The Unknown

As y'all know, I am in desperate need of a bigger place to live. I would just up and move, BUT there are a lot of factors to consider. My office is moving to First and Alluvial in April and right now it only takes me 5 minutes to get to work, but when they move it will take me closer to 20 minutes. This makes me think that I should move closer to my new office, somewhere in the middle between there and the WinCo where Art works. BUT Art is applying for PIC and might get transferred to the new Kings Canyon store or even the Fresno Store. THEN there is the factor that I am going to be attempting to switch to part-time at my office and I am not sure if they will go for that or if I will be looking for a new job entirely. Also, one of my bosses is just beginning a rather big project that will last about a month or so and if I even suggest going part-time in the midst of this project (and in the midst of the office moving) the answer will surely be NO. But even if I wait to bring it up, there is still a chance they will say no. So then I wouldn't know WHERE I was going to be working, and it wouldn't benefit me at all to have moved closer to First and Alluvial unless by some off chance, I ended up getting another job in that area. Additionally, there was also the idea that we might be able to buy a house which opens a whole other can of unknowns including waiting on Art's W-2 to find out if we are even going to have any tax money to utilize. I'm starting to think I don't even want to go that route because I don't think I could handle that kind of decision right now.

I feel like I am stuck in a big, fat, limbo- wherein I must tread very carefully and wait for things to play out one way or another- waiting for answers to reveal themselves so I can MOVE, and work PART-TIME, and live happily ever after. It is frustrating to be powerless and I really don't want to keep working full-time through April, although it seems it might turn out that way.

For some reason, my mom and I have this random special ability to know certain things before they happen. I'm not sure that I would go so far as to use the word "psychic" but we have had several instances in our lives where we knew precisely what was going to happen, and then it did- even with no reason to suspect that course of action. My mom receives this knowledge of things to come in dreams and I receive knowledge during the day. In my mom's case, when she was pregnant with each of us, she had a dream where she gave birth and saw whether it was a boy or a girl and she was right in every instance. More recently, in October 2005, Art and I took a trip to Six Flags with my brother Kyle and step-brother Caed in our 30 day old 2006 Hyundai Tiburon GT. The night before we left my mom had a dream that we got in a terrible car accident and died. She awoke immediately and prayed for our safety and though she didn't tell us about her dream, she told us to be especially careful. The next night on our drive home, Art was driving and we were all asleep in the car. He also fell asleep and veered into another car. We hit the car once, then spun around and smacked into them again, ending up on opposite sides of the road in entirely smashed cars. After I got everyone out of the car, the first thing I said is to find me my phone because I need to call my mom. When my brother handed me my phone, it was already ringing. My mom was calling because she had sat straight up out of a deep sleep and knew something was wrong. Thankfully there were not worse injuries than bruising, as the emergency crew said by the looks of the cars they thought for sure there would have been deaths.

In my case, the knowledge that has come to me has been much less critical or life altering. The knowledge comes to me at random while I am awake, usually very shortly before the event occurs. The first time I remember it happening was when I was in 6th grade or so. My mom never picked us up from school- we always took the bus, but one day I knew she would be there to pick us up, and that she was going to take us to her friend Cyndi's house. I had no reason so suspect this, but that is exactly what happened. It was the day my dad beat up my mom and she moved us out that day to Cyndi's house. When I was 15, I was casually dating a member from Oakhurst. To avoid accruing long distance phone bills, we often chatted online. One day, I signed on and saw he was online and I instantly knew that he was going to tell me that he kissed another girl and wanted to be with her. Just as I knew, that is exactly what he typed. I was shocked! A couple years later, I was at home cleaning when all of the sudden I knew that my mom was going to come home, crying, and tell me that she and her boyfriend of several years had broken up. Sure enough, a couple hours later it happened exactly as I knew it would. About a year ago, I was getting ready for work one morning and knew that the paralegal at work was going to tell us she got engaged. Sure enough! Most recently, my dad's mom was dying of ovarian cancer in February 2008 and my family went to the hospital to be with her when we found out she wouldn't make it through the night. We stayed until after 10 pm and later that night, I knew that she was going to pass away at midnight. I received a phone call from my dad at 12:15 telling me she had died 15 minutes ago.

Not to be ungrateful for these experiences, but what doesn't make sense to me is why God allows me to know these things before they happen when a) it really doesn't do me any good to know them because of the short notice, and b) I can't do anything about it anyway. My mom thinks maybe God is preparing me to pay attention to this knowledge so that when He does have something important for me, I will know. Sometimes I wish I could conjure up my "powers" and take a look into my future so that I can find the answers I'm looking for, but I guess the point of life is to work through the unknown to prove ourselves and knowing every little thing would just be cheating. :)

Oh, by the way, I took Kari and Kathy's advice to plan out meals until each pay day and so far I have been LOVING it. It has eliminated "the unknown" that used to be involved in my dinners every day. It is so much less stressful knowing what I'm having every day and not having to wonder whether or not I have ingredients for it. No more multiple trips to the grocery store! No more fast food and frozen lasagna! lol

On another note, my life is a constant testimony to the power of prayer. Before I went back to work, I prayed and prayed that Keira would start going to bed earlier instead of keeping me up 'til the wee hours of the morning. Sure enough, the day I started back to work, she was out by 11:30, the next day, 11:00, the next day 10:30, the next day 10:00, and now she is down by a quarter to 10:00 every night and doesn't wake up until it's time. I am SO thankful that God loves me and cares about even the little things in my life. Keira had been sleeping in her bassinet by my bed, but she got too big for it so I decided to give her crib a try. I like to keep her in arm's reach because she will wake up every time her binky falls out of her mouth and it is easier to reach over and pop it back in rather than walking across the room to do it. I was kind of nervous about how many times I would be getting up to tend to her pacifier, but she went to sleep without it and only woke up once looking for it. I was so proud of her sleeping in her crib like a "big girl", I just had to take pictures of her in the morning. She is SO CUTE in the morning. She always wakes up happy and smiling (I wish I was like that!), but this time she had new surroundings to investigate. She LOVED looking at the ladybug pattern on the bumper and playing with the mobile. I better be careful that she doesn't think the crib equals play time.