Unexpected treats

The past two months have been marked by unexpected good fortune. I’m quite fond of the quote “luck is the result of fate intersecting with preparation”, but all the recent good fortune exceeds any rational explanation, and can only be explained as confirmation that we are where we’re supposed to be, doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

After getting moved in, it was time to get connected. We started out visiting our neighbors, one house per evening. We’ve met all our immediate neighbors and a few more of the near ones. We are thankful to be surrounded by some extremely good neighbors all the way around us. What a blessing.

Now we’re church hopping, searching for a church home that we’ll enjoy and grow in. This morning we went to Fellowship Church over by Lewisville. It’s not the church we’ll be attending but boy did we have a good time. We just happened to visit the Sunday when Newsboys were live in concert. Better still, they played three of my favorite songs. You know it’s a great worship service when your voice is strained afterward.

Classes begin Tuesday. On Thursday, Jen and I attended orientation. Orientation is basically an interactive way to give you the laundry list of things you need to do. Get your ID card. Get a parking permit. Find your mailbox. Figure out how to open it. Read your student handbook. The library is there, sign up for a guided tour (yes, it’s almost necessary). Deadlines for X are on Y date, etc. All very exciting stuff. Yawn.

Friday was far more fun, consisting of two entrance examinations and two take home assignments. The first test was the MMPI (Minneapolis Multiphase Personality Inventory). The instructor told us it’s a way to help them determine how well we adjust to personal and social change. S-u-r-e, that’s one of the uses, but it’s also used to assess mental disorders. With more than a few of the 567 questions like “someone is out to get me: T/F?”, and “I’m being followed: T/F?”, it’s evident what they’re looking for. “Sir, your results are in. Would you mind wearing this jacket while we take a little walk?”

The other test was a biblical & theology knowledge test. We get to take this test at entrance and graduation. The goal is that you do better the second time. That won’t be hard to do. The test was very humbling. I’m guessing I scored about 6%.

One of the take-home tests was actually a pretty enjoyable one. It’s called “PROFILES of Ministry” by the Association of Theological Schools. The test consists of 24 scenarios. Following each scenario description is a selection of possible responses. You rate each response based on your likelihood of using it. Finally, you are presented with a selection of motives for choosing the responses. Again, you choose how likely you would be to have each motive. I expect those test results to be quite valuable and interesting.

Last, but certainly not least is Kayla. We’ve now passed two parenting milestones. We’ve left her in nursery twice now. That’s no small step for a first time mommy. Kayla is now 24″ long and weights 13 lbs. She started out on the small side but has made up for it since. We’re almost certain she spoke. When Grandpa called from Alaska today, I heard her say “Halibut” and lick her chops.

Settled In

Although we’ll be adjusting (to) things for some time to come, we are now “settled in.”

The hardest thing to get used to is the heat. It’s been over 100 every day of the last week, and it doesn’t cool off to the mid eighties until early morning (5-9 AM). Thankfully, the humidity stays right around 70% so the heat is only mildly intolerable. To help get used to it, we keep the thermostat in the house set to 82°F, which is barely below misery for a northern boy like me.

Kayla’s latest kick is standing up. Forget about crawling, this little chic wants to stand. If we fail to oblige her, she’ll remind us. She really enjoys being upright, and it’s a fine digestive aid. It helps her relieve unwanted pressure from both ends.

Simerson Housing & Moving

Wow. So much has happened in the last few weeks. The biggest news is that our house in Michigan is SOLD! That happened on July 23rd, days before we lit out of town for Marco’s wedding in Nashville. This blessing came as a big surprise. For starters, there’s an excess of houses on the market in Cadillac, almost a years worth. Our listing price was $25k higher than the next most expensive house on our street. Our neighborhood isn’t the cities finest.

Because of those considerations, we expected to sit on the house for at least a year or two. We expected it so much that we had a renter all lined up and ready to move in as soon as we moved out. Then, as divine providence would have it, we got two excellent offers, a day apart. We had only to pick the best offer (cash, no contingencies) and just like that, our house was sold. Yesterday we signed all the closing documents and overnighted them back to Michigan. The closing will be completed next week.

In previous posts I made note of the moving out party and the blessing our friends were. I’ll pick up the story on Friday evening, the day before the truck arrived with all our stuff.

Because Jen didn’t want me to unload the entire truck by myself (again, as I did in our Atlanta to Cadillac move) we made arrangements to get Jordan (1st cousin, once removed) from the Air Force base in Wichita Falls. On Saturday AM, we discovered it was a 3 hour drive to get him and booked him tickets on a greyhound. The plan was to have the truck unloaded by Sunday evening, in time to take him back to the base.

The truck arrived at 9:20AM and Jordan would be arriving around 2PM, so I set to getting a head start on the unloading. As I was working, Omega, my neighbor across the street saw me working away. He inquired, and then changed his clothes and set to work helping me. Omega is about my size but with an apparent muscular build, hardy work ethic, and is acclimated to the heat. That man worked non-stop with me, all morning long. By 2:30PM when Jen and Jordan arrived, we were hauling in the last big piece of furniture.

For the rest of Saturday and Sunday, we 3 kings of unpacking were. We worked from one room to the next, tearing into boxes and dispersing their contents. Excepting the living room (due to a lack of bookshelves), there are no boxes left in the house. We have the following rooms in order: master bedroom, Kayla’s room, master & guest bath, and kitchen. It’s taken two days to arrange the office.

The office is complex due to sawing and installation of the rack in the guest room closet, stringing Ethernet cables through the attic from room to room, and setting up all the computers in their new environment. The file server is all set up in the server closet (instead of on Jen’s desk) and Jen’s primary computer is now the PowerBook (connected to the 20″ display and external keyboard/mouse).

Home, sweet home

We arrived last night to find we had no water or electricity (it should have been on). A phone call cleared that up, but the technician didn’t arrive until 2:00PM today. The Cable modem installer arrived at 11AM. I had already wired up the access point, switch, cable modem, and IP phone. They were being powered by the DC inverter in my car via an extension cord. By the time the cable lady had it wired up outside, I had everything in the house on-line.

Now the carpet cleaners are here, removing the aromatic evidence of the previous owner’s cats. The process is pretty cool, they use a black light to find the affected areas and then replace the padding and treat the entire carpet. When they’re done, they guarantee the job. Fortunately, the utility guy showed up and turned the power on, now their machines can work. 🙂

Tomorrow morning at 9:00AM our truck will arrive. We’ll have Jordan (my cousin Kevin’s son) here to help and maybe a buddy, Rick. At least we’ll have good weather, it’s only 93 degrees today.

Texas or bust!

5:41PM – Garland, TX (home)
11:00AM – Springfield, MO
8:00AM – St. Louis, MO (depart)

Simerson’s are playing leapfrog while driving to Texas. Our stuff was packed into a commercial truck and left Cadillac on Monday. We left Cadillac this morning in our very full Jetta. After passing Bloomington, IL we checked in via the internet to see where our truck was. It’s due to be in Springfield, IL tonight so that means we passed it sometime earlier today. We are approximately 3 hours ahead of it.

5:15PM – Bloomington, IL
3:15PM – Chicago Construction
2:35PM – Indiana
12:05 – Grand Rapids (gas)
11:05 – Depart Cadilac

We’re on our way!

Moving update

Today was a big day, but it’s been a ride getting here. An immense amount of effort has been expended by us, and by our cherished friends on our behalf. Last Wednesday, Jen and I had packed up a goodly portion of the house into boxes. That evening, Matt, Jeff & Jen, Leif & Amedee, and Eric & Jen came over. Matt used his resourcefulness to fetch a stack of boxes and everybody pitched in and filled ’em.

On Thursday morning, our truck arrived. Six phone calls later, I got permission from the City of Cadillac to park the tractor trailer (that was already there) on the street in front of my house. I worked all afternoon to pack about 3 feet of the truck. That evening, Eric and Matt showed up and hauled all of the packed stuff out to the truck, as fast I as could find places for it. More was accomplished in a few hours than I had all day.

My best friend, Michael Surls came up from Marshall on Friday. That afternoon we fetched all the building supplies we’d need to give the patio a face lift and trim out the upstairs. By Saturday evening I had the entire upstairs all trimmed out while Michael & Daniel demolished the patio and prepared it for it’s new skin. Deb & Jen continued packing, caring for Kayla, and keeping the men nourished.

On Sunday, work on the patio resumed. We disassembled the DS3 rack and removed it (a sad day). Amedee came over and did a fantastic job of cleaning the basement. I’ll simply say that her standards are higher than mine, and it shows. Later, Jeff & Jen and Eric & Jen came by and helped some more. Eric and I went to town on the patio while everyone else packed. Eric worked like a man on a mission and by 11 we had the patio done and started loading the truck.

We weren’t certain when the trailer would be picked up (scheduled for mid-morning) so I planned to work through the night to get it all loaded. Fortunately, Jeff & Eric helped out and around 2AM, the truck was loaded. The question of the day was Jeff’s: “So Matt, how’s it feel to pack 30 years of your life into 19 feet?”

After we were “done”, I found several other items to load. I set them aside for the morning. At 7:30 Jen woke me. I loaded the other items onto the truck and then prepared to fetch Kevin’s truck to haul all the construction debris to the dump. Martha & Greg intervened. I went and re-wired their newly renovated store and tomorrow, a fellow will come and haul away all my trash.

Jeff & Jen came by again and caulked the trim I had installed. What a difference a $2 tube of painters caulk makes when used by a pro. I cleaned out the garage, piled up all the debris for the trailer, carpeted the stairs & landing, and other little things. Finally, at 9PM, we stopped and went out to watch a movie. It was my first real “break” of the day and two hours sitting down felt wonderful. That would not have been possible without the help of our friends.

Tuesday, we have a few more loose ends to tie up, a few construction projects to finish, and then spending time with friends during the evening. Then, we’re on the road for two days, arriving in Texas late on Thursday evening.

It’s late, I must sleep now. I hope I haven’t slighted anyone’s contribution. I’m tired and short of time, but I wanted to vocalize our friends have been an incredible blessing to us. By far, the hardest part of leaving is those we leave behind. We will miss you all very much.

Why I love technology

Today we drove from Cadillac, MI to Nashville, TN. It should have taken 10 hours, but it took eleven. We are quite thankful to have only been delayed by an hour, and we owe those thanks to technology. As we cruised through Indianapolis, I glimpsed a flashing sign that said something like “accident on SB I-65, closed at mile 50, seek alternate route”. The 50 mile marker was a good hour away so I cruised onward. We scanned the AM frequency several times looking for more traffic info and found nothing.

Once out of Indianapolis, I used my laptop and cellular Internet connection to Google “I-65 accident Indiana” and got no results. It hadn’t made the news wire yet so the flashing sign back in Indianapolis was the only clue that something was amiss. At mile marker 55, I noticed brake lights and a two lane parking lot where the Interstate should be. I noticed it just in time to catch an off ramp.

Southern Indiana consists of narrow single lane roads and lots of corn fields. We followed the traffic for a while on the most obvious alternate route. As the miles long procession crawled along, it became obvious that it was going to take a very long time (hours) to make it to the next freeway ramp. This is where technology saved the day.

Thanks to a GPS receiver and Route 66 (my mapping software) I had complete maps of the area, and I knew exactly where we were. I veered away from traffic and charted a course through the corn fields down country back roads scarcely a lane wide. My alternate route ended up being about 10 miles longer than the other option but was largely untraveled and much faster.

Today on I-65, motorists fell into four camps. The tragic were involved in the accident. The unfortunate didn’t see the warning sign(s) nor the sea of brake lights until they were stuck in miles of parked cars. The fortunate motorists detoured early, or got lucky and were able to get off the freeway. Of the fortunate, only the enlightened few had suitable maps of the area, or knew the area well enough to get through with only a minor setback. We were through Kentucky and into Tennessee before the State Troopers hoped to get traffic moving.

It wasn’t until late this evening that information became available. At about 9:30AM, a car had a blowout. A truck driver swerved and lost control of his truck. He crossed the median and Southbound lanes and was killed when his truck collided with a guard rail. At 3pm traffic was backed up at least 5 miles. Police hoped to have the scene cleared and traffic moving by 6PM.

Today, we were fortunate. Alert driving spotted the backup, luck provided an exit ramp, and technology allowed us to navigate through the corn fields and back to the freeway.

Simerson Moving Schedule

Howdy pardners,

Everyone wants to know when we’re leaving. The final answer is: Aug 10th. That’s the short answer. If you plan to see us on Aug 10th though, you’ll be disappointed. Here’s the full schedule:

July 27th – Drive to Nashville
July 28-30th – Marco’s Wedding
July 31st – Drive back to Cadillac

Aug 1-5 – Pack up the house, install trim and paint in a few places
Aug 5-8 – Load everything into the truck
Aug 9th – Last minute odds and ends
Aug 10-11th – Drive to Texas
Aug 12-14 – Unload the truck in our Texas home
Aug 16-22 – Unpack
Aug 25th – School starts

And, no post would be complete with a Kayla photo.

This morning she had her 2 month checkup. She’s now 22 inches long and weights 10.6 pounds. She also got her shots so now she’s got Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussus (whooping cough), HIB, Hepatitis B, Polio, and Pneumococcal disease. Despite her little body being a disease riddled mess, she’s holding up remarkably well. She is mildly fussy and has a low grade fever, which is to be expected. What surprises me is that in spite of not feeling well, she’s still a very happy little girl.

Daddy Day Care: A Spoiler?

As I sit here with the world’s cutest and happiest baby cooing in my lap, I can’t help but think that we’ve been blessed with a spoiler. What’s a spoiler you ask? Quite a few parents we’ve talked to (even before we had Kayla) have made comments such as, “Oh yeah, we thought we had parenting all figured out with Bobby and Sue, but then we had Billy…”

Now that I’m getting used to living on less sleep, I’m beginning to think that Kayla is our spoiler, given us to cut our parenting teeth, and encourage us to have another. Let’s be realistic here, who wouldn’t want another precious little easy to care for baby? Before we had our first we had all sorts of doubts. Oh sure every parent tells, “You’ll know how to tell which cry is which.” I can take such statements on faith, but there’s a difference between expecting something, and accomplishing it.

We were given quite a few excellent books on parenting. Thanks to Jen’s friend Christina, our baby actually DID come with the baby owner’s manual. Jen and Eric gave us Babywise, which is also excellent. The What to Expect… books are also good. We read them all and referred to them often during them first weeks. They helped set our expectations realistically and provided us with an arsenal of tools to help us manage our new baby and integrate her into our life.

Now, 7 weeks into this gig, it’s easy to determine what her needs are. We know that each evening she’ll have her fussy time. To get her ready to eat, just uncover her for 15 minutes while warming up her milk. She’ll cool off and wake up ready to eat. Keep her awake for a half hour of “happy play time” and then warm her up and she goes to sleep. Now we’re listening to The Rolling Stones and I’m about to get a little work done during her nap. In short, life involving a baby is becoming predictable.

I mean sure, we did have to learn some new skills, but we expected that. Just as we had to learn new skills to thrive as a cohabitating couple, so too did we need to make changes and grow with this new addition. It almost seems to have been too easy. Is this the calm before the storm?