But I've been busy. Like everyone is. We built a house. (You remember that.) And then Brad and a friend started a business. And then in December 2014, I started teaching voice lessons four nights a week from 3:30-8:00 at a local dance studio. I also taught a musical theater class there. Grace and Claire were there with me and took dance lessons (for free, since I was staff). They developed a real love for dance. Brad was able to be home with the little kids usually. But we never ate dinner together except for weekends.
During the day, I edited photos or worked on the website or took clients for my photography business (www.essentiallychicphotography.com). That business was also crazy busy. During the summer my partner and I photographed soccer and softball. During the school year we took yearbook photos for the charter school and local preschools. And then of course we were shooting the usual weddings, families, babies and seniors.
And then I was busy at church.
And then I was still homeschooling. Because if the kids went to school and right afterward I went to work at the studio, I would never see them. To facilitate this, Aside from my kids' schoolwork, I hosted a 6 family homeschooling co-op at my house once a week. So homeschooling was busy.
And then I had a house to take care of. It probably should have been at least tidied once a day. If I'd had time for that kind of thing. And there was the yard that was just under an acre. With 40 trees that needed to be watered. And a dog. A dog who had two large litters of puppies (25 puppies total) last year.
And finally. Brad's work started changing. Instead of doing construction work around town, Brad's business started hiring electricians and working on big electrical contracts in other states. So Brad was taking monthly (or more) business trips to Colorado. And Kansas. And elsewhere. And because I was still teaching voice in the evenings, I had to find someone to babysit my youngest kids while I worked.
We were busy.
One night last year I remember coming home late after voice lessons. It had been a particularly stressful week. Brad had been watching the two youngest kids and Grace and Claire had come home from dance with me. I pulled into the driveway and Grace and Claire hopped out of the car. I watched them run into the house. And I sat in the driveway. Just sitting. For a minute. Because there was no other time to sit. I saw Brad walk out of the house toward my car. I grabbed my purse and got ready to get out of the car because I assumed that he needed help getting the kids to bed. He opened my door, and reached in and hugged me. And he just hugged me. For several minutes. It was like coming up for air. We were both so stressed.
If I were to sum up life in one word, that word would be: stress.
And I know that a lot of you do this life. Every day. And you're still able to discipline your children and make dinner and have family time and scripture study and mop your floors. Props to you people. You have my undying admiration. And envy. I wish I were like you. But I have learned that I am not great at multi-tasking. I have tunnel vision. And it is very hard for me to focus on anything else if I have a deadline. So sometimes the most important things didn't get done because I was focused on work. Or I was focused on the next appointment or business meeting.
One day Brad and I were sitting around talking about what to do with our lives. We do this a lot. outcomes of this meeting are life goals like: move to Alaska. And build a climbing wall in our backyards. You know. Important stuff. Brad had been gone 15 days that month. And. Well that just stinks. And maybe with that on the brain I just said, "what if we bought a trailer and lived in it and followed you around?"
And it sounded about as probable as moving to Alaska. Except we couldn't stop thinking about it.
Two weeks later Brad brought home our new home.
I know there will be problems with living in a trailer. Many of my friends have told me that I will go completely crazy. And my sister has mentioned that most families spend their lives working to ensure that their family WON'T have to live in a trailer. 😂 True. But we've just finished up our first week in a trailer. We haven't even left our city yet. And it's pretty awesome--I'm not gonna lie.
