"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men."

   Doug has a job! He's going to be working at Sykes in Hazard which is a banking call center. Basically he gets to listen to angry people all day who don't like their over draft fees. Ok, so maybe it's not THAT bad, but he's customer service so he'll be taking phone calls. The job does not start until Dec 17th. In the mean time he's been looking for things to do. On Monday he's leaving for a couple days bringing some stuff to Texas and then bringing some other things back to Tennessee  Not sure yet what all he's delivering but it should make good money ;-)


   We also got a house...but we can't move in yet ;-) It's just down the hill from Mama and Daddy Caudill and is where Doug's brother lives right now. As soon as they get out which they are hoping is only going to be another week or two, we can start moving in. It's a very  nice house (though it needs some remodeling) with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It's in the country, yes in fact on 75 or so acres. I can't complain about that!

   We thought we'd visit a bunch of different churches when we got down here, but so far we've enjoyed Little Rachel so much that we haven't wanted to miss any of their meetings.

   God is good and we've really been blessed so far.

  I meant to write you much sooner with the rest of the story, but It does me no good to give you my list of excuses.

   After 17 long hours in the car we finally arrived in Decoy Kentucky. The tiny little community deep in the Hills. The place where the "town hall" and voting office building look more like an outhouse.

   I've been enjoying living back in the middle of nowhere (except when we suddenly need something from wall-mart.) The weather has been beautiful and while you all are experiencing snow in WI, I've been enjoying the sunshine. Picking fresh Carrots. Picking fresh Turnips. Petting the goats (who Doug butchered today *cries*) and so on. Today we caught all the chickens and clipped their wings so we could put them in the fence. In a few days here when we get time we are going to be butchering them.

   Doug is looking for a job still. He has an interview tomorrow and one on Monday. So it's finally looking pretty good for us. Pray something works out. We also have a house that we can probably get...depending on where Doug gets a job.

   Will update you all when anything actually happens.
 

The Move Continued...

   Friday morning we all slept in. Doug left during the late part of the morning to run some errands and then meet up with Ken who was going to help him finish the trailer. My sis-in-law Mary and her adorable little son Austin (who is just 3 months younger than Jubilee) came to spend some time with Jubilee and I. Do you remember how the jeep was so packed we could not fit another shoe in? Yes? Well guess where all my clean clothes were? Not on top. So between a trip to wall-mart, and a dig through a friends "goodwill bag" and another friends "goodwill bag" I was able to get a fresh outfit. Mary and I ran around and did some shopping. Aldi has awesome carts with two seats. :-D 

I also spent some time with Rachel but I won't bore you with just everywhere that I ran back and forth to and from. throughout the day I'd call the guys and they would be "almost finished with about an hour more of work" and an hour and a half later I'd call them up and they would say "it was going well until..." "we have about an hour left and we'll be finished" they kept running into one problem after another. Finally around 9:30 P.M. (if I remember rightly.) I was back at Jo and Emily's house when the guys walked in. They said they were almost finished the the bolts were the wrong size and as all the stores were closed for the night we would have to wait until the next day.

So...we stayed one more night.

Jubilee did not sleep more than 20 minutes at a time for most of the night.

Which means

Mom did not sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time for most of the night.

At least it felt that way.

About 7:00 in the morning I finally texted my dear friend Rachel. She came and picked up Jubilee. I went to sleep. 

Ben came to help (I think he was involved the day before also.) He and Doug left. I kept sleeping.

I slept until 1 in the afternoon :-D After a much needed shower and some breakfast Joyce, Emily, Esther (Ben's wife) and I went to get Jubilee. Sweet Rachel had taken her shopping and bought her a brand new outfit, Pajamas, and boots, given her a bath and got her all cleaned up for the trip. Up to that point poor Jubilee had been wearing the same pajamas that I had put on her Thursday evening when we were going to leave. (Note for next time...always pack extra clothes in an accessible place.)

FINALLY at about 7:30 p.m. the trailer was nice as new finished and ready to roll. We ate some pizza and cheesecake. said goodbye (for the 3rd time!) and  at 8:25 we were on our way.

Goodbye Wisconsin. 

The trip begins...Or does it?

   It was Tuesday afternoon and my house was still in a MESS.  

Only half of it was packed. 

My mind was in almost as big of a mess. 

I didn't think I'd ever have everything ready in time to leave on Thursday. 

I remembered my dear sister-in-law Patty who had offered to help with anything I needed in the move. Quickly I called her up and Wednesday morning she her son David showed up. (THANK YOU TWO SO MUCH) They were a life saver to me. As I paced the house not sure what to do packing up the last things in our room, pacing around some more, packing up the bathroom, throwing things away and pacing some more, she calming and efficiently got my whole kitchen packed up.

Not just packed...but

PACKED

and I mean

PACKED. 

All the stuff that I had no idea what to do with she packed here and packed there and somehow got it all into just a few boxes and so tightly and nicely that I was certain nothing would break. David was an immense help too as he played with Jubilee and help to keep her from crying or emptying boxes as fast as we could fill them :-D We left for church and patty went to do some errands but while we were at church she came back and got everything finished. 

Wednesday evening we said our goodbyes to all who were not planning to come over and help us pack up the jeep on Thursday. We slept like logs that night and quite late into the day on Thursday. Lots of friends came over to spend our last day in WI with us. We pretended to work hard but a few games of dutch blitz were played too. Between Ken (Doug's brother and patty's husband) and Doug they were able to pack the trailer as well as Patty had packed the kitchen. Never seen so much stuff fit in one small 4x8 trailer. And NEVER seen so much stuff fit in one small jeep. We were packing and packing and packing  and till we were jamming and shoving just to fit one more shoe in. No one dared to open the back doors anymore. Finally everything was packed (except for a smile pile that we ended up leaving in the garage to get later.) It was around 6:30 p.m. We were ALMOST ready to hit the road (or so I thought.) Doug came upstairs and told me in a round about way that the axle was bending and we were having a "problem". Ken immediately interpreted for me "Just so you know, you won't be leaving tonight". 

*sigh*

Part of me was disappointed

Part of me was happy.

I was SO tired at that point that the thought of going to BED just sounded beautiful. Doug took off to Antigo with Ken to get a new axle and I went with Joyce to her house to REST. My dear friend Rachel said she would buy and cook anything that I wanted. I asked for taco salad so I got spoiled with a beautiful dinner, a soft couch, cozy jammies (borrowed from another dear friend.) and some games with friends. 

The day ended with CRASHING into Joyce's beautifully soft bed...and looking forward to leaving the NEXT evening after getting the trailer fixed.

Rest of the story will be coming in the next post...

Getting Started

   For all of you who may or may not know, Doug and I intend to move to KY this October. That's a ways off yet, but I am starting this blog to hopefully keep you updated on our new life down there.(I know, I know, my last blog to keep you posted when I was in India didn't go so well.) Although I know it should not be such a complicated program, blogger has gotten me lost, confused and upset the last few times I've tried using it:-) I'm starting this blog now while my friend Emily is here so she can guide me through the process. Hopefully I'll learn it will and get myself into the habit of blogging now and then, so I keep up with it when I'm in Kentucky... if we have internet that is ;-)
   Well Good day to you all.