle times and affection from them.

I was having some pretty profound thoughts (at least to me) yesterday. I stayed up a little late cleaning while watching "You've Got Mail" (LOVE that movie!) and it just felt so good enjoying the quiet and the honest feeling of cleaning. Oh, tip here about mopping floors and being poor... I'm a terrible housekeeper and probably only clean the shower walls once a year... I like to clean the floors though and last night I used the old mop water/soap (that I'd just used on the floors) and dumped it into the shower and scrubbed the walls with the mop. It totally worked and was better than just throwing the water out. Okay, back to serious. So I kept thinking about why I miss Youssef.

Maybe it seems like a dumb question to many of you, but it seemed important to ask myself. You see, he does a lot of things around the house and always has. Often doing the dishes when I don't ask him to (and forgetting to take out the garbage when he's supposed to) ... he always seems so ready to help me and do things for me and make sure I'm happy.. and you know what? I don't miss that. I'd actually rather do the housework myself (sometimes it throws me off rhythm when he helps too much.) But if I don't miss so much what he DOES than what do I miss? Do I miss having someone to talk to? Do I miss having him play with the girls? These thoughts were going through my head as I cleaned and watched the show and I came to a conclusion. While I do miss him playing with the girls or talking to him... I realized that I don't miss him the most for how he listens to me (and he's a GREAT listener!) I do really miss his in sites and wise counsels, but those things can be gotten from a distance. I can write a letter and he can respond as we have done before. Then what is it? I realized that I miss his presence.

But this got me thinking about how sometimes you can be with someone and yet feel completely apart and how you can be far away from someone and feel even more connected (I know, I've had a lot of experience with "long distance") ... so, what is it now? Now that I HAVE been married and I AM used to being with Youssef every day. This separation is (of course) different from before we were married because back then we didn't even quite know what it was like to be with each other so much because we'd never had that.

What does it mean to be in someones presence? Is it just a physical proximity? This got me thinking about what it's like with our relationship with God. As the Church is waiting for the Bridegroom to finish preparing a house and come back for us.. that's essentially what I'm waiting for with Youssef. He's gone on ahead and is preparing a place for us. What does it look like to stay connected while still being apart? What does it look like for us as Christians?

How do we stay in the "presence" of God? We have his Holy Spirit with us all the time, yes? We have it REALLY good! We don't have to give sacrifices and follow every little rule to be worthy of communing with God!

I think of how I want to hear from Youssef.. not necessarily anything long, but a word here and there. Is he thinking of me? How would I know if he were? What does that look like to God and our relationship with Him? Are we NOT reading his "letters" or "texting" (=praying) because we want to "do it right"- meaning spend a LONG time doing whichever it is? What if God doesn't care about if we spend 30 minutes praying? What if it's just that constant awareness of Him. Of being in His presence... praying because we WANT to. Just like I write to Youssef (not out of obligation) because I WANT to do it. Long or short, deep or superficial.. it doesn't matter.

What I miss most is hearing Youssef talk about his day. When it all comes down to it... it wasn't what he did around the house or that he'd give me a break from the kids or anything like that. I simply miss being apart of his life. Hearing the little tidbits of things that he went through in the day or what he liked or what freaked him out... it's not WHAT he said that was so important it's in those moments when he shared himself.

There's this movie that I love, "Shall we Dance?".... Susan Surandon (I think it was) explained what love is and the quote went something like this, "We get married because we want someone to witness our lives..."

That's how I feel. I miss witnessing Youssef's life. The only way I can get that now is just what he chooses to write to me, but it's not the same as being in his presence and observing his mood and how he speaks about something.. especially when he'd first get home.

I wonder what it will be like when we move... I've always felt like he's never fit in here... like I'd taken him out of his element by him coming here to marry me, but now we'll be going to the place that HE really wants to be in. The place where I'll be completely relying on him for where to go and what to do (I don't make friends easily and haven't driven in any big cities before..) People always ask me if I'm excited about the move, and there's a lot of mixed feelings about moving. I do have a few friends there and I've been there before and sort of know what I'm getting into. I KNOW already that I'll be off balance and it will take me a few years to adjust (just because I know how I am and can guess how I'll react).. but one thing that I AM really excited about is the prospect of seeing Youssef where he wants to be... in his element, if you will. It's a way to see him more fully being who he is, and that's what I want. If we really love someone isn't that what all of us should want? I don't want him to change, unless it's to change into who he is more fully.. isn't that what God wants with us? God created us for a purpose and designed our abilities and tastes to be a certain way (so amazing) and he loves us and wants us to be more fully who he's created us to be! Yes, he's also changing us into Christ's image.. pulling us farther out of our sinfulness, but it's not so that we can be something OTHER than who we are.. it's so that we can be more fully who He's created us to be.

Such a wonderful free place... That's how I can see our marriage going as well. It seems that the longer we are married the better everything is and in many ways we can be more fully who we are with each other. I'm so much happier than I used to be... a lot of that doesn't have anything to do with Youssef though (the unhappiness or the happiness) it was just me and how I wasn't in the best place with God. I had this funny idea that Youssef was supposed to do something with me.... like have a Bible study together or something, and I wasn't being good about praying and reading on my own. I've talked some about that on a previous post though, so I won't get into it here. The point though (I suppose) is to be in that right place with God... becoming who we were created to be.. that freeing beautiful place where "It is well with my soul" and then when we are with each other anything that was an issue before doesn't matter and we can just be ourselves.

That's what I miss... I miss witnessing Youssef's life, but I'm also looking forward to a place where I can know him even more fully than I do now.