The Next Big Adventure! (Including: The Awesomeness of St. Joseph and adorable baby birds)

I hope that y’all are enjoying your week! Over here, life has gotten a bit fuller—because my husband and I have picked a day to begin The Next Big Adventure!

For the past several months, my husband was job hunting for hours upon hours, sandwiched in between his part-time job, schoolwork, and classes. Like many other students preparing to graduate, he was getting rejected time and time again. The two of us, and our families, were all keeping St. Joseph busy as the days flew by. Early in March, my husband had a couple of phone interviews, and one of the companies said that they wanted to fly him down for an onsite interview! Then, on Sunday, March 15—just a few days before the Solemnity of St. Joseph—my husband decided to intent (officially state his intention of joining) to a campus household which is dedicated to St. Joseph. The next day (the day on which he was going to intent to this household), my husband was at an appointment on campus, so that he could prepare for his upcoming onsite interview. During this meeting, he got a phone call from another company with a job offer! When God rains down His blessings, He dumps and pours them down! We were unsure if we should take the job or not, so we continued to pray, and my husband flew out for the onsite interview with the other company. They also offered him a job, and we reasoned, prayed, and talked through the jobs. Then, seeing where God was pointing us, we chose. And just the other day, we decided to move on June 10^th—just a few weeks away!

Twenty-two years ago, I was born when my parents were living in Steubenville. A handful of months later, we moved to Oklahoma City. In just a few weeks, my husband and I will be moving from Steubenville to Oklahoma City. God has a great sense of irony J So, for the next few weeks, life will continue to swing into chaos. We’ll be traveling to the other side of the U.S.A. for my sister-in-law’s wedding, coming back here, and then moving down to Oklahoma. In other words, our living room currently looks like a disaster zone J

I think that moving is really exciting, and I love exploring new places. But, packing can be a drag at times. You can spend hours cleaning our drawers and organizing piles, and the room still looks like a mess. But, slowly but surely, my husband and I are making some progress. This whole experience is a good way to grow in poverty of spirit, too. A few weeks back, I started whittling down my closet. The other day, I recycled a TON of my essays. I know that they’re all on my computer, which helps, but this was big for me—I had saved every single essay from all of my college courses, because sometimes I go back to look at them and the teachers’ comments. BUT, in the grand scheme of things, they aren’t something I really want or need to have around. Since I was getting rid of tons of papers, I did “splurge” and print off the one paper which I want to keep: a hard copy of "Veiled for Love," an 80+ page paper I wrote this school year (the first half of the paper was part of a writing class, and the second half of the paper was my English thesis).

With all of the cleaning and packing, I’ve also gotten back into sewing. When I picked up a needle and thread the other day, I remembered just how much I love sewing. See, I’m really not into throwing out clothes or wasting large pieces of good material. And it just so happens that a “mending pile” has been building up over the past few months. Only now am I getting around to the mending pile. Some of the clothes are beyond help, so I’ve been cutting them up to use as dusting cloths or patches for one of my hippie skirts. But, when I saw my husband’s pair of old, torn jeans in the mending pile, I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I’ve always wanted to upcycle a pair of old jeans, but since I don’t wear jeans, I’ve never really had a pair to upcycle. And I’ve never felt like buying a perfectly good pair of jeans from a thrift store for this purpose. He is quite a bit skinnier than I am, but I also found some scraps from an old pair of jeans that had been made into cutoff shorts, so I had enough material.

First, I cut out the pockets so that I could make them into potholders (which I somehow need to find time to do in the next couple days haha). Then, I sat around and played with the pieces of denim. This project was like putting together a puzzle, only it was easier: I could use scissors to trim down pieces to make them fit better. The two types of denim I had were different shades of blue, and I really liked seeing how the contrast worked out. Over the course of a few days, I would sit around and fit together the pieces in different ways, stitching them together when I liked how they looked. The only bad part about this skirt is that I could literally work on it forever. I had to force myself to stop, because I need to work on other things. But really, this skirt is completely irregular, with no hem or set pattern, and it’s completely made of patches. So, I could keep adding patches, pockets, or embroidery to my heart’s content. Actually, a couple minutes after I forced myself to “finish” it and put it away, I started thinking about some extra patches I could sew onto the front of the skirt. Maybe I will, if I happen to get some free time in the midst of packing, getting ready for the wedding, and tying up loose ends in Steubenville. But, in the meantime, I’ll just have to be content with how things are.

 

On a final note: Last year, a beautiful robin lived on our front porch. We named her “Mama Bird,” and would always greet her whenever we walked by. However, when we returned from a road trip last summer, Mama Bird was gone. We were surprised and delighted, several weeks ago, when she returned! And, the other week, we discovered that there are three baby birds in the nest! My husband joked that he should set up an “Eagle Cam” on the nest. It’s been quite fun to step away from moving boxes and watch three little birds poking their heads out of the nest! And today, we discovered, was “Flight Day.” One by one, over the course of a few hours, all three baby birds flew out of the nest! Two of them, when they flew out, crash landed on our porch, but then they were up in the air again!

The last baby bird to fly! Off and on, we were watching him for about an
hour before he finally took off (he was sitting by himself, mustering up the courage to fly, I guess)

I hope that y’all have an amazing day!