Ch-ch-ch-changes

Sometime in mid-September, I was complaining (per usual) to my friend Tara about my job. My boss. My coworkers. The monotony of it all. The hours. You know, the works.

"I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner," she said, "But we have an opening in my department, and you would be awesome."

And thus the ball started rolling.

I knew immediately that it was God's Idea and not My Idea because so much about it made me uncomfortable: The timing was all wrong. It wasn't when we wanted to leave Yakima. It involved too many things that made me uncomfortable.

But the job. It was a good job. A great job. And, let's just be clear, it was my job. It was the job I've wanted for years.

Three of the longest months of my life later, the job is mine. Our faith has been stretched, pushed and prodded. I have sung myself the "Have Patience" song endlessly. But it is mine. The contract is signed, we have an apartment to live in and a place for Clark to go to daycare.

And now for the scary parts: Actually doing this.

At the end of January, Clark and I will be moving to Moscow by ourselves as I launch a new, non-newspaper-but-still-media career at the University of Idaho. I have an office to myself with adult furniture and a door -- and a window. TJ will be moving up to Ellensburg to finish out his master's degree at CWU. When he graduates in June, he'll come to Moscow, too, and hopefully begin UI's MFA program. In the meantime, we'll spend five-ish months in two different states, with Daddy joining us on the weekends as often as he can. I begin my new job on Feb. 2.

It is a challenge I wouldn't have wished on myself for all the money in the world. But it is God's challenge and I'm having faith that we will all end up stronger and in a better place because of it.

In the meantime, the next month will be spent packing, sorting, cleaning and getting our home set as a rental. We have been blessed with a reliable tenant (though ink is not yet to paper, so fingers crossed). We are figuring out how to handle the legal requirements and dot all our T's and cross our I's. We are praying that a) Nothing bad happens to the property and b) That she loves it so much she wants to buy it.

There have been moments of stress-induced panic, some nervous breakdowns, a lot of nausea and much prayer. But we've made it this far, and God hasn't given up on us and our utter lack of patience/faith/peace yet. I know He won't now.

And we appreciate your prayers, your offers of assistance and your kind words. We will miss Yakima, Selah, Harvest and all of our friends more than I'm sure we know at this point. But it is a smaller world than it used to be, so I know that good-bye is not forever.

Now on to the next thing.