For my Hunny…

This journey has not been all it could have been.  Anyone who’s been reading will know that.  There’s been deep hurt aimed our way over our decision to follow our hearts and make this move.  My Hunny is one the sweetest, most sensitive of men.  He’s tough on the outside, and rarely shows this softness to others, but he feels personal attacks deeply.

I’m with him.  No matter what.  Where others fail us, I will never falter.  I love him, and I want nothing more in this world than to see him happy, to see him succeed in his dreams and aspirations, to see him live his life without regrets.   No matter how hard it is for me, no matter how scared I might be.  He has ALWAYS been there for me, he’s shown me what Love really is, unconditional and unwavering.  I will do the same.  I will gather up our dreams, I will put in the long, hard hours, I be what he needs.  I’m with him.

Provided For…

I know I’ve mentioned before that we are a Christian family.  Well, part of being Christian means we have to have a measure of faith that God has good plans for us and goes before us.  In fact, there is a verse in the Bible that says God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) and you know what?  That’s exactly how this whole move has played out.

Last autumn we had a bit of a financial set back.  Fast forward to this summer when we sold the house… we made more than we would have expected to get LAST summer when we first spoke to the Realtor!!  MORE than we imagined… and FAR more than we were set back.  Thank you, Lord!  Now we can pay our bank loan off, and any other creditors so that we can start this new chapter of our lives without the bondage of debt. 

Last week was particularly challenging for us as we came to the realisation that we’d been black listed to the family we were hoping on being able to get my husband boarded with while he went about his job search in a mere two months.  Wow.  Now it’s going to mean hotels or b&bs which we really hadn’t figured on needing to pay (we were going to offer a room and board amount to whoever would have helped him out, but we were NOT expecting to have to take from our safety net savings to cover full time hotels and three meals a day at restaurants and the likes. Yikes!)  AND we would still be maintaining a household here for myself and our two smaller children.  How would we do it?!?  Well, again, the Lord got their first and knew what He had in store for us.  When we sold our house rather faster than we expected, we were thinking we’d have to rent some place here temporarily (paying bills here) till my Hunny finds work.  But instead, we were offered a lovely cottage to use… and though I expected to pay at least a minimal amount rent to the generous mother of my best friend – NO… she’ll hear nothing of the sort.  She asked if we’d be willing to help her out by staining her back deck (ya, a few days of healthy labour in the cool September weather – no problem!)  That’s it.  Thank you again, Lord!

That means that the money we aren’t spending here, will help cover my Hunny there!  God knew, He knew how my Hunny’s family would react, He knew we’d be in need… and before we even knew our own need, He was making a way for it all to work out.

We feel so blessed.

It’s been a rough time as I’m very angry at the audacity of my Hunny’s family.  What right did they think they had to do such a thing?  What kind of parent goes purposely out of their way to sabotage their children’s success???  I must be a very different kind of person because not only would I never do that to one of my own children, I would never do that to ANYONE.  Not even them after all this… it’s just not right.  The world needs more encouragers and a whole lot less naysayers.

At least that’s my humble opinion.

Oh, and on a great note too:  I overestimated the space required for the “stuff” I would like to bring to the UK… we’d pre-decided that 18 boxes would be the maximum and I thought, “I will NEVER get everything that I need to into ONLY 18 boxes!!”  Well, My eyes must be bigger than my boxes… or is that my boxes are bigger than my eyes?  Because I am sitting here with only 8 boxes done, and I have packed more than .. wayyyyy more than half my stuff.  As in, what on earth am I going to fill these other 12 boxes with?!?!?  I know I can’t do bedding (sheets) because of bed sizes, but I’m thinking maybe blankets might be more “flexible” .  And of course there is winter coats and snowpants for the kids (do kids in the UK wear snowpants or is snowpant-worthy snow too rare?  No idea.)  And, OF COURSE, there is the non-electric kitchen gadgets… I can bring soooooo many now!

Life is good. 😉

AND passports (yes, those tappity-tap-tap passports which are STILL not here) are finally to the top of the pile.  We got an email this afternoon to confirm our mailing address before they dispatch them.  So I am guessing sometime next week we should have them (takes only a few days for the DHL guy) – and that will be a HUGE relief to finally have them in our little hands.  AND our original documents too, so we can renew/apply for our Canadian passports for trips back across the pond in future.

And we’re moving along!  (but now I really DO have to get back to packing.  Sorry. 😉 )

Sadness

Well, remember when I said I was pleasantly surprised?  It was a lie.  What we didn’t know at the time was that it was all false.  They are very angry, and doing some rather mean things towards us about our move.  Even to the point of accusing me (the wife) of being the master puppeteer and manipulating my Hunny into doing this, even writing letters in his name!!!  None of which is true of course.  This is HIS dream, and I am following as supportively as possible because I’m his wife and I love him.  But no one can tell the family this.

We’ve been informed that we aren’t to ask for anything from family over the pond (not that we were planning on leaching off them, but we were hoping to maybe have Hunny the option of renting one of their spare bedrooms from them (financial gain for them) temporarily rather than have to stay at a impersonal hotel.  It’ll be hard enough when he heads over to be away from me and the children for a couple months, he was hoping for family and love over there… but that has been officially banned from our asking.

I guess in one way it makes things easier.  I mean, our leaning was towards the Derbyshire area specifically because there was a concentration of family and friends there we were hoping to be able to reconnect with… but if we’re not welcome, it just makes his broadening the job search grid all the easier.  No guilt if we find something hours away and hardly see them, since they really don’t want us there anyhow (we’re family wreckers because we’re moving there in the first place).

I know… drama.  I hate it too.  It has been SO stressful since my last post.  I’ve wept, my husband has been sick in his gut, the kids are scared they won’t get to even meet family (and who knows?  Maybe they will shun us when we get there – to be honest, we have no idea what to expect anymore.)

So what did we expect?  I guess we really thought that they would express concerns, but be open to listening.  And once they saw our resolve, would do whatever they could to support our decision.  My son applied for two colleges for this autumn.  I really really wanted him to pick one college, I thought (and kind of still do) that the one college program would be better than the other, I also thought it might be better for the two siblings to be living in the same city knowing we’d be far away, they’d have their own built in support network.  But he insisted he wanted the other college.  So, once I realised he was sure of his choice, I completely supported his decision.  Helped him find a reasonable place to rent, stocked him up with the basics, offered whatever help we could to get him the things he needed (like finding out there was no oven, I went on a search for youtube videos for cooking on a hotplate and toaster oven on a budget) – I didn’t give him money, I didn’t pay his bills… but I AM offering encouragement, suggestions, tips, legwork, and moral support as often as he needs so that he knows that we love him, we support his decision, that we want him to be successful. It’s HIS life, HIS choice, HIS right.

We were hoping for the same.  We were hoping that there would be maybe a little of that kind of “doesn’t cost you a thing” encouragement and help… but I guess we were living in a fantasy land.  It seems from their reactions that they are just tappin’ their fingers waiting in eager anticipation of our “obvious” failure so they can rub it in our faces and remind us (once more) what losers we are.  Thing is, ain’t gonna happen.

They have failed.  

All they have done is taken off any illusions we may have been working under and have given us even more determination to make this work and without a ounce of their support, and then you know what? IF we have time for them in our lives, well, we’ll see if we can fit them in. After all, we’d hate for our success to somehow rub in THEIR faces that we did it in spite of their efforts to blacken the waters on us by going behind our backs and talking about us, or by contacting family over the pond to tell them that we’re planning a move over there to mooch everything we can off them.  I find the whole thing ridiculous.  They have so rarely been involved in our lives here, and the VERY rare times we’ve asked for the smallest thing, wow.  You’d think we’d asked for the moon, and believe me, we pay for it for months and months afterwards with constant reminders and belittling.

A fresh start.  That’s what we need.  My Hunny is a hard worker, I’m a supportive wife and a good mother.  We will be a blessing to whatever friends we make over there, so if family doesn’t want us, I know my friends always do.   It has been such a blessing to have the encouragement, help, support of friends here – a stark contrast to the meanness of the family we have here.  I don’t completely blame the family there, they are going based on the false rumours that the family here is spreading to them.  but I guess we’ll see what comes of it when we get there.  Independently of any of their help.

I’m writing this blog, not to berate our families… but, as I said at the start, I want this to help others who might be looking to make the same move.  And opposition, unfortunately, might arise for some of you too.  I want you to know you aren’t alone.  There are others who have been blasted out of the water for a choice to move overseas… and we’re not giving up on our dreams, don’t you give up either!  Deal?  Good.

Blessings!