Well, hello again, friends!
It’s time to check back in with you and give a little life update. It’s amazing how quickly the past 8 months have flown by when life is as busy as ours. Since my last post, we’ve had a lot of big changes – some I’ll admit, I did not see coming. But like many things in life, what start out as dreams and wishes, have a way of coming true when you least expect it.
In January, my husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary and rang in the New Year at home, cooking a big meal with all our teenagers, and bonus, I actually made it to midnight!
February and March brought some unexpected potential opportunity when my husband was offered a job which would have required us to move about 3.5 hours north of where we are currently in Wisconsin. We spent countless sleepless nights trying to figure out if this was the right move for our family. We have been planted in what’s known as the Lake Country of Wisconsin for the past 20+ years. All of our friends and family are here, and two of our children still have a few years of high school remaining. Ultimately, we had to make the very difficult decision to turn down the offer, mainly because it would have required our family to live apart from April – June, when the company requested my husband to start before the end of the school year. With two of our children celebrating milestone graduations this year, we just knew it was not the ideal situation for our family. While I think the change would have been good for my husband, the overall circumstances of the move would have placed a lot of major unwanted stresses on our family.
While we were busy contemplating this change, our oldest daughter set off on a big adventure of her own – to England! She took a 10 day trip with her high school theater group and traveled all over London and the surrounding area, exploring, learning and having a great time.
I secretly wished I could have gone along as a chaperone with this trip, but the experience of traveling that far without mom or dad along was a good one for her. And bonus, she brought me back my very own Paddington Bear. One day, our family would love to take a trip back to the UK together, to explore more of Wales, England and Scotland, the area where much of my ancestry is originated.
When May rolled around, our oldest also surprised us with a big change in her plans for life after high school. While originally enrolling in a 4 year university in a neighboring state, she changed her mind and instead decided to commit to a local technical college near us, continue to live at home, and earn a 2 year degree in a graphic design program. With her many gifts and talents in the art field, we knew this was a smart move on her part. I have no doubt she will shine brightly, and save a heap of money in the process, as she pursues this creative dream of hers. And I can continue to proudly showcase her artwork on my gallery wall by her bedroom!
That led us to June – the big month of graduations! Both our oldest (high school) and our youngest (middle school) were graduates of 2026. It was so much fun getting to celebrate this special moment with them as they enter the next big phases as college and high school students. I couldn’t be more proud of their accomplishments.
In June my husband also took a month long sabbatical from his job – which was something he desperately needed. Having 4 weeks for him to fully unwind and decompress from the many stresses of managing a busy retail chain 60 hours/week was extremely life-giving. He went on a fishing trip up north with his guy buddies, spent time working on projects around the house that he rarely has time for, and took many, many naps. I equated his time off to watching a limp balloon slowly reinflate, until it’s back to its bouncy, carefree self. His time away was so worth it, and sent him back to work refreshed and reenergized.
And then a big change in my career also met me rather abruptly. After working in library for the local school district over the past three years, I decided I needed to step away from that role and trust that God would lead me to where I was now supposed to be. However, if you know me well at all, leaps of faith don’t naturally come easy. I like stability! But I could no longer ignore the push and pull on my heart, knowing this was just not where I was supposed to be any longer. Call it a Mary Poppins moment, I jumped off the cliff of uncertainty, clinging to my umbrella for dear life, and prayed like heck that I would land somewhere safely.
It’s not uncommon for God to continue to surprise me with his generous and loving nature. I don’t know why I’m still taken aback by it, but often times I feel unworthy of the many blessings I’ve been given in this little life of mine. Early in the summer, I’d had a few job interviews that seemed promising, but ultimately did not lead to any offers. I really didn’t want to throw away the past 10 years of working in library, but also knew I needed something different. I was starting to get nervous, scratching my head, asking God if I had heard him wrong – but deep down I knew He would ultimately provide, when the time was right, as He always does.
In July, I found out about a vacancy at my local public library, in the children’s department. In a matter of days, I had applied, interviewed and been offered the position, with a resounding, “YES!” I could not believe I had landed safely at this job, one I had only dreamed of ever having. Being back to working with the littles in the library again is my absolute favorite thing! Back to puppets and flannel boards and storytimes and songs and being creative in so many fun ways. But most importantly, inspiring young minds to develop a love for reading. Something that fills my bucket to no end. Something my previous role had been severely lacking for too long and God knew I needed to go back to that happy place for both my sanity and my peace.
I just wanted to share the lyrics to the song, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” (from Disney’s Cinderella), because it seems so fitting for this new phase of life. It’s a reminder to never give up on our dreams – our faith – our ambitions – our wishes – our hopes…because they really do sometimes come true!
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