A Rare Few Moments of Solitude

We had a 9-girl sleepover last night for our daughter's 10th birthday party.  A bit crazy, but nothing too abnormal for the craziness that is typically life around our house.  :-)  Now, this morning, we're preparing for Part II of the party -- a BBQ at the local park with family and all of the girls.  My role in the preparation?  Head to the park early in the morning to reserve a couple of picnic tables.  So... I've been hanging out here in the ~68 degree partly cloudy fresh air, defending our picnic area, while also getting some nice devotional time... and working on upgrading my blog template.  (My real goal is to figure out a way to get my blog posts to automatically publish to my Facebook page -- this here post is another piece of that effort.  I'll know soon enough whether or not I've been successful...)

Anyway, it certainly has been nice, having these couple of hours of quiet -- definitely a rarity these days.  Most of you know that I recently accepted a new position within my company, which is giving us the amazing opportunity to relocate to Singapore for a few years.  Moving overseas has been a dream of ours for several years, and someday I'll have to share the amazing journey that has brought us to this moment in our lives.  But, for now, here's a quick update into what's about to happen.

In just 5 days, my wife (Jackie) and I will be heading to Singapore for a school/house-hunting trip.  We'll be gone 8 days (8 days without our kids!!!), and we have some amazing friends (thanks, TC & AC!) who will be moving into our house to watch the kiddos during that time.  Once we get back (on my 36th birthday), we will have 2 weeks to accelerate our moving/relocation preparation... and then in mid-April I officially transition into my new role.  Between April 17th and June 1st, I'll be bouncing back and forth between Memphis and Singapore a couple of times -- working over there, then working over here, etc.  Once the kids finish up school (at the end of May), the packers/movers will show up, and sometime in early June we will officially launch -- all 5 of us -- to our new "home".

In the meantime, we're juggling:
-Trying to go about our "normal" routine
-Researching school and house options in Singapore
-Filling out multitudes of paperwork related to our relocation (self-assessment forms, questionnaires, banking information, housing/school application forms, housing/insurance evaluation forms, etc.)
-Preparing for an initial meeting with our property management company, as we plan on renting out our home while we're gone
-Making plans to sell our vehicles
-Researching new church options for us in Singapore
-Purchasing luggage
-Figuring out what to do about existing cell phone plans, satellite TV contract, cable/internet packages, etc.
-Arranging travel dates
-Setting up "intercultural awareness training" for me, Jackie & Jordan
-And much, much more!

In addition, my work life is now consumed with attempting to maintain my current work assignment, train my successors, close out long-overdue open action items, juggle a multitude of International HR-related issues, all while starting to pick up bits and pieces of work related to my new assignment.

All of that to say that, well, life has never been more exciting -- or as busy -- as it is these days.  Which makes these few moments of peace and quiet here at the Olive Branch park all the more wonderful.

So I pause, take a deep breath, glance around at the sunshine, the ducks in the pond, the kids laughing on the playground -- and I realize that it's likely to be awhile before I get this much "downtime".  And I am thankful, and blessed, and truly enjoying these moments today -- as well as this season of our lives.  It's not all easy, but it is all definitely worth it.

The earth is hard, but the treasure fine...