Sara's on to something...

After my last entry I remembered that Sara's Angels Pushing Children category of angelic kitsch. Well there you go. *grin*

Did Jesus push Carson down the stairs?

I'm a bit of a wreck. In the midst of the upheaval of a country-to-country move, cutting off the anti-depressants is probably not the best course of action. However, as we have no drug coverage, I don't see much of an alternative. I am entitled to one month's supply of a prescription under the visitor's insurance we have, but I don't know that I want to use that now in case I fall down the stairs... well, okay, I did fall down the stairs yesterday, and I bruised my ass and am rather stiff, but I don't need a prescription. But what if it had been worse? Anyway, with the lack of drugs (screw you Tom Cruise, they work for me) and the transition, I've been a bitch and a basket-case.

So I was praying in my room for God to grant me a little peace (and a lot of peace for those around me.) I could hear Carson talking to himself, climbing the stairs. It sounded to me like he was at the top, so when I heard thump thump thump followed by my screaming boy, I. freaked. out. It turned out he only slid three steps and was fine (still needed a cuddle from his mommy), but it sure broke me out of my wallowing. So what do you think, would God resort to pushing a two-year old down the stairs to break his mommy out of a funk? ;)

9 states in three days (and part of a province)

It's hard to believe, but Carl is in Detroit. He and my dad left Mountain View on Tuesday at 12:30 in the afternoon, and as long as they don't get held up at the border, will be here in about four hours (3 a.m. on Friday). They only stopped for the night once, last night in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm glad it's been such a quick trip, but I think they're slightly insane.

My mom has been here since yesterday afternoon, and it's great having her here. Since Carl is leaving the car in Detroit for now (border paperwork), I don't know when we'll get up there to visit, so I'm glad she came down to get my dad.

I got my OHIP figured out yesterday, so in three months the kids and I (Carl has to take care of his own) will have health cards. It's all a hassle, but as I felt like just giving up and flying back to California, I reminded myself that I was going through the hassle to get free health care. COBRA wanted us to pay $900 a month for it in California, so I guess a bit of running around is worth it.

I still kind of feel like I'm just here for a visit, and I catch myself saying things like "we can't recycle that in Mountain View," or "the dryer at our house..." I guess I have to start referring to things like that in the past tense, but I'm not in that frame of mind, yet. I still sort of feel like I'll be going back. It might be different if we had our own place, but this is where we come to visit. I just hate being in transition, and really we have been for almost two months now. I want to know what comes next, but I know thinking I can is incredibly arrogant of me. If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plan, right?

Call me the hoop jumper

It's harder to move back home than it is to another country, I swear. Today I was running around dealing with The Man. First I went to get temporary health insurance, which I need while I establish my Ontario residency. That went fine, thank God, because the rest of the day was frustrating. I went to apply for OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan), but I didn't have the required documentation for proof of residency. Fine. So I went to exchange my California driver's licence for an Ontario one (my Ontario driver's licence expired more than three years ago, or I could have renewed it). Well. My California driver's licence was renewed last year, and since I have to have had it for at least two years, I need proof from the DMV that I actually got my licence in 2002, not 2005. So I called the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), and they said that I need to download and send Form INF 70 to Sacramento along with $20 for the form. Then they will mail me the documentation and I can bring that to MTO (Ontario Ministry of Transportation) to exchange my licence. Haven't any of these people heard of a freaking fax machine? In the meantime, I attempted to change my address with my former bank where my student loan is, and I have to call the branch to do it. I was told this after I talked to the woman for about ten minutes, answering a million irrelevant questions. I'm tired.

The flight went well, as did going through customs. I was concerned about Carson since he doesn't have his proof of Canadian citizenship yet, but it was no problem. The kids are adjusting well. Carl's mom met us at the airport, as did Carl's brother Ryan, and our friend (and the kids' godmother) Lara and her baby Anita as a surprise. There was a patch of snow at the edge of the parking garage, and Hayley asked what the white stuff was. Carson was enthralled by it today when he was touching it with his bare hands. So cute.

Did I mention that I drove in the snow today for the first time in three years? No problem, but you could hardly really call it snow. It was the kind of snow that melts when it hits the ground, so almost like rain.

Gotta go try to put Hayley to bed. It's late, but she's still on California time.

Suckage

This sucks. This just sucks. The kids and I had dinner with two good friends and their kids (who are the kids' closest friends) and I cried all the way home. Maybe this will seem like a good idea again once we get to Toronto and see everyone, but right now it just sucks.

More packing

How many more times can I bitch about packing before you throw something at me? It just seems that the more we do, the more disorganized we get. This house is a big mess of stuff. So many people have offered to help us pack, and we are so grateful for that, but I think it would be hard to have people helping us when we have to sort through stuff before we pack it. We might take people up on it on Saturday if we're not in good shape by then.

My dad gets in tomorrow night, and I'm so excited to see him. He has to jump through a few hoops to get here though - he's flying from Thunder Bay (which is the nearest city to where he works) to Winnipeg to Toronto to San Francisco. Whoa. I'm glad the kids and I have a direct flight on Monday.

Tonight was our last parish dinner, and I'm proud to say I wasn't the least bit gooey. The same can't be said for my last covenant group last night, though I was better than I thought I would be. I held it together until the final prayer, and even then it wasn't a sobbing cry. I'm actually getting through this. It helps that I plan to come back in July to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Still, I think Sunday will be hard.

Saying goodbye

We said goodbye to our rector and his family today. Wow, I typed that sentence and then sat here for five minutes trying to figure out what to say next. It was very emotional, and there were many tears. I shed a few myself. It doesn't make sense, in a way, because Kevin leaving doesn't really affect us, we're only here for another week. But my community is hurting, my friends are hurting, and that hurts me. Of course it also reminds me of my imminent departure, though I didn't actually feel that as much tonight as I have in the past month. I'm either desensitized to talking about the move (and I did talk about it a lot tonight, naturally) or I'm saving it up for next weekend. I'll go for the latter.

As for packing... best not to talk about that.

What a time to get sick

Carl got sick through the night on Wednesday/Thursday, and spent all day Thursday in bed. He was feeling better (mostly) by Friday morning, and then I picked up the torch. I spent Friday and part of today in bed. So we haven't gotten a whole lot done in the past few days. Fun! On top of all that, Carson is cutting his two-year molars, so he's been Mr. Crankypants. It could have been worse, I guess. We could have both been sick at the same time.

Anyway, we still have a week to get everything done. My dad gets here on Thursday night, so we'll have him to help us in the last few days.

Oy. Trying not to stress.

You know what they say about hindsight...

Up until about a little over a year ago, I really wanted to go back to Canada. I had a few good friends here who I knew I would miss, but my heart longed to be back home. Carl looked for jobs in and around Toronto, but nothing came up. And since he was employed and doing well, we stayed. It was frustrating, to just want to return home and not be able to.

Then we found St. Tim’s, and it was like a new life began for us here. We made so many wonderful friends and became embedded in the community. And most importantly, God re-entered our lives. It was pretty quick for me, it felt like a relief to return to His fold. In truth I had been questioning my beliefs for some time, and finding St. Tim’s was like finally admitting that I was ready to centre my life around Christ.

And then we didn’t want to return home. For the first time since we moved to California, we were truly happy here. We had finally begun to make a home for ourselves here. Of course, that’s when it hit the fan. At first I saw it as a bit of a cosmic joke, but I think I’m at peace with it now. For one thing, despite what and who I’m leaving behind here, I am happy to be going back to Canada. But more importantly, I feel that it’s God’s plan for us. I don’t know what He has in store for us back in Canada, but I can see the purpose of us staying here for so long when we wished to return. We were meant to find our way back to God, and we needed to be here to do that.

Leaving St. Tim’s in no way means leaving God behind. A good friend of mine said something in prayer the other night that really made me think. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but the idea was that when people leave St. Tim’s, they are not lost to the community, but rather are expanding the family of God by connecting with people elsewhere. I like this idea, and I hope that I can bring something to my new church home, wherever that may be.

Stress Stress Stress

I hate moving. You wouldn't think so, since I've done so much of it in the past ten years or so, but I do. This move is by far the hardest. The other country-to-country moves were pretty easy since we didn't bring much with us to England, and when we moved here most of our things were already in storage in Toronto. I hate the packing, I hate all the calls to arrange for the utilities and services to end, I hate all the address changes, and with this one, there's a lot of red tape too. And we've decided that we don't want to rent from an individual again, it's too much of a pain in the ass. Grumble, grumble, grumble, bitch, bitch, bitch.

We're going to rent an apartment (eventually) instead of a house so that we can save up to buy a house. Utilities are included with most apartments there, so it really is quite a difference in price. I enjoy the yard, but I can do without it for a while to have my own yard.

More packing.

Here we go

Since the LiveJournal is more of a family journal (even though I'm the only one who ever really posts in it), I decided to start my own blog, just to let you all in on what's going on with me on a day-to-day basis (hence the title of the blog) as I move from California to Ontario.

If you don't know where in Canada we're moving (and sources tell me many of you don't *grin*), we are moving back to the Toronto area. We will, at first, be staying with Carl's parents who live in Brampton, which is here. The plan is to remain in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area - am I going to need a glossary for this blog?), but it really depends on where Carl finds a job. He is looking all over Ontario, though the far north is not exactly desirable. I'm not talking about where my parents live, now. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not actually that far north. They are below the 49th Parallel (46.2 to be exact) and south of most of the rest of Canada. All right, I'll shut up about geography now.

I'm having a sad day today. We had a birthday party for Hayley at our house yesterday and we had 50 people here, most of them from St. Tim's. 50 people who we really care about and who care about us, and there are many more. That was just Hayley's party. We considered turning it into a going away party as well, but there would be just too many people we would want to invite. After everyone left, I just really felt it. It's hard to think about leaving them. Then in this morning's sermon, Kevin (the rector of St. Tim's for one more week) talked about the strength and intimacy of the St. Tim's community, and I cried. And cried. The thing is, everyone at St. Tim's is sad right now, about losing Kevin and his family. I'm sad about losing everyone.

I'm also happy and excited to be moving back to Canada, but as I'm having a sad day, I don't have the heart to talk about that right now. Catch me tomorrow.