Deciding to Decide..

A "WOV Note" from Women of Virtue

Decide to Decide.  "As I see myself from God's point of view, the pieces fall together easier because God holds the box top to the puzzle.  He already sees the completed picture of me and my life.  My relationship with Him is the key that unlocks the puzzle's solution.  Each decision will put a piece in place.  Decide you will decide to put the pieces of your life together."
Pam Farrel, The 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make

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This week's verse of encouragement:

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!  For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision....  But the Lord will be a refuge for His people."
Joel 3:14, 16b (NKJV)

I just read that and it seemed to be a timely e-mail and applys to me.  God does that a lot with me.

Decide to Decide.. what could that possibly mean right?  Josh and I have some things coming up that we need to decide what way to go on. I would just rather avoid any decision process and let what ever happen, happen. LOL

Josh's mom is sooooo miserable where she is at, in her job, and in her personal life.  Her job is.. excuse me.. CRAP and she could do so much better and she is lonely because the reason she moved to the town she moved to is now gone.  She moved from Las Vegas to a small small Midwest town in IL to be with her mom.  Now she has passed and she feels like it is time for her to move on, her reason for being there is done.   Ofcourse we want her to stay close to us and not move back to Vegas.  We are pretty confidant that she could find a better paying job in our area, especially with her tons of experience with running an office.  The suggested plan is she move in with us.  We find a bigger house for us all to share and share the expenses.  Josh has been saying this for almost a year now.  While I like the "idea" of it I do have some reservations about it.

I love his mom very very much.  We get along very nicely.  She is not pushy or a control freak and she says she is happy with the way we have raised our children, proud of us.   But she has never lived with us or close by to us.  It is easy to get along with some one who lives a few hundred miles away.  She tried to live with her older daughter and her husband once and that didn't work out too well.  I tried to ask Josh's sis why it didn't work out with out stepping on toes and she said pretty much Mom is just set in her ways. That wasn't very expansive and leaves that open to any kind of interpretation.  Josh said it didn't work out because his sis and hubby are bad slobs.. worse then us and his sister didn't have a good discipline with her daughter.  Well,HELLO, WE are slobs.. so that is going to have to change if she does move in with us, that is a fear I have.  She is going to move in see how we really are and with in a year the love is gone, the bubble is busted and it's isn't going to be "ohh Josh and Mary I am so proud of you" but be " Ohhh my Gawwd this is how you take care of my son and gradbabies?"

Josh and I have lived on our own since we have been 17 & 18.  We have learned to be come very independent from our parents and I am proud of that fact.  It would horrify me to Have to lean on our parents for any kind of support, to have to move back in with my mom is something that just would never happen.  And we have learned that to ask any kind of help from his Dad and step mom is like asking for strings attached and a form of control in our lives.  But this would be a different situation, us more helping his mom then she helping us.  We haven't lived in the same town together since Josh and I were teenagers so I can't say just how it would be.  Beside the cleaning issues, and I think I can get past that, if anything that is a good thing, keep me motivated, there are many pluses to having her live with us and close by to us.  It would make Josh so incredibly happy to have his mommy in the same town and he would feel like a good son.  It would be nice to have a dependable and willing sitter from time to time so Josh and I could actually have a date night once in a while.  She is very crafty and could teach me how to do some sewing and maybe how to cook. There are ladies his mom age at our church that I could see her becoming friends with so she wouldn't be as lonely as she is now. The kids would have a grandparent around that didn't think it was such an imposition to do things with them.  I don't think she is the type who would tell us how to raise our children or take over that authortive role.  She knows we are more structured with bed times and dinner times with our kids then Josh's sisters are and that is something she likes very much but she has said she wouldn't want to be in an authoritive role because that is our job, she just wants the fun stuff.  My only other concern is that she has not lived in a house full of children in a long time and you can imagine how loud 4 children can get from time to time when they are playing around.  Plus we don't have a lot of "look don't touch furniture", she has a lot of nice things and I would worry if the kids would understand boundaries of not playing or messing with her stuff and trashing it like they have ours.

The other thing about all this is we would have to move...AGAIN.  I think I have told you all that I have grown up moving around a lot. I am used to it but it is not something I want my children to have to go threw often.  It never fails it seems, just as I get comfortable where I am at, everything is just where I want it, then we choose to move for some reason or another.  I am happy with where we are living right now.  A house that fits us nicely, good school, NO neighbors, the kids are forming friendships and so am I.  When we moved out here I knew it was all God, he fit it all together perfectly.  My son was just starting the 2nd grade and was extremely upset to be moving away from his friends and school.  Josh PROMISED him that we would NOT move again until he was out elementary school, so he could go threw all of school with the same set of friends.  He is in a special kind of class room called E-MINTS, where they do more with technology and learning with computers than a regular class room.  His school has one class room in the 3rd and 4th grade that is equipped to be an E-MINTS class and they have applied for a grant so they can have one 5th grade class for next year.  We are hoping they get it so Zane can be in that kind of class room again and continue on with it all, and we are hoping Annie get's in the 3rd grade classroom next year.  If we do move I am pretty sure he will not get into another E-MINTS class or even if all schools have this new kind of class room yet.  So for me a requirement of us moving is that we stay where we can keep them in the same school. 

Where we live the other houses that are forrent are going for 1,200 - 1,500 a month, where at the house we are living in now is only 700 a month... a very good price.  Josh seems to think we could afford the higher rent especially since he is moving up to Journeymen and with his mom working she can kick in on all that too.  Even still to me that sounds like a lot of money to be responsible to come up with each month. I am still in penny pinching mind set mode.  I was hoping that we could start putting money away after he became Journeymen, not see how many more expenses we can take on.  And then ofcourse that sets off Josh wanting to look and see if we can buy a house instead of rent.  WE have no money saved up for a down payment much less first and last month's rent for a move.  The houses around here the cheapest is in the 100,000-200,000 range but he seems to think we can do one of those assist to buy things or something or another where you buy at a higher rate and refinance for a cheaper one in a year.  I am going to let him try, I am not going to be all down on the idea but I told him the last time we tried to see if we could buy a house we were told no way unless we had a co-signer and not much has changed since the last time we looked in to buying.  Josh wants to be a home owner much more than me I would say.  I don't know why the idea doesn't excite me as much as him.  My parents didn't own a house and have always rented so that may be part of it but also for me it is a BIG commitment and if we don't like our house after being in it we can't just say oh let's move but we have to actually take care of it.  If your pipes are messed up.. you have to be the one to call a plumber and pay for it or if the roof is leaking you have to be the one to fix it.. you can't just call the Land Lord and complain.  BUT with a house of your own you can have pets if you want and do things to it with out asking permission, more freedom.  I do want a house of our own, when we are ready for it.  I just don't know if we are ready for it right now and I don't want to have to settle on a house I may not like as much because of our credit.  Moving seems to be in the air all around ~J Land and a few of my journal friends are getting into their own homes and are so excited about it.

So as you can see we need to Decide on a lot of things.  I am not going to fret and worry about it all a lot.  I am goingto leave it up to God on how things go.  If he wants us to move into our own house, he will make a way.  If he wants Josh's mom to live with us he will work all that out too.  But I do think I need to spend much prayer time about it and so does my husband.  His mom is coming this weekend for a visit so we can sit down and talk it all out, establish what we want and don't want and what rules we may want to have if this all does go down.  Ought to be an interesting conversation.