As you are reading this, I am preparing to head back to my home state of Michigan. Can you hear my happy dance from where you are?
My husband manages commercial construction. The company he works for is based in Michigan but has offices in other places throughout the United States. We are thankful that for most of the years our children were growing up, we were able to stay in Michigan. Except for that one REALLY LOOOOONG year in 1999 when he was assigned to a job in California, and I was at home in Michigan with 4 very young kids. In May of 2015, we headed to Franklin, Tennessee for a 6 month job. We absolutely fell in love with Franklin, and hope to own a second property there sometime in the future.
Even before the job in Franklin, Tennessee was completed, my husband's boss was calling him about his next job. It was in West Palm Beach, Florida. This project was a big one for their company. It was a 19 story condo unit right on the ocean. Who wouldn't want to work right next to the ocean every day? And the experience and knowledge my husband would gain would be so beneficial to his career. But we had our kids, our home and our pets to consider, because all of these things would be left behind for as long as the job took to complete.
My husband and I both grew up in Lansing, Michigan. In fact, our home now is only 15-20 minutes away from where we grew up. We like Michigan. We like the changing color of the fall leaves, the Great Lakes, the sand dunes, the snow. Yes, even the snow. But having lived there for 40+ years, we thought moving to Florida temporarily would be a good change, except for missing our family and our pets.
So, after much encouragement, and the promise of a boat from his boss, (I opted to trade out the boat for a Lamborghini but still haven't seen it LOL), we packed up everything from the Franklin home and drove it down to West Palm Beach, Florida. At first, it was fun missing the snow, but we soon missed home, our kids and pets immensely. It has been very hard being almost 1400 miles away. Flying home for a quick visit with our kids and to fix anything that needed fixed around the house got old very quickly. We were set to arrive back in Michigan sometime around the beginning of 2018. And here we are, the end of September of 2018, still here.
But, it is finally time to go home, and we couldn't be more excited. We always joked that our kids never left us with an empty nest, rather we left them in the nest and flew the coop. Well, now it's time to go back and face the nearly empty nest. When we left, only one of our daughters had moved out. Our son will be moving to his own place when we return and our oldest daughter moved out while we were away. That leaves our middle daughter and 4 cats. It's going to be a big change.
My husband already has his new job assignment in Michigan, and thankfully it will not be too far from home. I will continue my adventures with Stampin' Up! and I will also be looking for a job to occupy my time, as my time as a stay at home mom is over. Time goes by too quickly sometimes.
I hope that you will continue to follow me and join me for local and online classes. If you are local to me in Michigan, I look forward to seeing you again and catching up on everything that happened over the last 3 years. I have missed you all more than you know. My heart is very happy that we are returning home.
If you are so inclined to do so, I ask that you pray for safe travels for us as we make our way home.
I will post updates over on my Facebook group Create with Debbie, so if you would like to follow along as we make our way home, come on over. And leave us a comment. Click the link here then click join.
Create With Debbie.
If you made it all the way to the bottom, I thank you for reading about our journey, and the journey that is yet to come.
Happy Stamping,
Debbie
