Now that things are really going to play out to fruition...the details of the past two months. This is a long one, but necessary because it is a huge chapter in our crazy Loprinzi life.
Paul left for a job interview when Hartley was just 4 days old. Seriously.
Now before you get a bad impression of the world's greatest man, don't think he did this while leaving a 4 day postpartum wife home alone with 4 kids - my mom and sister were here with us. We were all well taken care of :).
He called me the evening after the first day of his interview finished (it was a two day interview).
"I am getting this job, Kristina" he told me with confidence.
Less than three days later, he was right. I remember the moment clearly.
I was sitting on our back deck with our tiny army surrounding me eating popsicles, my mom was there too. Paul's cell phone rang. I watched him inside pacing around the kitchen, he threw his arm up in excitement but aside from that I already knew. His face said it all.
He got the job.
I knew he would. But once it was real, and there was an offer, and a deadline of when to accept/reject, well things got real. Overwhelmingly real.
So I went inside to meet him. I had every intention of congratulating him, hugging him, saying how very proud I was of him...and instead I was speechless. He was so over the moon excited, and I didn't know whether I was going to cry (remind you I had just given birth a few days prior) or plaster on a fake smile and be happy with him. Hormones won over, and I cried. I am positive I ruined his moment of excitement. But a testament to his character, he was exceptionally understanding, and without hesitation said with bold sincerity...
"honey, we don't have to accept this."
and in that moment I felt...so selfish. Selfish that I would have these feelings. Selfish that the Mr. of my dreams is willing to sacrifice his job happiness for me. Selfish that I was raining on his parade. See, every single job he has ever taken, he has accepted with one thing in mind - to provide for his family. He is so amazingly selfless about everything. This job, this amazing opportunity he had just been offered, was the first job offer - after 15 years of working crazy jobs (and I do mean crazy, remember he did work with monkeys…) - that would not only be more than enough to provide for all of us, but is exactly what he had in mind when he set out to earn his PhD and to be a professor. To someday have a tenure track teaching position that allows the ability to focus on research, have a reasonable teaching load, and to be able to work with grad students. That is correct, my Mr. had a job offer that would finally allow him to work with exercise science graduate students.
So we had a few awkward days mid June where I was having trouble processing life…
We had a baby who was just a few days old, the milk fairy had just came and I was miserably engorged, I still had 200 clinical hours that I needed to get through to finish up my last term of school, we were still adjusting to the juggle of loving on 4 kids, and now a job offer we needed to decide about accepting/rejecting, one that would require us to sell our house and relocate again. Just writing this all out is exhausting to even think about.
Paul kept reminding me - it is good stress. I knew that, but I also know now that sometimes, even good stress, when piled on high, can be overwhelming at times.
So we decided to put the offer on the back burner for a few days to clear the air. To let me breathe a little. To sit, and soak up this new little bundle of life without the stress of huge life decisions to make. In this time, Paul was getting pressure to accept/reject, and so the university encouraged us to come out and see the area on their dime. So we made plans to go view campus, because after all, I didn't want to just relocate my family to a new state sight unseen. So Paul, Hartley and I went on a road trip in a snazzy rental car because, driving was quicker than flying.
Sweet little miss was a doll, never complaining at all about the lengthy hours on the road. Only making grunting noises when she wanted to eat. Such is the life of a 2 week old.
We had to make a few pit stops: for Paul to run/jump around, and periodically come back to the car for a smooch mid lap around the mini-mart, oh and to strip his shirt off getting awkward stares from onlookers. This guy is seriously energetic.
Meanwhile in the backseat…I breastfed a tiny lady, and made a makeshift changing table out of the drivers seat.
After 7 hours in the car we were finally there...
We pulled up, and stayed at the Inn at Ole Miss. Yes, the University is so big it has its own hotel on campus.
Then we went for a walk, mostly because we were stir crazy from being in the car all day, but it was cute listening to Paul talk about how cool campus was too.
Yes, I forced this picture :).
and this one too.
I have to admit, despite my enthusiasm about the size of Oxford, MS, the campus is absolutely beautiful.
We went back to the hotel and called it a night. We spent most of the day driving. I took pictures of our growing girl, who was just 2 weeks old at this time. Sweet Hartley Lane:
and of my Mr. chilling on HIS bed.
and our littlest lady chilling on her bed.
We checked out schools, and houses, and areas to live the next day. We discussed the smallness that is Oxford, MS, and how it will be such a change of pace in life to be in such a rural area. I left feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of moving to a city with such a different way of life. Paul thought I was ridiculous because one of my concerns was that there wasn't a Costco close enough to shop at. He said "I didn't know one of the stipulations on areas to live required that a Costco is in close proximity." Um…hello I am a mama of many, and bulk shopping means that I'm not spending our life savings and several days a week at the grocery store. Anyway, clearly we were exhausted with the long trip, and overwhelmed with decisions ahead, but felt overall the trip was worthwhile.
After getting home and having a day or so to just think about what this job offer could mean for our family…the ability for me to be home with the kids, to afford a nice home, and to send the kids to a good school…well the smallness and rural feel is something we could learn to deal with, and maybe even love eventually.
To be able to accept the job offer things needed to work out:
1) we needed to get out house on the market, and sold.
2) we needed to find a new place to live
3) this needed to happen before August 20th.
So we got to work. We cleaned and purged like we never have before, Paul stained the deck, and then we met with a few realtors to get our house on the market.
and then after all that work, we signed a few papers, and came home to a for sale sign in our yard.
Just like that, our first house. Our yellow house in the country, was up for sale.
In the meantime, I was busy getting my clinical hours done, and we were busy getting out of the house daily for showings. Thankfully the showing process only took 13 days. It was a lot of work keeping the house show-ready with 4 kids!
13 days after being on the market, we had an offer. We spent a day negotiating, and then waited for the potential out of town buyers to come view the house before they put in a firm offer, then another day of negotiating an offer, and now... now we are pending sale and will close no later than August 19th!
So for today, we are currently homeless after August 19th with 4 kids and two cats…I suppose we better get working on finding a place!
