I'm still here!

In the midst of moving, unpacking, starting a new job and take care of the girls, it's been a little busy at Kirkhaven 2.0.

But I have lots to share with you, just as soon as we get our Internet service up and running. So for now, I'll leave you with a photo of my view this morning:

Public service announcement

I started a Facebook page for Kirkhaven - you can find it here. 

Oh, and so this isn't completely a waste of a post: 

Whaddya mean, we're MOVING? Nobody ran this by ME!
{Can you believe this was taken almost a year ago? She has grown up so much!}

The last one

Dear Cuming County,

I left off my letter last week extolling your praises, and if I had stopped there, I would be leaving out so much.

I’ll miss being part of the West Point Community Theatre, helping make decisions as part of its board of directors and appearing on stage in performances (although I haven’t completely ruled this out ... it’s not that far from Lincoln to West Point).

I’ll miss being a TeamMates mentor. I was in the program for only one year, but even in that short amount of time, it made an impact on my life. I hope I made a difference.

I’ll miss being part of Elkhorn Valley Arts Unlimited and being part of a community of people dedicated to supporting the arts.

I’ll miss attending worship at Zion St. John Lutheran Church, the “singing-est” church I’ve ever known.

I’ll miss the Wisner News-Chronicle staff tremendously. Perhaps you don’t know, but the individuals who put out your newspaper each week are quite awesome. They are smart and hard-working professionally, and personally, they are some of the best people I know.

As I review the list of things I’ll miss, it’s clear that Cuming County is a special place, inhabited by exceptional people.

Since writing last week, many people have expressed their sadness at our moving, and I respond with “we’re not going to be gone forever.”

Cuming County, and Wisner in particular, is where my family went from being two to three, and then to four. It’s where Jim and I bought our first house and filled it with sweet memories. It’s where I spent some of the best years of my life, and so how could I possibly leave it for good?

Expect to see us for future Cuming County Fairs, WPCT productions and St. Patrick’s Day parades.

In the meantime, I’ll be starting my new job on Aug. 27 at the Nebraska Press Advertising Service in Lincoln. I’ll be the advertising assistant, and so in effect, I’ll still be working for the Wisner News-Chronicle ... along with the 174 other Nebraska newspapers that are Nebraska Press Association members.

And while I won’t have a weekly column anymore, you’ll still be able to read my work at Kirkhaven, my personal blog (http://alloneway.blogspot.com), or e-mail me at the.kirk.4@gmail.com.

This is harder to wrap up than I thought. I’m torn between excitement at the new adventure in our lives, and sadness at leaving this one behind.

So I guess I’ll close On the Lighter Side with a most sincere thanks to you all for reading my words. It’s been a blessing to me, and I hope it has been to you also.

All the best,
Violet

And just for funsies, here's a photo gallery of some of my performances at West Point Community Theatre. For the record, if my girls are a little on the dramatic side, I have NO IDEA from whom they get it ...

As Tiffany Houston in "Back to the 80s" {2009}

"Back to the 80s"

As Sheila Hussy in "Rustler's Revenge" {2009}

As Elaine Harper in "Arsenic and Old Lace" {2009}

"Arsenic and Old Lace"

"Arsenic and Old Lace"

As the Milkmaid, far left and four months pregnant, in "Oliver!" {2010}

As Kate in "A Pirate's Life for Me" {2011}

"A Pirate's Life for Me"

On the Lighter Side

Published Aug. 15, 2012

Dear Cuming County ... I’ll miss you

Short and sweet good-byes are not my style, apparently.

I closed out my newspaper column with a two-part love letter to the county we'll be leaving in less than a week. Here's part one:

The view from our front door {obviously not recently}

This is a really difficult column to write. It’s my penultimate offering to you, the readers of the Wisner News-Chronicle, before my family and I move to Lincoln at the end of this month.

The decision to move has been a long time coming, and is bittersweet. The bitter I’ll get to in a minute, but the sweet will be finally living close enough to our families to call them neighbors.

If you’ve read “On the Lighter Side” for any length of time, you’ll know my family and Jim’s are extremely important to us.

When it was just the two of us, it was enough to see them on holidays and the occasional family gathering. After Evangeline was born, it got harder to say good-bye after visits. And after Brielle’s birth this May, we found ourselves spending every weekend this summer down south.

With our move, we’ll complete a set: All of my grandmother’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be living in Lincoln. My mother will be a 45-minute drive down I-80 and Jim’s parents live just an hour’s drive south in Kansas.

Though my girls don’t know it yet, it’s a tremendous gift we’re giving them to grow up with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins nearby.

But that gift doesn’t come without a price, which of course is that we’ll be leaving the friends who have become like family over the past four years.

So, as a parting gift to my readers, I’d like to close out my time here with a two-part love letter to Cuming County, and especially Wisner, the place where our family began.

Dear Cuming County:

We moved here in July 2008. It was an oppressively hot day when we pulled up outside of the little house that would become our home. I’d never set foot in it before; Jim had arranged for it while I was still working in Oklahoma.

But I loved it right away, just like it didn’t take me long to fall in love with you.

Within a month, I was working at the Wisner News-Chronicle. If there is a better way to learn about a new community than working at its newspaper, I’d like to hear it. It was through my work at the paper that I learned who is related to who, who used to live where, who graduated in what year and with whom.

It didn’t take long to recognize people, and so consequently, I knew a lot more of your people than maybe they realized. It sometimes made me feel a little stalkerish, but also it made me feel at home to see familiar faces.

I love shopping at stores where you know the majority of the other shoppers. I love being on a first-name basis with local librarians. I love bowling with women who don’t hold my 97-pin average against me.

Where else could I have found not one, but two, excellent childcare providers for my children? Where else could I have joined in organizations dedicated to promoting the arts in rural Nebraska, even as an outsider — and a young one, at that? Where else could I have written a self-involved weekly newspaper column without recrimination?

There’s nowhere quite like Cuming County, and nowhere quite like Wisner. We won’t forget you.

Until next week,
Violet

On the Lighter Side

Published Aug. 8, 2012

Here we go again

We've moving.

There, that's the short version of things. If that's all you want to know, you can stop reading right about ... now.

But if you, dear reader, want the whole story (the long, involved, tear-soaked version), sally forth.
I've chronicled our journey for the past few months here and here and here (and even here, almost a year ago).

To catch you up, Jim resigned from teaching at Zion St. John in April, primarily due to the fact that he wanted to focus on being a teacher, not an administrator/teacher/nurse/coach/driver/janitor. By the time the school year ended in May, he had several interviews with local schools under his belt. We expected one of those would work out, especially since one was at another Lutheran school. 

Long (loooong) story short, neither position materialized. (A side note: When politics enter into hiring decisions in a public school, you kind of expect and accept it. When it happens in a Christian setting, it's deeply disappointing.) 

May came and went. Brielle was born. Then June passed into July with no job offers, just waiting and waiting and waiting. I confess, our home was not precisely a haven this summer. I struggled a lot with anger, with depression, mostly especially with trust. 

Security and stability are as necessary to me as oxygen, so for the past four months, I suffocated in a miasma of fear and indecision. If you think I'm exaggerating, you might try talking to my poor husband, who dealt with the unfortunate combination of postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation and situationally-induced anxiety. 

Last week, a few things transpired that drastically changed our plans. While I need to keep private things private, suffice it to say that it became abundantly clear a path was opening up to enable us to embark on a new adventure. 

As Jim and I discussed things on Wednesday night, a much-need rainstorm was sweeping through the area. Literally the moment I said Let's do it, a gust of wind blew the upstairs window open. A door had closed to us, but a window *literally* was opening. 

Looking back on the events of this spring and summer, I can see now how God's hand was guiding us. Initially, I was dead-set against moving: I had an idea of how things should happen. But as those plans evaporated, even though the circumstances were less than ideal, I started to think about how nice it would be to be closer to our families. 

Gradually, my slow little brain worked its way around to realizing that maybe this is what God intended for us all along.

It's not going to be painless. I dearly love the friends we've made over the past four years. I will be leaving a job that I'm good at and that I enjoy. We'll be leaving our group of theatre friends, and I'll genuinely miss being onstage and helping make decisions for its future.

But. It is a good change. My girls will grow up with their family, instead of seeing them occasionally and briefly.

We'll be living in a house on my grandmother's farm, so we'll see her every day. My sisters both work in Lincoln, so we plan to have Big Bang Theory nights at their apartment this fall. My brother will be a freshman at UNL this fall, so we'll be able to meet up with him for coffee once in a while. My mom and Jim's parents will both be just an hour away, so all three of them will get to do more hands-on grandparenting.

As for jobs, I'm not worried ... can you believe that? Me, not worrying? Jim is planning to substitute teach. I have a few feelers out there for myself, but if it's a slower process, I'll get to stay home with the girls. Win-win.

Our Wisner chapter is coming to an end; it's been such a special time in our lives. Just like a favorite book, I know I'll revisit our Cuming County days in my memory often.

To all the people who prayed unceasingly for us over the past months, it is appreciated more than you can ever know. God is good, and His plans are perfect ... even when we can't see how they possibly can be.

Four generations

The women in this photo, my mom and grandma, are women of faith, gracious hostesses,  thoughtful friends, loving wives and devoted mothers. If there is anything good I pass along to my girls, it will be because I learned it from them. 

In pursuit of a gold(en) childhood

Here’s a fun fact: Sports movies make me cry. Every single one, every single time. I’m not talking rivers of tears, but I get choked up when the U.S. hockey team scores the winning goal in Miracle or when Rudy gets called to the field at the last minute. 

Don’t even get me started on Chariots of Fire.

So it shouldn’t be surprising for you to learn that I limit my Olympics viewing — for fear that every tissue in Cuming County quickly would be put to use. (That, plus the fact we don’t have conventional television in the Kirk house.)

But I did catch some of the events over the weekend at my grandmother’s house, and even my unathletic soul was stirred.

As a child, I remember watching figure skating during the winter Olympics, thinking “Hey, I could do that,” putting on a twirly skirt and practicing “triple axles” in the hallway.

Shockingly, the Olympic Talent Team never called.

Watching the competition now as a mother, I’m tempted to think the same thing, but with my children in the spotlight.

Every parent believes his or her child is exceptional; what a rush it must be to have that acknowledged globally.

And every parent, myself included, believes his or her child has what it takes to go for gold.

But then I think of the sacrifices Olympians and their families make, and wonder if gold medals come at an impossibly high price.

I want my girls to be little girls for as long as possible. There will be non-negotiables down the road — chores, homework, piano lessons, fetching Mommy her emergency chocolate — but I want them to pursue the gold medals of their own choosing. And that’s only after they’ve had the chance to have a thoroughly carefree childhood.

I probably won’t be an Olympic mom someday, though secretly I won’t rule out the possibility.

But whether I’m cheering for my girls in the bleachers at a basketball game or quietly beaming with pride at a dance recital, I want to know they’re doing what they love.

And you can bet I’ll bring tissues.

Brielle can't exactly play yet, so she fills her time by looking adorable. Mission accomplished, no?

Meanwhile, big sister Evangeline can't get enough of the life aquatic. (Jill - I think she looks so much like D. in this photo!)

On the Lighter Side
Published August 1, 2012