this could become a habit

Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends you can't lose,
This could become a habit!
Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it (yeah!),
Together we'll nab it,
We'll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it

straight to the point, i'm great at packing and moving. i could definitely share my expertise with others who have not made 8 large scale moves and several more small moves in 18 years. i'm pretty good at pulling together a timeline of tasks and weeding out the junk and collecting boxes. i don't think my expectations are too high concerning what should be happening at certain junctures of the moving day. however, this was going to prove to be the worst move of all the moves we've done. 

in order to avoid a play by play of the moving day atrocities, i'll do some quick bullet points:

*we interviewed and booked movers who came highly recommended by neighborhood people and they had done a few hauling projects for us previously so we felt good about that. we booked moving and packing and cleaning services. we discussed the moving day timeline and the movers agreed that our plan of attack was not going to be a problem.

*i felt anxious about the time frame so i went ahead and packed 90% of our stuff beforehand to make the day of festivities go smoothly. we had several dear, sweet friends help along the way. we moved the majority of the basement stuff and bedroom stuff to the main floor and garage.

*my worries were not unfounded as the movers showed up 2 and a half hours late with a single uhaul truck, the crew foreman plus only 3 scrawny, first time movers. we had planned on being almost completely loaded by noon. it was 11:30. (how i know i'm not being unreasonable: when we moved from lawrenceville to dacula, we had the first truck loaded, driven across town and unloaded in 2 hours. that's the kind of efficiency i'd come to expect from professional movers.)

*they brought 10 boxes total for packing. TOTAL. 

*the crew foreman announced upon arrival that the movers should take all the breaks they needed throughout the day.

*they(all 4) took 1 hour to dismantle a bunk bed that took thomas 1 hour to put together himself. 

*thomas went to get another uhaul because he knew the one they brought would not be enough. he was concerned that the truck retrieval process took too long and the movers would be waiting on him. nope, after 3 hours, the truck was not even 1/3 of the way filled and they were taking a lunch bunch. it was preceded by a long water break and followed up with a smoke break.

*i went to home depot and bought a boatload full of boxes for the last 10% of stuff that needed to be packed. THEY DID NOT PACK A SINGLE THING, despite our agreement for moving AND packing. i packed like a woman possessed. packing is the only thing that kept me out of jail that day. my wonderful friend lindsay and her girls surprised us to say goodbye, saw our predicament and pitched in without being asked and did more packing and organizing than the movers. 

*by 5 o'clock, they were finishing up the first truck and needed to go to dinner. 

*our whole family went to our favorite mexican restaurant because we knew we weren't going to get out of town in any sort of reasonable time. we were an embarrassing level of disgusting and sweaty and a messy from all our hard work. i fought back tears the entire meal. 

*our dear friends, paula and logan, took our kids for the evening since we STILL weren't on the road at 7.

*one of the movers asked me if i wanted the box with the TV in it taped shut. read that again. 

*thomas had to help the professional movers attach the car dolly to the back of the moving truck in the dark.

*they were finally "done" at 10pm that night. not really, because there was so much stuff still left in the house so thomas and i made the decision to make the 5 hour trek again at a later date and come back and finish up by ourselves. 

*we headed to a hotel, both of us so mad at the whole situation we could chew fire. we had planned on being in waycross by evening and have the moving trucks arrive sometime later that night.

*we got on the road early the next morning and made it to waycross around noon.

*the people who lived in our house previously were renters and they left the house a mess and had allowed the AC unit to flood the ceiling. my mother in law was there cleaning like the dickens so that we didn't have to put our stuff on top of other people's filth. 

*the movers were unloading when we got there but instead of putting things in the assigned rooms they were just dumping everything in the garage or dining room. 

*the movers refused to move the bonus room couch upstairs because said they could not get the couch through the door. they claimed that they "measured it with a shoe" and knew it would not fit. we just wanted them out of our lives at this point so we had them leave it in the garage.

*later that week, thomas and a friend moved the couch up the stair and through the door with ZERO PROBLEMS.

*at the end of move in day, i was hiding in our closet because i could not ever bear to make eye contact with these movers anymore. they were also avoiding thomas because he was about to spit nails and he's quite physically intimidating. we paid them and they left and i burned sage to cleanse the house of their presence. 

*instead of doing a fun overnight trip to the beach for our 18th anniversary, just thomas and me, we drove up to atlanta to get the rest of the stuff out of our house and returned the SAME DAY. 5 hours one way, 5 hours back. 

*we stopped at a peach farm on the way.

*we unavoidably sat in this typical atlanta traffic:

*dear sweet paula came at a moment's notice with her girls to help up clean up the house really quick so we could get it under contract, since the aforementioned cleaning team NEVER SHOWED UP. they did have the gall to text me three weeks later to see if we still needed that cleaning service. the movers also left behind their uhaul dolly and a fancy tape measure, which they clearly didn't even need since they measured my couch in SHOE LENGTHS. the movers texted me about both the dolly and the tape measure but they are now mine forever.

*late night in butts county, georgia with all the stuff the movers left behind in our uhaul. 

*how the TV in our living room looks after the move:

*my back patio for the past two months, including the piles of junk the previous tenants left behind:

*but we're here and everything is fine and everything will be fine because everything has always been fine because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

THE END

where in the world is heidi san diego?

Now, this is story all about how

My life got flipped-turned upside down

And I'd like to take a minute

Pull out my floss

I'll tell you how i became the Queen of a town called

Waycross

when i last posted in may, we had only decided the day before that we would be moving to waycross. but even just a few days before that we would have been incredulous if you said that in 5 weeks we would have sold our house, packed up everything and moved 5 hours south to thomas's hometown. i still can't believe it today except for the fact that i packed up most everything myself and i'm sitting at a new table, in a new kitchen, in a new house looking out the window at my new crepe myrtle trees. 

after thomas recovered from his covid ordeal we were able to take stock of what a blessing of sorts quarantine had been for us. sure, having everything shut down and the constant fear of illness and a free-falling economy have been less than ideal, but for the first time in our marriage, we were all together. since thomas's office was closed, he didn't have to suffer through an 1 1/2 hour commute each way through horrific traffic. we ate lunch together. we had moe's mondays! we ate dinner together. every day! we worked out in the garage in our makeshift, ramshackle gym. we really enjoyed each other's company. can home really be a heaven on earth? especially during these trying times? indeed it can! i liken it to the scripture in alma 50 during the war chapters when Moroni and the people are in almost constant preparation and fortification against an inevitable attack from the Lamanites. in verse 19, "and thus we see how merciful and just are the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of men" and verse 22, "And those who were faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord were delivered at all times" and finally, verse 23, "but behold there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni". how was it possible that through all this work and trial that they were so happy? i concur, after the march and april that i had, how was it possible that i felt such peace and happiness in such uncertain times? there were many times during thomas' illness that i went to my basement guest room where i was sleeping and cried from exhaustion and fear. there were many times that put my face into a pillow and railed at the unfairness of it all. you know those people who have hard times thrust upon them but they don't complain? i am certainly not one of them. WHY ME??? nevertheless, each and every time i read my scriptures and prayed, there was peace. i spent a lot of time reading Saints volume 2 and there were several key passages that buoyed me up in time of trial, particularly when the saints are trying to settle the salt lake valley and they were starving to death. i was especially touched when i read of the cricket infestation and Stake President John Smith wrote, "The Lord led us here and He has not led us here to starve." the Lord led us through quarantine and we would not starve temporally or spiritually. 

"but heidi, that's lovely and all but how does all this get you to waycross?"

oh dear reader, i'll tell you. as soon as georgia state laws allowed thomas' office to reopen, thomas' boss had the building sanitized and everyone was expected back in the office. that was the catalyst for change in our family. after a few weeks resuming working and commuting after having known how wonderful family time can be, thomas said enough was enough. but what was the solution? we had everything we ever prayed for in gwinnett county. we loved our house, we had a great ward, we had an incredible school district that had served all of our children so well. but we also had a very hectic life and we only saw thomas on weekends and even that was limited because of callings and activities. 

thomas has a friend in waycross who had a small, thriving law practice. they bounced ideas off of each other from time to time and even referred business to each other. brandon had offered thomas a partnership many times but it was never something he was interested in. thomas would tell me about it but i never thought anything about it. we have moved enough in our family to know that we were certainly not seeking out opportunities to move. however, brandon was serious enough to keep bringing it up and it was an idea thomas was becoming amenable to because of our covid experience. i said flat out no! for so many reasons, but really because moving is the worst. i'm a level 1000 moving expert now and i'd rather have my house burn down than move again. but i did say i'd pray about it. that was on a friday night. saturday morning i said another prayer for good measure before i went on my morning run. the first portion of every run i listen to a conference talk. that day's particular talk was "Called of God" by Elder L. Tom Perry from the october 2002 general conference. it was simply the next talk in the queue of conference talks. as the talk progressed i started punching the air in front of me because of how perfectly it answered my prayer, but it was also not the answer i wanted. but i listened and i tried to be humble and accept the answer. most of the time i don't receive lightning bolts of personal revelation, but i did that morning. at one point of his talk, elder perry tells a story of his family moving for his new job and trying to decide which house to buy. they found a house that they all really liked but elder perry discovered that the commute was 1 1/2 hours each way, the same as thomas' commute. i'm sure people who saw me running that day thought i was having a seizure as i ran and shook my head back and forth and shouted "NO! NO! NO!" 

as the story continued, elder perry gave the decision of which house to buy up to his children. 

“You can have either this house or a father,” I said. Much to my surprise they responded, “We will take the house. You are never around much anyway.”

that is how i knew we were supposed to move to waycross. the Lord laid it out for me in simple terms. it was a lightning bolt of revelation. i could not deny that i prayed and asked for an answer and received an answer. i knew that even though this talk was given in october 2002, the Lord knew it was the answer i would need on may 16th 2020. His timing is perfect. had i not been pleading for years for a way for us to spend more time with thomas? did i finally receive it? and now that i had tasted that wonderful time with thomas, did i only want more? was the answer to move to a tiny, rural town and have thomas open up his own practice, complete with 10 minute commute? i knew it, i knew God knew it and i could not deny it. so i finished my run and walked in the door and i said to thomas, "we can do this". we went down the waycross the following weekend and picked out our house. 

not the house we bought but i loved it so much. someday it will be mine!

the house we actually bought:

there are many details that i'm leaving out that i'm sure i'll cover in future posts but once i received and accepted the answer, there was no going back and everything worked out. it was such a busy, hard 5 weeks but the Lord keeps his promises. i felt carried by Him many, many times.

having been here 2 months now, atlanta feels like a lifetime ago. it is certainly my old life. as hard as it has been on all of us to move, there is no looking back. i choose to be grateful and i try to laugh when i feel like crying(which is often) but the Lord has not brought us here to starve. i still miss aldi very much though. 

stop the pandemic i want to get off

real life is stranger than fiction for the past two months. Georgia is starting to ease it's quarantine restrictions but it's not quite the free for all that the media seems determined to portray. the few times i actually do venture out, people are playing it safe, staying far apart and being considerate and kind. pandemics have their benefits. 

after 9 weeks all together, no one seems to mind a far drive anymore. everyone begs to go anywhere they can in the car. today thomas had his temple recommend renewed out in a our new stake center(for our BRAND NEWLY formed stake) in winder. normally everyone would have balked at the thought of riding together for no reason but today everyone jumped at the chance to go together and look out the window at anything besides the walls of our house. 

we've spent hours upon hours on the trampoline. we started a club called the "butt bounce club". Athena Blythe even wrote about it for one of her online school assignements.

only picture that loaded:

thomas got horrifically ill with covid-19. he actually believes he contracted it in march while getting lunch at the whole foods by his office. our pollen season was especially bad this year so we weren't immediately aware of how sick thomas was. he started out thinking it was simply seasonal allergies to within a few days not being able to walk a few steps at a time. his fever spiked up to 105 and he couldn't sleep more than a few minutes at a time because of how bad the coughing got. it was hard to get a doctor to see him until we were eventually able to get an appointment at an urgent care. from there they did the exam while thomas was in the car. they didn't have any covid tests on hand but they did a barrage of other tests to rule everything out. our doctor was pretty positive that thomas had covid on top pneumonia. she contacted the county to get him an official test done. we went to the county the next day it was like a movie scene. police were blocking the road, they triple checked to make sure we had an appointment. medical personnel were wandering about completely covered in PPE gear. they stuck the text wayyyyyy up thomas nose until he sang soprano and then we were on our way. for the next two weeks thomas sucked down his prescribed medications and a bunch of nyquil on top of that. he languished like that for a few more days until our urgent care called back and i told them he wasn't improving and i was still really worried each night that thomas wasn't going to wake up in the morning. we had many scary conversations about what if he didn't recover because my giant, healthy husband was in very dire straits and it was hard enough to get thomas tested in the first place and getting him admitted to a hospital felt impossible. once he finally got a cheritussin prescription, he was finally able to sleep and he started making baby steps towards recovery. cheritussin thomas was loads of fun. he even did some work conference calls while he was drugged up. our bishop braved our house while wearing a full hazmat suit and gave both thomas and me a blessing. it was a pretty powerful experience. he pronounced many blessings and that was truly the time when thomas started making bigger strides toward recovery. finally, we got a call from the county saying that thomas had officially tested positive for covid-19. no duh, gwinnett county. 

the first thing we did when thomas was able to stand for longer periods of time was to do a photo recreation of american gothic. i'm not sure why, but thomas was still pretty hopped up on drugs. 

our district did a really good job of transitioning to digital learning but it was still really hard to get 4 kids doing 4 different assignments on 4 different computers. i've never aspired to homeschooling but i respect anyone's choice to do it. both reagan and athena blythe each have 5 support staff so i was really feeling out of my element. scarlett was a champ homeschooler who got up early every day and was done by 930 every day. weirdo. she also never missed a zoom or google meetup. i cannot say the same for myself. herschel was a pretty good student if athena blythe was a pretty good student that day. 

outdoor chalk math:

photos i'm not buying because i'm so cheap.

we've done a million miles of walks and hikes. we've tried to hit up new parks that are farther away from the house because the aforementioned interest in long car rides. 

the kids got pretty good at biking. i got pretty good at loading up bikes and scooters and children efficiently. 

one of our favorite hikes is just around the corner from our house. this picture was taken right after herschel went to pee in the woods and then peed on MY BACK for fun. 

finally, when i get a better, newer computer i'll write more on titanic day. i'll upload the video of thomas and i reenacting, "i'm the king of the world" on the back deck for herschel's amusement. i have loads of pictures of titanic day handwriting tasks and art projects. but for now, here's a picture of our titanic loving little boy watching titanic. 

the end

resolute 2020

here are my resolutions:

1. read 12 books. same as last year and i completed it.

2. read book of mormon with a theme in mind. last year i highlighted all references to Jesus Christ and it was magic. this year my theme to highlight is "knowledge is for the faithful". i going to highlight all references to people gaining knowledge because they were steadfast.

3. declutter every room and closet and storage area and garage. that equals out to one area a month, which is extremely doable. i started with the playroom and now the playroom looks great and hopefully it will make it more play-able because junk won't be everywhere.  matching bins and sneaking old toys out of the basment are twin thrills.

4. no unnecessary shopping until april 28. i have enough. i'm allowed to replace ripped or ruined items and i can always get new gym clothes because i'm really hard on those. here i am at church last week in all "old" clothes that i really love still. skirt is from 1999 and i usually wear it every christmastime.

5. weightlifting goals: 

275# deadlift

250# squat

105# Cossack squat

 10 scary good military pushups 

6. eat out more so that i can stress less. it seems like an opposite type of resolution than most people make, but i stress myself out about always having dinner made. it's usually a subpar dinner at that. i hope to allow myself to look at my schedule more and say, "let's just grab chik-fil-a or whatever", rather than cramming in food prep at random times of day. 

7. visit the dog store at the mall with reagan regularly and work up to him calmy holding and caring for dogs. i'm a big adopt don't shop person, but the mall pet store is pretty convenient for this resolution so we will work toward our personal pet ownership next year by making lots of visits this to the pet store year. 

barry manilow summer

last year i discovered an INTENSELY laid back all 70s easy listening radio station. since i always kinda lose my mind halfway through summer, i made a deal with myself that i would only listen to said station to help alleviate the summer fun stress. i can only deal with so much yelling in the car and since i can't turn off the kids i guess it can't be metallica summer. plus, if you listen to enough 70s easy listening, you're going to listen to a lot of barry manilow. barry manilow is an easy(listening!) target, but he actually has quite a lot of really good music. don't believe me,  next time you're cooking dinner, try listening to "could it be magic?". there's no could be, it is magic!

here's the barry manilow summer recap 2019. only 6 months too late. 

kicked off the summer with the local memorial day parade:

it was hot but loads of small town fun.

scarlett went to girls camp. i'm assuming it was a success. she came home alive and smiling and her laundry was really stinky. i'm just glad that she changed clothes often.

we did another summer of swim team. athena blythe was a pill but i think she still as swim potential. maybe next year. this was also the summer that athena blythe discovered her BFF eva. we go to church with eva and we're friends with her family so it was a matched fueled by swim team. it was eva for whom athena blythe planned the impromptu teenage wedding. 

we love our low-competitive-come-one-come-all swim team. it makes me want to get in the water too.

 

little baby swimmers are my favorite.

 while athena blythe attached herself to eva, herschel attached himself to her little brother, jax. he started wearing his hat backwards like, "jax moophy". reagan also loves "jax moophy" and jax is nice enough to go along with some of reagan's ideas, like having dance breaks at new year's eve parties and impromptu hymn singing in the nursery at the chapel. reagan favors the hymn, "how firm a foundation".

 athena blythe when she actually jumped in at the swim meet. she loves the meets, she doesn't love the racing portion.

we also did scootering at the park. not nearly as much as the previous summer when i forced everyone to scooter at the park every.single.day to help reagan get over his dog phobia(improved but still alive and well).

we also saw toy story 4 which was a big freakin' deal for our family but my computer's selective photo download is withholding those precious pictures so i'll just have to describe it to you. all smiling faces, reagan extra smiley. herschel in a firefighter costume, because why not? thomas in work clothes because he rushed across atlanta rush hour traffic to make it to this special occasion. buckets of popcorn everywhere.

finally, we had professional family pictures done. there are a bunch but here are a few:

the end

welcome to smashville

someday when i am old and my knowledge of parenting is infinite, i'd like to write a travel pamphlet about places that are good to take your special kids. our family can't go just anywhere. we try and push our boundaries all the time and every experience is exposure therapy, but some things simply aren't in our wheelhouse and that's okay. traveling with kids with autism is going to carry with it a range of altered expectations but if i've learned anything about anything, proper expectations and realistic adjustments are key to a happy life. occasionally there are even bursts of vacation glory.

for thanksgiving we surprised the kids with a short trip to chattanooga and nashville. because of autism, we didn't tell them until wednesday morning at 7am as we were hauling suitcases down the stairs. with autism there is often a lot of preparation for new experiences, but since we are now old hands at gauging proper autism practices, we decided to forego telling them beforehand so that i didn't have to hear any complaining or suffer through unnecessary anxieties from our special people. sometimes a bad day of reaction is preferred to several days of anxiety. this doesn't work for everyone every time, but it's how we chose to navigate this particular experience. naturally and not surprisingly, reagan was not thrilled about the trip and athena blythe was over the moon. please follow along for perfect captures of reagan's emotions through iphone photography.

we stopped at rock city and used the bathroom but didn't actually see rock city because it cost an arm and a leg and i wanted to save our time and money for bigger things. we kinda saw the lookout, on lookout mountain, where you can see 7 states. i'm content with kinda on that one. when thomas and i come alone, we will explore the battle of chattanooga and pay the $20 a pop for the lookout. 



the really big deal for me was being able to see ruby falls. it was amazing. a testimony to a divine creator. it was only discovered in 1928, because a guy decided to crawl on his stomach in a tiny crevice in a cave for 7 hours. we took the elevator down. 


not everyone was a fan. but he kept it to a minimum until the tour guide asked at the end, "who enjoyed this tour?"
"NOT ME!" said reagan.





from the tower at ruby falls

After chattanooga, we hopped in the car and drove to nashville. we ate burger king in the car, which i think is a good autism friendly trick, offer very familiar food in a trying or unfamiliar environment. we made it to nashville just in time to catch the nashville predators hockey game. it was absolutely sensory overload, for me especially because i was so worried about our specials after an already eventful day, but it went really well. sometimes reagan is able to tune out an excess level of noise if we're lucky. athena blythe happily talked to a little girl seated next to her and loudly asked why people we throwing their garbage on the ground instead of using the very easily accessible garbage cans located throughout the arena. i love that about her. for real, are you too prideful to help out the cleaning staff? i was surprised to learn that some hockey teams have cheerleaders. i just didn't think that was a thing, but it is. 

after a thrilling night sleeping all in the same hotel room, short one pullout bed because it was thanksgiving, we went and saw frozen 2. the best thing i can say about it was the was the kind of theater that serves actual restaurant quality food and i did enjoy my nachos. it appears they're just letting anybody write screenplays and music these days. there's hope for my music career yet. 

we were able to have thanksgiving dinner with thomas's BYU friend, heather, and her family. she is now a pediatric neurologist(which is right up my alley in case you didn't read the parts about having 2 kids with autism) and she had also invited one of her friends who is a plastic surgeon to join us so i was able to ask medical questions to my heart's desire. i learned a lot about botox injections being used to help celebral palsy patients deal with muscle stiffness and i saw a SLEW of post-breast cancer reconstruction photos using abdominal body fat and skin. modern medicine is incredible and once again, there is a divine creator in charge of all this. 

heather's husband is a firefighter so he took us down to the station and we were able to ask all the question and climb all the ladders. reagan thought this was way better than ruby falls. 

their were also live chickens in a coop, plus two cats and a dog so there was really something for everyone at this thanksgiving. 

fun fact, in the 1970s they started making fire trucks yellow so that they would be more easily identifiable in the dark but it did not catch on with the public so they went back to red. i said this once to someone and they acted like i made the whole thing up so this trip to the fire station was especially vindicating for me. 

another fun fact, scott stapp from creed and THE ALAN JACKSON live in this fire rescue district. 

friday was filled with the country music hall of fame, much to the delight of thomas and myself and much to the chagrin to everyone else, especially to the other patrons who saw us coming. 

if you say you don't love country, you're not giving the right kind of country music a try. i have a visceral reaction with someone calls "florida/georgia line" country music. NO. that's bro country. give chris stapleton a shot. the high women! the highway men! do you want to cry? try johnny cash's "hurt". do not put THE DOLLY PARTON in the same company as luke bryan. sorry luke, i've heard you're a nice guy but your music sounds like you need to blow your nose and your lyrics are about as inspired as the directions to make instant ramen.

athena blythe with kacey musgraves met gala outfit:

thomas with his favorite, eric church. 

reagan finally smiled with he saw taylor swift, and that's all i have to say about that.

outside the country music hall of fame:

outside the predators arena and an accurate name for our trip:

 Want to see something really cool ruined with a few eye rolls and licks on the display glass? bring your kids. sometimes you muscle through activities your kids don't want to be at like any old family and realize it's not autism, it's having kids. 

and reagan is DONE:

europe is probably never going to be in our cards, but i'm not completely writing that out of the possibilities. maybe we can coordinate it with a firetruck ride outside of the sistine chapel. 

we had dollywood planned for saturday, but we were all harboring burgeoning illnesses and it was going to rain all day in pigeon forge so we tabled that trip until next year. that's my last bit of autism travel advice for today. acceptance is key. you have to play the cards you're dealt and not wish for different cards all day. flexibility is a two way street. this is who my family is. some exposure therapy and practice and social stories aren't always going to work. sometimes you just go home. thomas and i need to be as flexible as we're expecting the kids to be and canceling things can be a gift. we needed to get home not completely exhausted and sick and by skipping dollywood, we were able to have a good fast sunday.

the flu didn't hit until sunday night.
the. end.