All Packed Up

Well, our life is all neatly packed up in a box but it took three days for the moving company to get it that way and many days before that for us to get it all sorted and organized. Our air freight was over so my beloved Bath & Body collection and homemade candles will be travelling by boat. :( We actually had some extra room in the sea container. Benito, the moving guy, told me I needed to go shopping. I was simply too tired, believe it or not...

We had some fun with our mover people. They were very nice and we almost feel like we’ve known them for years. Who knows, maybe we’ll see some of the same ones in a couple years when we unpack all of this mess back here in Texas.

They worked fast and furious to get it all done. I was kinda surprised at the relaxed pace of the first two days with only two packer people. Tommy and I even got to sit around for a while. The third day, however, was a flurry of motion and things went very fast. We're exhausted and we're glad that part of it is over with. My feet, legs and brain have never hurt so bad.

We're spoiled now after this move. Using a moving company, especially when someone else is paying for it, is way better than packing a Uhaul ourselves!

Anna and Jakeb took our dog, Bella, out to my sister's house where she (Bella) has barked so much she's hoarse. Sorry, Colleen. The kids got to watch part of the spelling bee yesterday until they ripped the couches out from under them. We cleaned up the house and turned over the keys to the new owner. They are a sweet couple who will begin raising their family there. We're very happy that it sold and that part is over with as well.

Now, we're at my parents house spread out in their camper and in bedrooms in their house. We'll be here for a couple more weeks spending time with family and friends and then we're off to the next big adventure.

Below are some pics of the last few days. The before's, the during's and the after's.

And there it goes...

Movin' On

Just a quick update. We had a great time away in Dallas and my neice's wedding was really nice. It was a nice break from our chaotic and ever-changing world. We hit the ground running as soon as we got home yestrday.

So...

We got our suitcases packed up, mostly.

We got the rest of our stuff sorted and organized, mostly.

We borrowed a hanging baggage scale from Tony and Laurie to weigh our suit cases. It broke on the 2nd bag. oops! It wasn't that heavy.... We'll replace it, we promise! Anyway, we got to visit with them a little and that was really nice.

We slept in our beds, in our rooms, where we have for the last 8 years and 1 month, for the last time in our home on Center Way.

The next time we see our beds, they'll be in Singapore.

The movers come this morning. They say it will take them a couple of days. A couple of days of craziness from what I hear and I'll be needing some serious caffeine and an extra portion of serenity.

We think we're supposed to close on the house on Thursday. We hope.

Regardless, we'll be out of our house by tonight and staying at my parents house cause we won't have any beds here.

The kids are doing well. It's so nice having older kids that can do some of their own packing and driving to run some last minute errands.

Tommy saw some of our friends in Walmart last night. He was buying yet another suitcase. (Walmart was the only place open.) He was also buying a bunch of Lean Cuisines cause we don't have time to cook and we're about to not have any dishes. Anyway, these friends popped in a little later and brought us some food. They felt sorry for us, I guess. :) We also had a fun, short visit. I cherish these moments!

Anna and Jakeb will take our dog, Bella, to her new home today. My sister and her family will be taking her in. That's going to be a little rough for Anna especially.

Tommy and I are doing well. I'm blogging and he's out running. I can't imagine having the energy to run right now. I woke up yawning...

I hate packing (I think I've said that before) and am very overwhelmed by this process. Taking the time to write helps me out a little. It helps me purge at least a few of the thoughts that are running wild in my head. Tommy helps me out alot and tells me what to do when I'm standing in the middle of the floor slowly turning in circles not knowing which way to go. There are so many little things that have to be decided on. You know, things like, "where does that box of q-tips need to get packed?" I think I started to cry a couple of times for various reasons but was just too tired. So no tears yet.

A Perfectly Wrong Kind of Day

So, yesterday was lousy. Getting in bed last night was a welcome end to a perfectly wrong kind of day. Alot about this move seems perfectly wrong. We know we are supposed to go and we are excited about going. It's what God wants us to do. We are completely confident in that fact. But that doesn't make it any easier to pack up our life, say goodbye's, and get on that plane.

Did I mention that yesterday was lousy? I think I did. So, I wake up this morning and this email is in my inbox. I have an incredible daughter. I have three incredible kids. I'm trying to be strong for them through all of this and they come through for me. I've got it good.

Hey!

This is one of those Joy Williams songs that I told you about.

Anyway you should listen to it and THEN go have a spectacular day in Dallas and make today not "one of those days". Unless of course "one of those days" means wonderful :)

Love you!
-Tori

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynyA6qPjUpo

A day in the life of....

... a family moving to Singapore. And a yucky day it has been. Mostly cause we still own this house. We're told it will be soon but we've been told that since, oh, about April 30th.

The movers come next Tuesday to pack us up. We'll be at a family wedding (YEA Brett & Jon!) so we'll lose a few days of sorting and organizing before then. We've been told that when the movers come, they are a flurry of activity and we'd better be watching closely or one of our kids will end up in a box.

Unfortunately, I've experienced, rather we all experienced, my first major meltdown today. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. I wish I was better at blowing stuff off. I want to. I really, really want to. But truth be told, because I'm me, I would fill up every day possible with doing things to "get ready" and it would still never be done so not being here for a few of those days for the wedding will help me out I think. Come Tuesday it is what it is. Thanks to Jenny, my bedding will get packed dirty. She talked me into it. I'm not washing it for it to sit on a boat for 6 weeks and then have to wash it again once we're there. If anyone else wants to talk me into something that will save me some time and grief, I'm open.

We are throwing tons of stuff away. Some of it is probably not trash but I don't care to mess with it. Trash day is Friday if anyone wants to come diggin'. :)

All in all, we are simplifying and that part of it feels good. We're really trying to get rid of that pack rat mentality. We're not, ok, I'm not a pro at it but I'm better. It ain't goin' with us. Anywhere.

So, our kitchen floor is the designated area for the stuff that's going in our 500lb air shipment.

Our office is where all of the storage items are being put.

Alot that is going into the sea container shipment is all over Anna's floor. She can get to her bed but that's about it. I promised her I wouldn't put stuff on her bed.

We have two closets that are designated for DO NOT TOUCH signs for the movers. They'd better not even think about going in there.

We have suitcases EVERYWHERE and are having to pack those so we can get all of that stuff out of the way before Tuesday. To where, we're not sure. We planned on going to my mom & dad's but we may find a suite instead. We're gonna have lots of junk and that would give us some space to spread out. We'll see...

For now, we can still sit on our couches and a corner of a table is open to finish up our last little bit of school work on.

We have color coded post-its ALL over our house. Red - storage, green - airplane, blue - sea container, yellow - 500lb air shipment.

It's a mess around here and I'm tired. I have nothing more interesting to write about right now. Sorry. This is our life. Exhausting, not enteratining. Perhaps something laughable and/or interesting will happen soon. I'll let you know if that happens.

Happy Birthday, Tommy!

Yesterday was Tommy's birthday. I'm a terrible wife because in case you hadn't noticed, this post is the day AFTER his birthday! And on top of that he had to write his own birthday blog post. http://trechoagon.blogspot.com/ That's just not right... Sorry, babe.

Anyway, we had a pretty good day yesterday so better late than never! We had a Singapore relocation meeting with HR and then he and I ate at his favorite Indian place for lunch. Then the kids joined me for some shopping and we met Tommy after he got off from work at Pei Wei for dinner and went on a trail shoe hunt and a baseball cap. That's what he wanted and that's what he got.

Your family loves you and we are so grateful you were born 42 years and one day ago.

Happy Birthday, Tommy!!! You are older than me. Okay, and wiser too.....

Love Never Fails

Tori and Jakeb performed their last song at BPF (our church) this morning and our good friend, Jason C. played the djembe for them which made it that much more special. It was awesome! The lighting was bad, my video skills are seriously lacking and the lady taking offering got in my way but, oh well.

I LOVE it when my kids make music!!

For those of you reading this on my facebook, you'll have to got to the blog to watch it. www.stunz.blogspot.com

Walk With Me Quiet

Music does it for me. It connects me to who I am, to who I've been and who I want to be. It is also what connects me to my Creator more than anything else. That connection has been a little on the fritz lately.

But... this song did it for me. Recently, I've listened to it over and over and can't get enough. I've thought about sharing it with you for over a month now but have been a little stingy. For whatever reason, today was the day to share.

I'm broken. I'm not fixed and at times I'm pretty sure I'm not fixable. I'm not restored but I have hope that I will be. Someday.....

Through this song, I've connected to who I am. To who I want to be. To God.

Walk With Me
by Caedmon's Call (Back Home)

Walk with me quiet,
Walk with me slow.
Watered down coffee,
Words of Gold.

Will you lead me,
beside the still waters.
With oil that runs over.
My cup overflows.
You restore my soul.

If I knew how to post just the song on here I would, but I don't and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to. So, go find it. Everyone has iTunes, right? Go buy it. It's worth the .99. Maybe it will do it for you too.

Protector or Spy? How far is too far with internet security?

Tommy and I have always been pretty careful to keep up with what our kids read, watch and listen to. I've had my share of "discussions" with teachers and librarians about required reading, believe me. It seems, though, that as the kids get older (18, 16 & 10) we are not able to keep up as easily. We are older too and they can simply move faster than we can. :)

We have always taught our kids the "garbage in, garbage out" concept and that you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So they can own some responsibility for their actions but as parents, what lengths do we go to when it comes to internet security?

This week, we set out on researching Parental Control software in order to protect our kids from the weirdo's and meanies out there in cyber world but we've come to a realization that alot of the softwares out there are more like spyware. You can watch what sites they visit, monitor their chats, take screenshots of things they view and even monitor their every keystroke even when they're not in the internet. That all sounds good in theory in the name of protection but is it too much?

We trust our kids. Tommy and I trust each other. We have no reason not to. But how far do we go to protect our kids and each other and balance that with respecting privacy? We all need some accountability in this area.

What if we did nothing more than what we do now, which is verbal communication and having basic security settings on our software that we currently use? What if our kids stumble across something and it causes them to stumble? I mean, that can happen by typing anything on google images. No software is going to filter google images. It's just impossible to be completely safe.

I would feel like a horrible parent if I found out we could have done something and didn't but I also feel like a horrible parent if we "spy". Of course, if they know we're doing it then it's not spying. On top of that, though, the software is expensive and still not the perfect solution.

What's a parent to do???

I recently put word out among my facebook friends and asked what they do and what they recommend. The consensus was basically to "do what your gut tells you to do and do all that you can to protect your kids. You'd rather having them mad at you than hooked on porn." I can go for that but we want to maintain a healthy and honest relationship with our kids as well. Our job as parents is to influence and train them to make good choices because one day we will not be around to protect them from everything.

So, we're still not sure what we're going to do longterm. We think for now that we're going to tell our kids that they aren't allowed to delete their history until we've looked at it. That we want access to their history and it better not be cleared or there will be consequences. They know that the demons are out there. Anna, our 10 year old, being a little more naive, will need more firm guidelines. She can only go to sites that we say she can and others will need to be by permission only, like google images. We will put our computers in a walk through area as best we can be more aware of what is on the screen. Our kids have always known that if we walk through and they hit the minimize button, that's no good. And they know we're watching.

So, going with our gut... we just can't afford to be lazy in this area so we'll pay closer attention and have more conversations with our kids about where they're going on the net and go from there.

We're not "buck passers" and we certainly can't "fix the internet"! But we can pay attention. Parenting is a tough business and leaves no room for laziness or complacency in any area but must be balanced with love and trust.

Happy Mother's Day to ME!

"Happy Mother's Day. I puked up my vitamins." bright-eyed with a hug at 7:00am.

"Happy Mother's Day. Hope you have a wonderful day!" read a note on my coffee cup with cream already measured in.

"Mamma, Happy Mother's Day!" with sleepy eyes and a hug at 8:30am. Precious!

"Happy Mother's Day!" with sleepy eyes and a hug at 11:30am. So sweet!

I also can't help but think of my precious girl in Kenya, Mercy. She's not my real daughter but God has placed her in my heart as if she was. She calls me her Texas mom.

I am blessed.

I love being a mom!

Tommy thanks me all the time for being the mother of his children. I always tell him that it's one of my favorite "jobs." I love being a mom!! I always wanted to be a mom. I can remember being a young child and thinking about having my own babies someday. I didn't like playing with those fake babies. I liked the real ones. So I got three of the seven I once wanted. Thankfully, God does indeed know our limitations. I LOVE my three and they are an immeasurable blessing. I could not be more proud to be their mom.

This is one of my favorite pictures with my kids. It's from a couple of Christmas' ago.

Here's one of my favorites videos of a "true" mom. Just for fun!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkymT0Af_0


Don't spend your Mother's Day cleaning. Go sit on the couch with your kids!

Question Of The Day

Anna asks tons of questions every day. She's always been super curious about everything. I like that about her - most of the time.

Anna: Mom, what year were you born?
Mom: 1967
Anna: Wow, did you have air conditioning?
Mom: Yes. (And we had indoor plumbing too!)


I guess I'm old but I'm still cool, right?

Never peel a boiled egg again. Wow! Who knew???

Ok, so there's a ton of stuff going on in our household right now but most of it relates to finishing up our school year or our move to Singapore in which I'm sure most people are tired of hearing about.

So.... I thought this was blog worthy and it's not related to Singapore in the least - except that I guess I might utilize this knowledge there, with a Singaporean egg.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2gYHJNT3Y

Songs and Friends

Two of my favorite things! Songs and friends. And two things of which I'm especially grateful for these days.

Jakeb and Anna are using this poem in their school work right now. I chose it because it's a beautiful poem and it applies to our lives right now.

The Arrow and the Song
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

We'll miss you, Table!

This is our table. Well, this was our table. It's been a great table but it was time for us to part and now someone else has it.

We got this table at Dingo's Furniture store in Freeport, Texas about 17 years ago. After having been married for about 3 years and when Tori was about 1 year old, it was our first major furniture purchase. It left our house this past Saturday morning to become a great table for another family.

If I've counted correctly, it has been moved with us 7 times. Isn't that the number of completion or something?

We've shared many a meal as a family and with friends around this table. We've called many "Stunz family meetings" to this table. A lot of homework has been done at this table over the years. A lot of tears have been shed at this table as well as a lot of laughter. It has staged a host of super cute birthday cakes and party foods for after dance parties and holidays. Oh, and we've played a ton of games with friends and family around this table where mostly girls won. Ok, maybe we tied......

Among many other things, it has also served as a craft project table and even had Tori's baby footprints etched into it from a project we did when she was a baby where the chemicals from the paint leaked through the fabric. Those footprints have long since worn off and we are left with only memories.

It is time for a new table to help us bring in this new chapter in our lives. Once we move to Singapore, we're hoping to purchase a new and grand dining table with some authentic Asian inspiration that will be a cherished addition for our family for years to come.

But for now, we have a fold out table and a few card table chairs. What an accurate picture of our transitional life right now.

Good-bye table. Parting is such sweet sorrow. You will be missed! (and replaced) :)

If you don't want swine flu...

...refrain from doing this.

I've been silent about all of this craziness until now. I couldn't resist.

I am very sympathetic towards those who have been affected so don't get me wrong. I'm not poking fun of this serious issue. I just thought it would be good to share a sure fire way of not getting it just in case any of you were thinking of licking a pig.

I do what I can. You can thank me later.