Today, we celebrate our one month anniversary in RDU, as many call it. We decided to rent a townhome in Morrisville until we feel confident the schools will work out for our children. Question: How do you fit furniture from a 2400 SF, two car garage single-family home into a 1700 SF, no garage townhome? Answer: When you figure out how to fit a gallon of milk into a quart jug, be sure to let us know. Until then, the answer is storage. At least, we didn’t have to unpack all our boxes.
We love North Carolina, but the move was a little more bumpy than expected. Our plan was to rent a furnished place until we saw the price tag. Yikes! We decided we could pay movers to pack and move our furniture again with the money we’ll save from one month’s rent! We moved into our unfurnished townhouse on August 8. On August 13, we learned our furniture was still in Seattle do to a snafu in scheduling. After several more delays and too many nights on air mattresses, our crates were finally delivered on August 28, just in time for the muggiest day since our arrival in town.
John is working hard to establish our business, Team Momentum, in the Raleigh Durham area. So here’s the honest truth – moving is tough. Finding a dentist, a good hair stylist and my way around the grocery store leaves me a little cranky at the end of the day. Have you moved lately? How did you smooth the transition? I’d love to hear!
~Joyce
Monday, September 8, 2008
Wallace Family Hits the Road, Parts 3-5
Finally. I'm posting the conclusion to our cross country trip (two months after the fact) for those who wanted to know. We'll get caught up soon.
Wallaces Do Whitewater?!
Call it a midlife crisis. I was looking for boat rides, nice scenic boat rides when it hit me. I’m not that old yet. I’m not ready to retire to Jungle Cruise status. Let’s go whitewater rafting. So in a moment of unbridled optimism, I made the reservation. The four of us would go rafting down the Colorado River through Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. Not the half-day trip. Nope. We want the full day adventure. Non-refundable . . . we know what that means.
As it turns out, this gamble paid off. We had the time of our lives. Samuel even swam in the 55 degree water. The scenery was breathtaking and the high water level meant we didn’t even have to paddle that hard. Samuel’s ready to make whitewater an annual tradition. We’ll see about that…
The Midwest
We headed for Denver where we celebrated the 4th of July with a day at Water World. “Didn’t you see the warning sign about whiplash?” John asked as I got off the Zoomerang with Hannah.
“What sign?” I answered trying to calm the muscle spasms seizing my neck. Who knew? The ride looked pretty harmless. I decided to watch televised fireworks from a horizontal position while John and the kids enjoyed the live version.
Next, we drove onto Kansas City where we experienced barbecue!! I do mean experienced. The aroma from the smoke drenched building spilled into the parking lot drawing us like ants to a slice of pie. During our tortuous wait for a table, we salivated as plates loaded with steaming piles of beef whisked past. I closed my eyes to enjoy the feast of smells while my stomach moaned, Oh, Seattle you were a desert wasteland when it came to barbecue but relief is two parties of four away!
Our waiter recommended burnt ends. The name and the description didn’t sound particularly appealing but when in Rome . . . What a taste sensation! Add the smoky hickory pit baked beans and my bliss was complete. John and I declared a new life statute. “Thou shalt not enter Kansas City unless thou feasteth on burnt ends.”
The kids enjoyed the day at Worlds of Fun amusement park and we loved the beautiful fountains. But for me, it was all about the beef.
Continuing eastward, we hit St. Louis where we toured the Gateway Arch and the St. Louis Zoo . I’ve never seen penguins so close. We capped off a wonderful day by visiting the Iron Barley. If you’re a fan of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”, you may have seen the Schnitzel & Spaetzle episode. No joke, the Schnitzel is to die for. We’re with Guy on this place. A big thumbs up!
Roots
From St. Louis, we headed for my old stomping grounds in Nashville. We toured the campus of my alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where my kids asked, “Why don’t you remember your way around Mom?” Something about twenty years and numerous new buildings left me a little befuddled. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the scenery and a trip to the Grand Ole Opry before heading to Atlanta.
It was the trip of a lifetime but good to finally unpack our van for a week.
Call it a midlife crisis. I was looking for boat rides, nice scenic boat rides when it hit me. I’m not that old yet. I’m not ready to retire to Jungle Cruise status. Let’s go whitewater rafting. So in a moment of unbridled optimism, I made the reservation. The four of us would go rafting down the Colorado River through Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. Not the half-day trip. Nope. We want the full day adventure. Non-refundable . . . we know what that means.As it turns out, this gamble paid off. We had the time of our lives. Samuel even swam in the 55 degree water. The scenery was breathtaking and the high water level meant we didn’t even have to paddle that hard. Samuel’s ready to make whitewater an annual tradition. We’ll see about that…
The Midwest
We headed for Denver where we celebrated the 4th of July with a day at Water World. “Didn’t you see the warning sign about whiplash?” John asked as I got off the Zoomerang with Hannah.
“What sign?” I answered trying to calm the muscle spasms seizing my neck. Who knew? The ride looked pretty harmless. I decided to watch televised fireworks from a horizontal position while John and the kids enjoyed the live version.
Next, we drove onto Kansas City where we experienced barbecue!! I do mean experienced. The aroma from the smoke drenched building spilled into the parking lot drawing us like ants to a slice of pie. During our tortuous wait for a table, we salivated as plates loaded with steaming piles of beef whisked past. I closed my eyes to enjoy the feast of smells while my stomach moaned, Oh, Seattle you were a desert wasteland when it came to barbecue but relief is two parties of four away!Our waiter recommended burnt ends. The name and the description didn’t sound particularly appealing but when in Rome . . . What a taste sensation! Add the smoky hickory pit baked beans and my bliss was complete. John and I declared a new life statute. “Thou shalt not enter Kansas City unless thou feasteth on burnt ends.”
The kids enjoyed the day at Worlds of Fun amusement park and we loved the beautiful fountains. But for me, it was all about the beef.
Continuing eastward, we hit St. Louis where we toured the Gateway Arch and the St. Louis Zoo . I’ve never seen penguins so close. We capped off a wonderful day by visiting the Iron Barley. If you’re a fan of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”, you may have seen the Schnitzel & Spaetzle episode. No joke, the Schnitzel is to die for. We’re with Guy on this place. A big thumbs up!
Roots
From St. Louis, we headed for my old stomping grounds in Nashville. We toured the campus of my alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where my kids asked, “Why don’t you remember your way around Mom?” Something about twenty years and numerous new buildings left me a little befuddled. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the scenery and a trip to the Grand Ole Opry before heading to Atlanta.It was the trip of a lifetime but good to finally unpack our van for a week.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Wallace Family Hits the Road, Part 2
Behold the Waffle Iron 
Our plan was to hit Grand Coulee Dam on Wednesday, but our late departure called for a schedule revision. We had non-refundable hotel reservations in West Yellowstone and motivated by our mutual cheapness, John and I decided to make the long haul eastward. We lost an hour to Mountain Time and several hours to rest stops and running last minute errands in Spokane, as it was the last major city for days. We collapsed into our hotel room around midnight; sure we’d lost our minds for driving that far.
The next day everyone’s disposition changed, however. For it was the first day of Carbon’s Golden Malted waffles. If you’ve not road-tripped in a while, you’re probably unaware that some sales genius hit every family style motel in the country with a killer dealer on a do-it-yourself commercial waffle maker. Now hotel proprietors can boast an expanded hot continental breakfast. Throw in some hard-boiled eggs and you’ve got yourself a full American breakfast. Samuel quickly became the resident waffle-making expert. Within days, he was teaching puzzled vacationers the secret to a perfect waffle.
Did I mention Yellowstone is absolutely beautiful? We toured geysers, mud pots and waterfalls. We saw bison, deer, bald eagles, a bear, even a baby moose and his mother. Enjoy the pictures below.
Our plan was to hit Grand Coulee Dam on Wednesday, but our late departure called for a schedule revision. We had non-refundable hotel reservations in West Yellowstone and motivated by our mutual cheapness, John and I decided to make the long haul eastward. We lost an hour to Mountain Time and several hours to rest stops and running last minute errands in Spokane, as it was the last major city for days. We collapsed into our hotel room around midnight; sure we’d lost our minds for driving that far.
The next day everyone’s disposition changed, however. For it was the first day of Carbon’s Golden Malted waffles. If you’ve not road-tripped in a while, you’re probably unaware that some sales genius hit every family style motel in the country with a killer dealer on a do-it-yourself commercial waffle maker. Now hotel proprietors can boast an expanded hot continental breakfast. Throw in some hard-boiled eggs and you’ve got yourself a full American breakfast. Samuel quickly became the resident waffle-making expert. Within days, he was teaching puzzled vacationers the secret to a perfect waffle.
Did I mention Yellowstone is absolutely beautiful? We toured geysers, mud pots and waterfalls. We saw bison, deer, bald eagles, a bear, even a baby moose and his mother. Enjoy the pictures below.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wallace Family Hits the Road
Note: As of July 15, we are spending time with family in Atlanta but here are some highlights of the last month.
Getting Out of Dodge
Could it be true? We closed on our house, no hitches. God is good.
OK, we did hit one bump – packing. We bought the sales pitch - hook, line and sinker. Don’t rent a moving van. Try the convenient portable storage container approach. Here’s how it works. Some guy drops five (Five! Surely we won’t need that many. . .) storage containers on your driveway. For the next four days, you pack all your earthly possessions into the five (How on earth did we think we could fit all our stuff into five boxes!?) plywood crates. Now there are a couple of rules to keep in mind. No container can hold more than 2,000 pounds. Question: How many boxes of books constitute a ton of books? Answer: Far fewer than will actually fit into the storage container. . .bummer, guess we can’t put the kitchen table in that empty spot after all.
When packing, it’s important to remember that a truck/forklift driver with no particular attachment to Grandma’s china will lift the crate onto a flatbed truck, drive it to a storage facility, tuck it away onto some storage shelf three stories in the air, forklift it back onto a flatbed truck and then drive it 3,000 miles to another storage facility and . . .you get the picture. Needless to say, packing to prevent load shift is critical. Of course, I became far less concerned about our grill knocking into the television about 1 AM on our final night of packing. Thankfully, John persevered and strapped, cushioned and padded the final crate to withstand any kamikaze truck driver (we hope).
The next morning I realized I had inadvertently packed Samuel’s retainer. Where? In the very first box that went into the perfectly strapped, cushioned and padded crate, the one with bicycle tires jimmied to wire shelving bungeed to the grill which shielded the vacuum cleaner. We decided to make an orthodontist appointment when we got to North Carolina.
While waiting for the moving truck, we discovered several items we forgot to pack causing John to scrounge for space in the only two crates not pushing the weight limit. It’s probably best I had to make an emergency visit to the dentist for a tooth that really needs a root canal (we did a temporary fix) so I can continue to live in blissful ignorance regarding our wonderful packing job.
We had to call charity to take away several items we couldn’t fit, make a run to FedEx to mail the stuff we need but missed until the final sweep and beg our neighbors to take the remaining items, including our overflowing garbage. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be a problem to vacate our home by 9 PM. We pulled out of our driveway at 8:50 (a full ten minutes to spare).
Exhausted from the previous evening (three hours of sleep on the floor), we did well to drive to Ellensburg (about 90 miles east) where we crashed at the first hotel off the freeway. What a way to start a vacation!
Getting Out of Dodge
Could it be true? We closed on our house, no hitches. God is good.
OK, we did hit one bump – packing. We bought the sales pitch - hook, line and sinker. Don’t rent a moving van. Try the convenient portable storage container approach. Here’s how it works. Some guy drops five (Five! Surely we won’t need that many. . .) storage containers on your driveway. For the next four days, you pack all your earthly possessions into the five (How on earth did we think we could fit all our stuff into five boxes!?) plywood crates. Now there are a couple of rules to keep in mind. No container can hold more than 2,000 pounds. Question: How many boxes of books constitute a ton of books? Answer: Far fewer than will actually fit into the storage container. . .bummer, guess we can’t put the kitchen table in that empty spot after all.
When packing, it’s important to remember that a truck/forklift driver with no particular attachment to Grandma’s china will lift the crate onto a flatbed truck, drive it to a storage facility, tuck it away onto some storage shelf three stories in the air, forklift it back onto a flatbed truck and then drive it 3,000 miles to another storage facility and . . .you get the picture. Needless to say, packing to prevent load shift is critical. Of course, I became far less concerned about our grill knocking into the television about 1 AM on our final night of packing. Thankfully, John persevered and strapped, cushioned and padded the final crate to withstand any kamikaze truck driver (we hope).
The next morning I realized I had inadvertently packed Samuel’s retainer. Where? In the very first box that went into the perfectly strapped, cushioned and padded crate, the one with bicycle tires jimmied to wire shelving bungeed to the grill which shielded the vacuum cleaner. We decided to make an orthodontist appointment when we got to North Carolina.
While waiting for the moving truck, we discovered several items we forgot to pack causing John to scrounge for space in the only two crates not pushing the weight limit. It’s probably best I had to make an emergency visit to the dentist for a tooth that really needs a root canal (we did a temporary fix) so I can continue to live in blissful ignorance regarding our wonderful packing job.
We had to call charity to take away several items we couldn’t fit, make a run to FedEx to mail the stuff we need but missed until the final sweep and beg our neighbors to take the remaining items, including our overflowing garbage. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be a problem to vacate our home by 9 PM. We pulled out of our driveway at 8:50 (a full ten minutes to spare).
Exhausted from the previous evening (three hours of sleep on the floor), we did well to drive to Ellensburg (about 90 miles east) where we crashed at the first hotel off the freeway. What a way to start a vacation!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
FATHERHOOD: Can Men Live Up to the Image?
“A man of steel and velvet,” author-poet Carl Sandburg used these words to describe Abraham Lincoln. The phrase became for many a metaphor for the ideal male persona, the perfect combination of strength and tenderness to which men must aspire. Stu Weber expounded the vision in his groundbreaking book, Tender Warrior (1993). Weber defined “four pillars of a man’s heart,” identifying leadership, protectiveness, mentorship, and friendship as the essential masculine qualities. The last decade produced a flood of books, some calling men to a selfless cause, others highlighting their inadequacies, and still others deploring the buffoonish male stereotypes portrayed increasingly in the media. While the literature has been helpful, it has tended to raise the standard and guys are feeling the pressure. Can men live up to the image?
Complicating the challenge facing men are the apparent shifting expectations of fathers in our society. “After years of trying to domesticate me, now they’re telling me I need to rediscover my ‘wild heart’,” said one father in frustration. Having bought the vision of sacrificing his lust for adventure for the sake of responsible fatherhood, he was now being warned that his sons might rebel against his mild-tempered example. He’s asking a fair question, “Does my eleven year old really long for the father who will jump in a canoe and brave the Snake River Canyon with him or is this just my excuse to be reckless?”
When it comes to parenting, some men feel like they’re giving all they can and fear it’s not enough. “My dad was never expected to be my playmate,” said one father. “If he was a good provider and a disciplinarian then it was enough.” Today’s father is expected to be provider, teacher, coach, and friend. Balancing these roles can be stressful. If a dad passes up career opportunities in order to attend his daughter’s gymnastics classes, he has to live with the fact that he’s giving up resources that could benefit the whole family. These are not easy choices.
Is there any relief to the stress fathers are feeling? Perhaps one solution lies in helping men to deal with the bitterness they have felt toward their own fathers. Now that some have experienced the pressures of fatherhood firsthand, perhaps they’ll be ready to forgive their own fathers for not doing it perfectly. After they’ve let their own dads off the hook, maybe they’ll be in a better position to set realistic expectations for themselves.
In the end, fatherhood is about being a role model. Despite mistakes and struggles to keep up, whether we live selfless or self-indulgent lives will be evident to our children.
What kind of life do your children see? Do you care more about “getting it right” than you do about modeling honesty and humility?
© 2004, John Wallace
Complicating the challenge facing men are the apparent shifting expectations of fathers in our society. “After years of trying to domesticate me, now they’re telling me I need to rediscover my ‘wild heart’,” said one father in frustration. Having bought the vision of sacrificing his lust for adventure for the sake of responsible fatherhood, he was now being warned that his sons might rebel against his mild-tempered example. He’s asking a fair question, “Does my eleven year old really long for the father who will jump in a canoe and brave the Snake River Canyon with him or is this just my excuse to be reckless?”
When it comes to parenting, some men feel like they’re giving all they can and fear it’s not enough. “My dad was never expected to be my playmate,” said one father. “If he was a good provider and a disciplinarian then it was enough.” Today’s father is expected to be provider, teacher, coach, and friend. Balancing these roles can be stressful. If a dad passes up career opportunities in order to attend his daughter’s gymnastics classes, he has to live with the fact that he’s giving up resources that could benefit the whole family. These are not easy choices.
Is there any relief to the stress fathers are feeling? Perhaps one solution lies in helping men to deal with the bitterness they have felt toward their own fathers. Now that some have experienced the pressures of fatherhood firsthand, perhaps they’ll be ready to forgive their own fathers for not doing it perfectly. After they’ve let their own dads off the hook, maybe they’ll be in a better position to set realistic expectations for themselves.
In the end, fatherhood is about being a role model. Despite mistakes and struggles to keep up, whether we live selfless or self-indulgent lives will be evident to our children.
What kind of life do your children see? Do you care more about “getting it right” than you do about modeling honesty and humility?
© 2004, John Wallace
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Selling Our House - The Rest of the Story
Apparently my abulia has left me a little behind in my posts. So here’s the rest of the story.
At the end of April, we declared our house “good enough to sell,” despite numerous noble intentions left unaddressed. We listed our home and prepared for a long and grueling process given the current market conditions.
To our shock, we received a full price offer within three days (didn’t mention that detail in my last post-I was still waiting for the catch). All along, we’ve prayed for clarity, begging God to reveal Himself in a way that would cause us to declare, “Only God could do that.”
As I look at the sold sign in front of our home, I can’t help but conclude, “God did that!”
We are scheduled to close on June 25, if all goes as planned. The only contingency left is financing, which is not a slam-dunk in today’s market, so we would covet your prayers this week.
God’s mercy never ceases to amaze us. As it stands now, our family will relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina this summer. More details to come. We’re both excited and overwhelmed at the moment (deer in the headlights). If anyone has any Raleigh-Durham insights, do share!
At the end of April, we declared our house “good enough to sell,” despite numerous noble intentions left unaddressed. We listed our home and prepared for a long and grueling process given the current market conditions.
To our shock, we received a full price offer within three days (didn’t mention that detail in my last post-I was still waiting for the catch). All along, we’ve prayed for clarity, begging God to reveal Himself in a way that would cause us to declare, “Only God could do that.”
As I look at the sold sign in front of our home, I can’t help but conclude, “God did that!”
We are scheduled to close on June 25, if all goes as planned. The only contingency left is financing, which is not a slam-dunk in today’s market, so we would covet your prayers this week.
God’s mercy never ceases to amaze us. As it stands now, our family will relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina this summer. More details to come. We’re both excited and overwhelmed at the moment (deer in the headlights). If anyone has any Raleigh-Durham insights, do share!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Tyranny of Fear
In 1967, Charles Hummel wrote his classic, The Tyranny of the Urgent. He describes our tendency to forgo the important matters in life in favor of those that scream the loudest at the moment.
Recently I’ve experienced another type of tyranny – fear. One of this week’s “Word of the Day” entries from www.dictionary.com was abulia. Abulia is the loss or impairment of the ability to act or to make decisions. This week’s fear has given me a good dose of abulia.
You see five days ago, we placed our house on the market, the same housing market that's in its worse slump in US history. The same market that has left houses sitting in my once “hot” neighborhood, unwanted, even after numerous price drops.
“Why now?” you might ask. Good question. Doesn’t seem like the sane thing to do. All I can say is that we felt is was the right thing to do. After much prayer, many tears and sleepless nights, we concluded that now is the best time for our family to move. I don’t know if we heard God correctly. Hence, my fear . . . . But I do know that God directs a moving ship (James 1:6). So we’ve taken a step. We’ll see what happens with our home sale.
Back to fear. In the five days our house has been subjected to public scrutiny, I’ve battled mind-numbing terror. What if I forgot to close the closet doors? What if I left the toothpaste out? What if they hate the color scheme? What if our house has something wrong with it? What if we didn’t fill out our seller disclosure statement correctly? What if it doesn’t sell? The ‘what if’ questions knot up my stomach and cloud my mind, leaving me with abulia.
Perhaps it’s a test of character, a test of faith, or an opportunity for God to show mercy on us. I don’t know. I do know that my fear is not from him (2 Timothy 1:7), so I must battle it in prayer. We’ll see what happens . . .
~Joyce
Recently I’ve experienced another type of tyranny – fear. One of this week’s “Word of the Day” entries from www.dictionary.com was abulia. Abulia is the loss or impairment of the ability to act or to make decisions. This week’s fear has given me a good dose of abulia.
You see five days ago, we placed our house on the market, the same housing market that's in its worse slump in US history. The same market that has left houses sitting in my once “hot” neighborhood, unwanted, even after numerous price drops.
“Why now?” you might ask. Good question. Doesn’t seem like the sane thing to do. All I can say is that we felt is was the right thing to do. After much prayer, many tears and sleepless nights, we concluded that now is the best time for our family to move. I don’t know if we heard God correctly. Hence, my fear . . . . But I do know that God directs a moving ship (James 1:6). So we’ve taken a step. We’ll see what happens with our home sale.
Back to fear. In the five days our house has been subjected to public scrutiny, I’ve battled mind-numbing terror. What if I forgot to close the closet doors? What if I left the toothpaste out? What if they hate the color scheme? What if our house has something wrong with it? What if we didn’t fill out our seller disclosure statement correctly? What if it doesn’t sell? The ‘what if’ questions knot up my stomach and cloud my mind, leaving me with abulia.
Perhaps it’s a test of character, a test of faith, or an opportunity for God to show mercy on us. I don’t know. I do know that my fear is not from him (2 Timothy 1:7), so I must battle it in prayer. We’ll see what happens . . .
~Joyce
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