i'll be home for christmas

Tonight I attended a church Christmas program. During one part, they dimmed the lights and--over the sounds of a couple singing "I'll be Home for Christmas"-- showed a slide show of local church members who are serving missions or in the military. At the very end, they paused on a picture: It was a scene of the Huntington Beach pier at night--all misty with ocean and lit up with oversized snowflake lights hung on the lamp posts. It took a minute for it to resonate with me--they had paused on that picture because, for nearly everyone there, that was "home." That was the place those who were away in Peru and Iraq and Tennessee would be thinking of and missing this Christmas.

And it was now my home, too.

While the familiar brown-grey, snow-dusted foothills of Boise, the dry cold in the air, and the outline of the brick-sidewalked downtown twinkling in white lights will always be in my heart, I really am excited to be in a new home. Excited for the opportunities here to make new friends, new memories. Have new adventures. Bloom where I'm planted.  And while it is hard to separate the word "home" from a location, a scenery, a  familiar four-walled abode--I have learned (yet again) that Home really is less about a place and more about those you are with. Home is familiarity, tradition, routine--yes, but it is also love, acceptance, trust, laughter. Portable things.

My boysquad flies in on Christmas morning to join Mr. Perfect and I in the place that will soon be their new home as well. With the money spent on the move, the wedding, and tweaking the house to be able to fit all of us--there won't be anything but filled stockings this year. Yet I still can't imagine having any better Christmas than this one will be. After a month of being away from them, I will have the children I adore, the man I adore, and his girls I adore all together. In my arms. Piled in a big, warm pile on my lap. Yeah--even Mr. Perfect will probably hop in on that :)

So while I am away from the only home I've ever known, and still adjusting to this new home, I truly can say I will be home for Christmas.

 You can plan on me.

May you all sleep in heavenly peace.

xoxo,
~Jennifer P.

moosh

I knew I'd be in for an adjustment period leaving the only city I've ever really lived in for the majority of my life, a place I'd worked myself up to being a medium-sized fish in a small pond... but Mr. Perfect and a new life in an area I've felt drawn to for several years seemed worth it. And it was. And it is. 

And I was also spot on about the adjustment period.

Our two weeks and one day of marriage have included about 30 hours of travel time across four states (the majority of it driving); packing and loading a moving truck; several visits to the doctor; one trip to family court; and lots and lots and lots of mooshing together.

Mr. Perfect rents a quirky but lovable home--about 2,000 sq ft--though it feels smaller thanks to its two rooms with ceilings so sloped they're almost unusable, and a strange configuration of doors, closets, and light switches forcing awkward furniture layouts. Also--the fact that there will soon be ten of us living here along with ten people's amounts of stuff: Me coming with four boys, Mr. Perfect and his two girls, his mom (Mother Perfect), and his handicapped sister (Sister Perfect).

We all knew it could be a challenge to live together, but we all genuinely enjoy each others company and knew there could also be some totally awesome things about the arrangement. And still feel that way--we just have to figure out how to arrange the arrangement first.

Mother Perfect raised ten children and has amassed a collection of formal, Victorian-era furniture over the years. Even though I sold at least 1/3 of everything I owned before I came here, and the boys surrendered a lot of their favorite things, too, including their pet--I still brought all the best of the best of what I had left, a lot of it demonstrative of my love of big, bold pieces. Mr. Perfect has enough art and collectibles from his years in design direction, clothing, and television to fill a museum of radness. Anyway--it's a lot of stuff we all have. A lot of good stuff. And we've learned some difficult lessons about stuff this week.

Like how hard it is to detach the memory or person from the stuff associated with it/them.

Like how hard it can be to just let things go.

Currently, we are living with four homes worth of stuff squished into every available square foot of this one home. And we know some of it has to go.  A lot of it. And preferably before my boys move in on Christmas (which was the point of me being away from them for an entire month--getting a home established). But what goes? Who budges? Is the big set of bookshelves custom made for me which housed all my beloved first-edition, signed books at my old house more important than the big china hutch of Mother Perfect that houses all the plates and crystal she has collected?

Is the couch my mother insisted I buy with the money I would inherit at her death more important than the table inherited from Mother Perfect's grandpa?

Will there be enough room on the walls for pictures of my family too?

Will my boys feel they have their own space sleeping four to a room?

There just isn't room for every thing but there HAS to be room for every one.  Running a family of six children has to stay our focus.

Yeah...

It really has been a happy transition thus far what with the man I love, warm days and palm trees wrapped in Christmas lights,  the smell of the ocean forever in the air and so much laughter-- but I am itching to get settled. To create an environment we can all function and thrive in. To figure out school and work arrangements.To find time to do things like read and write again. To find a new place in a community still quite foreign to me.

I finally broke down on Friday, exhausted physically and emotionally, and told poor Mr. Perfect I wanted to go home. Not that I wanted to leave him--I just wanted to go somewhere I didn't feel like such a stranger in a strange land. Somewhere my children were with us. How scared I was there was no such place for me to go. Sure--there is an empty, dark, cold house 700 miles away back in Boise I still own, but I can't go back there and there is no place yet where I feel comfortable, settled and organized here. That...that place has yet to be created and it's difficult knowing I don't hold the reigns in doing it as I have in creating the previous seven homes I've lived in. This is a shared home and a shared life and must be treated as such.

In the midst of all this, I had a little miracle happen that helped my perspective:

 After six weeks of a raging ear infection, nearly constant migraine-level pain, and almost complete deafness in my right ear, I finally got into an ear/nose/throat specialist. My biggest fear was that my ear drum had been so ravaged by the infection there may not be enough of my hearing left to save. But the doctor took a small vacuum and in the course of five minutes, cleared out all the gunk that had accumulated around my ear drum and...voila! I could hear again.

I actually cried. I listened to Mr. Perfect's voice, which I hadn't heard clearly since before Halloween, I listened to Christmas music, I listened to the sound of a crowded room where it didn't sound like all the voices were one giant echoing cacophony crashing about in my head-- and I wept tears of joy. 

How quickly things can change. When we feel that there is no hope, that we've done all we can do, that things will never get better despite our continued best efforts--they do. And they can. Miraculously.

So, right now, I feel I'm up against a wall (of teetering furniture and boxes..) and I really don't know how to resolve it. But I know I can. And that solution won't involve me getting things just like I want, or Mother Perfect getting them just how she wants them, or things being ideal for any of us--but I *know* we can find a happy compromise. A solution found when all things seemed hopeless... one that can bring as much joy as a sudden ability to hear clearly again. And we'll all be happy we decided to stick this mooshing out :)

putting the *move* in moving mountains

It's been a week today since I got home from California, and I must admit it feels more like a month. I can't believe how much I've gotten accomplished in just seven days!

*I have a sized-just-right 200 year old engagement ring on my finger, a hybrid of family rings which cost us $0.

*I found a replacement host for my radio show.

*My house is up for sale and in the midst of a major purging.

*I'm lining up freelance marketing work to take to California with me to hold us over until I can find the right job fit there.

*Mr. Perfect got to meet my siblings and various assorted family members via Skype, which included us singing him our rousing rendition of "Hooked on a Feeling" (ooga chakka, ooga ooga)

*And maybe most exciting--Mr. Perfect and I bumped our wedding date up by five days to November 24, and moved it from California to Utah, where we were planning on being for his big family reunion/Thanksgiving/anniversary/birthday party anyway. This will keep his out of state family from having to travel more the next weekend AND it will allow all our kids to be a part of the whole shebang, which they are thrilled about. A win-win situation, even if it will be 30 degrees colder :) 

And while we couldn't be happier with how smoothly everything is falling into place, there has been some rough news, too.

Those of you who have read my blog for a while know what a love affair I've had with the house we bought and remodeled six years ago ("Providence Cottage"). I thought it would be my carry-me-out-feet-first-when-I'm-dead house.  I cared for it as such and have been so, so grateful that I was able to hang onto it for the 4 1/2 years since the divorce. It was the piece of sanity and stability that the boy squad and I so needed, and it nurtured us as we made all kinds of happy memories inside and out in our new family situation. 

We're ready and even excited, all of us, to leave now and make a new home--but turns out leaving won't be as easy as we thought. Six years ago, right on the tipping point of the real estate bubble bursting when no one was really sure how bad it would be, we took all the money we had in the world--$60,000--and put it down on the house. Now, I've learned that I won't be walking away from the sale with even a penny. The value just hasn't recovered yet, and could be as much as a decade off before it does. Which really stinks. Really, really. Especially since I wanted to use the few thousand dollars I'd hoped to make  from the sale to get us moved, and maybe bring a little something into the marriage with me.

Like I said, things are falling smoothly into place otherwise and I don't doubt they will continue to. This bump is just the last of the rough stuff needed to close this chapter in my life before starting new.

I am marrying a man who is willing to support his two girls, his ex-wife, me, his mother, his handicapped 21-year old sister, one naughty little dog, and my four boys (whom he WILL be solely supporting since I haven't received child support since July).

That's the caliber of man he is.

And, on an artist's salary, he has no idea how it's going to work, but he's faithful it will. As am I. Too many things have fit too divinely together for us to think otherwise. I am willing to work my behind off, too. It will be a crazy first few months of adjustment but it IS going to come together.

All that being said, we have received numerous generous, loving offers for help in whatever form we needed it. I know I will need help packing and cleaning at some point. I know I will need help pulling the final details of our extremely modest self-paid wedding off. But, most of all, we just need help with moving costs which include a storage pod and one-way airplane tickets. I am selling about a third of everything I own and cashing in my life insurance policy, but it looks like we'd still come up short.

In the five years I have been blogging, I have been regularly asked to advertise or set up some type of PayPal account where people could help me during my hardest hit times (like the year my cousin ran off with my school tuition inheritance money from my Grandpa, never to be seen again...). It has never sat right with me, and I have always managed to pull out of jams alright--including with help from some angels on earth. But for now, looking at the Goliath of the problem in front of us and knowing that people *do* want the option of helping in lieu of wedding gifts, Mr. Perfect and I set up an online registry where folks could donate in one dollar increments towards the goal of getting us together.

Again, I know this will all work out regardless. If I can get through a 2 month house remodel with an infant while homeschooling, if I can get through Rheumatic Fever that almost killed me, if I can get through 25 credits in one semester, if I can get through working 5 jobs while single parenting...well, I can totally get through this, too. But, for those who would strangle me if they didn't get a chance to add their two bits (literally) to this happily ever after--Here you go:

http://parkerandjennifer.mydagsite.com/

And have I mentioned today how much I love you? No matter what. Thank you for your outpouring of  best wishes. I can't imagine a finer group of friends who have stuck so lovingly by me through this journey to share all this excitement with.

dreams really do come true. like really.

Germans have a way of starting their fairy tales that, translated, means, "In a place that was not here, in a time that was not now..."

And, honestly I have spent the last several days feeling that way. As though I was some magical fairy tale princess in a time and place that exist beyond what my reality is and has been. But let's start at the beginning, shall we...

I suppose the real fairy tale starts here, 


but this portion starts off with me, as a writer and Literary Director for a glamorous lifestyle magazine, getting to try out the glamorous spa procedure of threading, wherein a woman exfoliates and plucks your entire face with barbed thread. In case you were wondering, it hurts like what you would expect ripping hair off your face with barbed thread would feel like. For two days, however, I couldn't get enough of looking at myself in a mirror. My skin looked baby fresh and glowing and my make up smoothed on like butter.

Then, my extremely sensitive skin had an allergic reaction called folliculitis wherein patches of my hair follicles on my cheeks became infected and welt-like lesions formed. I looked like every bad cartoon teenager with acne. And this was the day before I was going to California for a  visit to see my Mr. Perfect. (Visit four, and five if you count when he came here to see me). I warned him that I looked like Quasimodo-face and he said to come anyway, he'd still take me. So, I did, hoping we'd spend the majority of our visit in movie theaters and taking night time walks. Maybe I would even get a genie veil.

But as I got off the plane in Long Beach and saw him waiting for me with his cute smile and his cute hair and his cute crinkly eyes, I didn't care if my head suddenly turned into a giant antlered purple moose, I was just so happy to see him and hug him again.
 
And he didn't immediately sweep me off to a dark place either. True to his word, he took me just as I was and even lovingly reassured me I didn't look bad at all.  We picked up his sweet girls and went to eat dinner at IKEA and play 'pretend to go to Narnia' in the closet displays :)

Early Saturday morning, we went to the temple in Newport Beach together. It's a beautiful, peaceful, perfect place. Afterwards, we went for a walk around the temple grounds and sat down on a bench--I thought just to keep watching the fountains and hills.

"I think we need to talk about marriage," said Mr. Perfect.

This wasn't a new topic for us. We'd been discussing it hypothetically as any couple who knows they don't want to stay single and dating forever do. But then, in his adorable nervous way, he asked if he should get down on one knee, and before I could really process what was happening, he was asking me to marry him. 

MARRY HIM?!?!

Here was the man I had loved almost upon first sight 17 months before--the man I had so carefully hid my feelings from because he was dating other people and I was dating other people, and I didn't think he felt the same about me anyway, or ever could because of our distance. Whose friendship and kindness and talent and humor I had simply enjoyed over the time, and whose break up woes I had listened to (and he, mine). Whose hand I never even thought I would get to hold, and yet here he was, with my hand held firmly in his, asking me to be his wife!

He explained that for the last few years of his single life, he'd been looking for a lightening bolt moment, when he would just *know* that he'd met the right one. I hadn't hit him like that. But what I had done is just what I used to joke with him I did with people--grow on them like a fungus. A nice, pretty fungus. Maybe one made of orange glitter. And, really, I think God had thrown a lightening bolt the moment we met--it just missed him and hit me instead. I knew instinctively and almost immediately that he was the one for me. That we would be perfect for and with each other, and compliment each other like peanut butter and chocolate. It had been a long, happy, and sometimes tearful wait for him to see the same thing I did, but he had. Finally. His eyes were opened. He was sold on me. He was in love with me.

And of course, I said yes. 

I think I said it about 852 times.

Then we held hands and jumped in a circle because that was just exactly how I felt! It was all so unexpected but thrilling, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. He surprised me, and it is NOT easy to surprise me because my imagination generally covers all bases :)

The next few days I was there were a whirlwind of trying to grasp reality--telling my kids, his mom, his kids, his family, his friends, his co-workers. (All thrilled!)  Being introduced as his fiance'. And he kept holding my hand and presenting me proudly (remember, I still look like Quasimodo-face...bless his darling heart!). 

We decided that our courtship had been long enough and that we would just try to make things happen as quickly as possible--get the boys and I moved to California before the end of the Christmas holidays. We set a November 29 wedding date and mapped out all that would have to be done: Me selling my house, helping to train someone new for my job, finding a new host for my radio show, a home for our cat, how to get us and all our stuff moved down and in. He had his list of stuff to accomplish too.

Our main focus was just on getting us all together but we decided to try to do some type of modest "Hey! We got married, come say hi but don't bring presents!" type thing.

He doesn't have much money but infinite talent and bright possibilities. My situation is the same. We should be scared--and we are, a little, but not really. Someone much bigger than both of us is shuffling us along in faith here.  Not that the journey will be easy, but things are already starting to fall rapidly into place and I trust they will continue.

And as crazy, fairy-tale as it may sound, in just two months--I think we can pull it off and I will be Mrs. Perfect. And we will have a gorgeous combined bunch of little Perfects. And a mother Perfect and a sister Perfect and a little dog Perfect to add all the more joy to life.

For the 4 1/2 years I've been single, I have dreamed of the day writing this post would come. The day I would get to say--I MADE IT! I DID IT! WHAT A RIDE! I FINALLY GET TO GET OFF! For as much as I am certain that marriage will not be the end of my problems, it WILL be the end of enduring problems alone. It will mean less fear. No more cold toes in bed and palatable late night silences when it feels not a soul in the world is aware of me. Less heaviness in my heart. Less of those moments when I see or hear something and want so badly to turn to someone and say, "Look at that!"... only to realize there is no one there. I get a hand to hold. A shoulder to plop my head on to. Someone to cheer on and be cheered by. A counselor. A best friend. Someone to bake for and kiss when he comes home and call mine. Mine. Mine.

I contemplated ending my blog at this point. It seems it would have come full circle in its reaches to help those struggling as faithful, creative, single mothers/fathers to know they're not alone. But, I think it needs to keep going. Because, married or single, we all still face similar challenges and I am more than  happy to share what I've learned about faith, optimism, perspective, and enduring. I think I still have some useful words to offer.

Plus--I'm sure you all want to follow along to see if we pull this crazy two month whirlwind life change off, right?

So, I'll keep you updated--knowing we WILL do it. Because all my craziest endeavors have been the ones that have managed to pay off thus far.  And I trust my Mr. Perfect. I trust he will take good care of my heart and my boys. That we will work through everything together because of our shared faith and determination and desire to bless and serve others. That good things will happen for us all at once...and in degrees.

Now I write this ending because I believe it. I believe it with every inch of my healed heart...

And they lived happily every after :)