back in IN

This is Wendy writing from IN.  I drove for I guess about 10.5 hours today.  I am so tired that I’m not going to bother to edit or check spelling until later.  The super grammarian in me will fix everything sooner or later, but likely not sooner.  Anyway.  Obviously I’m safe and all.  Jan is good.  I had to pull over several times on the side of the highway to replace a fallen soother and just to pet him and talk to him.  It’s pretty hard for anyone to sit unmoving and strapped in that long, not to mention a baby who just doesn’t get it.  It got colder and colder as I drove and it snowed the entire time once I crossed the border.  It’s probably snowing out there now, but I don’t know.  I noticed a giant mountain of leaves at the end of my yard as I drove in.  Not sure, but I think the raking elves may have been at work.  That would be totally awesome since I was going to try either kidnapping a boyscout troop or paying big bucks to students to do all the leaves for me.

I must say that it is really difficult to be here.  it is undoubtedly because I am so stinking tired and emotionally bankrupt after such a weekend, not to mention I face a week of solo parenting with the possibility of it extending indefinitely if David can’t get back across the border.  I’m not exactly worried about solo parenting unless it does extend; I figure women do it all the time and I’m in good health and strong.  I should be okay.  I will just have to cut out anything extra and be realistic about how much work I’m going to get done at home.  Thank heavens for wonderful daycare that means I don’t have to worry during the day.

The other reason it is difficult to be here is that this is the first time we have been back to Ontario in 2 years and we really both felt strongly that that is just where we belong.  I worked for years to become a citizen and I did 2 days after we moved here.  The irony is not lost on anyone, I’m sure.  and now we’ve been here for almost 9 years; it seems like forever.  There are just no jobs there.  Not even any teaching jobs which used to be the one certainty in the job world.   It’s fine and dandy for people to say, as they did all weekend, “well you just have to take a leap of faith and just do it” but we have perfectly good jobs here, a fine house, an extremely supportive and loving community and my side of the family all here.  Up there we would have his side of the family (which I am realising is gigantic) and that’s it.  Mind you, that’s a big “it.”  But I sincerely doubt they are going to pay us a salary just to be their relatives.  David could probably get a job with one of the cousins in construction of some sort, but not necessarily and the toll it would take on his body would not be so great.  Not to mention, we are loathe to “discard” the years and years of schooling and money spent.  I could probably get a job supply/substitute teaching, but not even that is certain and it certainly comes with a horrendously lousy schedule.  (Maybe I have work on any given day and maybe I don’t and what do I do with Jan on the days I do?)

In any case, I have enough integrity not to leave my school in the lurch in the middle of the school year, ditto for David and the church.  Not to mention the fact that our house is really really not ready to sell or even rent out at this point.  You saw the blog about the construction and how much progress has been made, but there is a fair way to go.  So there’s no chance of leaving this year.  sigh.

I know you have been praying for us and thinking of us regularly lately but if I could just ask your prayers a little longer as we try to figure out what to do, not to mention that if David can’t get back into the US it may be decided for us.   I know those of you in the US don’t want us to move to Ontario but… well I don’t know what to say about that.  Thanks for liking us!  But don’t pray against us!  Just pray what Jan Karon calls the “prayer that never fails:”  “Your will be done.”