Another little step on the journey

I’ve had a busy month and it’s slowing down just a tad for the moment.  The baby shower I was planning was awesome. I put a lot of time into the projects I made. If you haven’t already; you can see some of it HERE. We also hit up a basketball game, and I made more stuff (can’t tell ya what yet…). I tried a new bread recipe that was delicious just needs perfecting. (2nd round batch is on it’s last raising in the pans now). I have good intentions to make our own bread with it if I decide it’s cost effective and good enough…we shall see! (sometimes my ‘big’ ideas kind of fall through after a little while…)

I’m starting a small stretch of this journey I was never looking forward too. During school, Josh gets some ‘time off’ to go work at a clinic somewhere to learn, practice, and get graded. The students can choose where they go-the clinic just has to agree to do the requirements. He had some options nearby but had been invited to go to my first clinic, Bannock Animal Medical Center in Pocatello, ID. Room and board included. Even though I’d like to have him closer so we could SEE each other; I am happy that he is going to a place we know is great, we know he will learn a lot, and we know has awesome people for him to work with and learn from. He will get to see a lot that he might not see at a small clinic around here-the thing is all the really ‘cool’ stuff goes to the Vet School. Yes-I do realize that is where he is every day! But, he gets to see that same stuff from a different perspective, at another clinic, with different doctors, and no residents and interns in his way!

So, why am I dreading this? Because this morning he left to Saint Louis for a conference and he will be back late Sat night. Sunday morning he will get up and drive 21+ hours to Idaho (alone) where he will remain until the middle of March. Yes, 1 1/2 months. By then I will be flying home for a few days and we will drive back to Missouri together. I know there are so many other women out there who give up their husbands for much much longer time periods than this, with much worse circumstances. There are those with Jobs that take them away weeks or months at a time, and those in the military as well-and some of those have pretty limited contact with their families. Plus I don’t have any children to look after. I am thankful that honestly I really don’t have it that bad at all. But, even knowing all of that, this is still going to be hard. It will go by fast, but it won’t. He’s home, and I’m not.

Sixteen: the number of months until Vet School Graduation! In some ways that sounds like a lot-I mean it’s almost a year and a half. After starting the Journey with 4 years (48 months!) ahead of us though, 16 months is definitely a lot shorter. I haven’t been counting down really. I think I realized around 18 months where we were at, but when I sat down and thought about it I realized that I will have one more birthday in Missouri, One thanksgiving, One Christmas. I have one last summer to grow my garden here, because hopefully we will have found a job and moved before it’s time for one in 2013. Doesn’t that make it seem a little closer? It gives me hope-and something to look forward to!

Now, I’m not saying life here is bad. In fact leaving will probably be nearly as hard as it was moving here and leaving home even though I will be excited too. I am not very good at goodbye’s-and when saying hello to the future you have to say goodbye to the present. I honestly LOVE my job. I never think the phrase “I hate my job”. I cannot say I WANT to go to work EVERY SINGLE DAY…who does?-we all have ‘those’ days. But I never dread it. A good friend told me when I was leaving Pocatello that just because we move doesn’t mean we have to lose our friends. Now she would just be able to say she has friends in Missouri. I hope I can always say that after we leave. I hope I can say that I have friends all over the United States because of the people we have met through Vet School. I don’t know where we will end up exactly; but we know it will be closer to home and for that I am excited and thankful. I know Heavenly Father has guided us through this Journey and he won’t stop at graduation. I have faith he will lead us to the right place-whether it’s ‘home’ or a few hours away.

Any good tips/advice from friends out there on how to stay happy and help the time go by while you’re home alone? Work will keep me busy, but it’s so easy for me to let myself get depressed. I am weird: I ENJOY time at home. I don’t like to go out every night and be gone all the time. Occasional outings are awesome and fun-but my true content is at home. I’m thinking: exercise, crafts like sewing, reading, studying, some tv (about what i watch now-it’s too easy to just fall into the tv and stay there hours on end), and try to make good habits like housekeeping and perfecting my homemade bread.

{Bad cell phone pic of beautiful flowers Josh gave me before leaving.}