learn to express my gratitude to those who enrich my life

On my last full day in Florida, the looming prospect of moving so far from Illinois came crashing down on me. We spent a good chunk of the day driving around with Mom looking at houses, which was far more stressful than it probably should have been. The cost of housing in Florida is so much higher than it is here that I’m more than a little nervous. Plus, Chris and I are trying to be smart about this move and not undo any of the progress we’ve made on paying down our mountain of debt, so I don’t want to “put the cart before the horse,” but it’s hard to know which is the cart and which is the horse. Do we look for jobs first so we have an income stream when we move? Or do we look for a house first so we have somewhere to live while we’re looking for jobs (because there’s no way Mom can tolerate our menagerie)? Do we try to buy a house there first so we can move the animals out of our current place and make showing it that much easier? Or do we try to sell our place first because the market is so horrible and we can’t be saddled with two mortgage payments indefinitely? Should we try to rent a place in Florida first so we can get to know the area better before we buy? (Almost everywhere requires a 12-mo lease and an enormous pet deposit.)Should we ask Chris’s parents to keep our dogs temporarily and just move the cats until we get settled somewhere permanent? What if we do and Leo’s cancer comes back or Chunk’s epilepsy gets worse?

So all of these questions (and about a dozen others) were all swirling in my little head on Saturday, making me more and more anxious. Also, Mom (although well-meaning) makes me a bit tense to begin with, and she’s never lived in such a metropolitan area before, so she’s currently afraid of everything. (See 8/5 entry under my “speak consciously” goal.) By the time we got back from house-hunting, I was incredibly stressed. Fortunately, Aunt Sherry was also visiting, and toward the end of the evening (at which point I’d work myself into a fluster) I had the chance to sit and talk with her for a while. I don’t know that she said anything specifically helpful, but after talking to her, I felt so much better about the entire situation, like I’m perfectly capable of handling every step of this process, in whatever order they occur. I emailed her this morning to let her know how much it meant to me that she took the time to “talk me down.”

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for my amazing family.

My husband and I just got home from a week-long vacation in Florida, for which my mom paid. I’ve really missed her since she moved out of Illinois in March, so it was wonderful to see her, not to mention that I’ve been a little frazzled lately and needed a vacation in general. I thanked her several times while we were there, cooked dinner one night, and helped out with the household chores as much as possible during our stay, but I still don’t feel like I expressed the depth of my gratitude, not just for the trip but for the myriad of other things she’s done for us. As a small gesture of my thanks, I bought her Augustana’s “All the Stars & Boulevards” CD, which I know she wants. I’m going to the post office on my lunch hour today to mail it to her. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to communicate how much I love and appreciate my mom, so I guess I’ll just have to try every chance I get.