Happiness

Bliss is about the best word I can come up with to describe how I feel about my life right now. I've told Jon for a long time that the first few months we spent together after we met were the happiest of my life. After that it was mostly very stressful with lots of happy moments in between! Right now tops it. We have reached a point in our life together where we are finally living our dreams. We have amazing children which you will hear me say over and over. I finally graduated college (it's been almost two years) after starting for two years, taking a break for two years and finishing the last three years- that's 7 years to finish and be able to start working. I am really proud of that. I feel very lucky to have a job that can support my family with me only working 3 nights a week (most of the time). Jon can stay home with the kids. I would love for him to get in school and graduate so I can work a little less- I miss them all- he's working on that. I really enjoy where I work and what I'm doing. I feel like if I'm going to be away from my family it needs to be for something worthwhile and I'm quite satisfied where I'm at. And then there's the farm. People have thought we were a little crazy for wanting it but we are ecstatic to finally have it. We tried once in the past and learned from our experience. We are now so excited about all of the possibilities. At present, Jon is putting in new floors in the whole house. This is a tedious, messy job and it means he is working on that every moment that I'm home. That means that I'm doing all the household stuff while he's doing that. Now, I do help with that stuff normally but generally, since Jon is the stay at home dad, he does it. I kinda forgot how hard it is to be a stay at home parent. And now there's three kids- the baby is exhausting! Trying to juggle all three children and get the house clean is literally impossible. Leaves me feeling like something or someone is always getting left out. However, the progress he makes is uplifting. I know he'll be done eventually. Although after the floors there's the wood stove. And we just bought 6 fruit trees and 6 berry bushes so that'll be at least a couple of afternoons of work. I guess he keeps saying we need to fix the shed so he can put the rabbits over there for the winter and we'll need to pull out the fall garden and work on some new beds for the spring. Oh, and if we're going to have a woodstove for heat we'll need to have some wood. He's cut down a couple of dead trees but the wood is not exactly ready to be burned- lots of splitting ahead. If we're lucky and we get a decent tax return we can build the kids a swingset/ fort. I've got some really fun ideas and I'm so over them watching TV all day.
I know it sounds like a lot and it is! At the same time- we feel so lucky that we finally get to do it. We are really making it our own and I love that. It makes me happy!

So, we're starting a blog...

Let me first say that I've typed this once already. I hate to start a blog whining but I know everyone has had that moment where they've spent time typing something (no matter how long or short) and then at the click of a mouse- it disappears. Sounds like magic but really it's just annoying. As my husband knows very, very, very well- I hate repeating myself. I'm sure it won't come out nearly as good the second time as it did the first.

So, again (for me at least)....
I've often wondered who would be interested in reading about our seemingly ordinary lives and maybe no one will. That's ok. If nothing else this will be a way for us and our children to look back on the chances we take, challenges we face, fun we have, and people we love.

Jon will hopefully write as well and I'm looking forward to reading his thoughts. For now, I suppose I'll introduce myself. I'm the Mom. We have three amazing children. Two girls- Gwenevere who is almost 6 and Hope who is 3, and our little man, Vance, who is 4 months old. I have a fantastic husband who I am thankful for everyday (even though I may not let him know it). We'll be married for 7 years in January and still very much in love. I'm a Registered Nurse and I work nights at TC Thompson Children's hospital in downtown Chattanooga in the ER. I love my job but I truly appreciate every moment I get to be at home with my family.

This is just an intro and being so it's rather vague. I'm sure as we continue to post, hopefully on a regular basis, the story of our lives will unfold. Hopefully I won't always have to be up at (it was 430am the first time) 5am to do it! For now, I'm going back to bed - probably to be awakened by a baby, who wants to eat yet again, in two hours. I'm sure Jon will hear the very familiar phrase "Your turn" soon after Vance gets fed so I can go back to sleep!