Things are not what they seem

It's been a little over two weeks since I have written anything. But, it's hard to write when you feel like you have nothing to say. However, today I am going to do that anyway.

I went to the laiki market and I bought cherries. They were beautiful and perfectly red. I couldn't wait to eat them. I got them out the next day, washed them and popped one in my mouth. You can imagine my surprise and disdain when it was sour!!!!!!!! It was awful. I would never have known by looking at it. We are like that at times. At all outward appearances we look and act fine. But, inside, things are sour or not what they should be. At times, especially in the past few weeks I've been like this. You ask me how I am and I say "fine." Not great, just fine. I realized after a while, that I was depressed. Not like seriously depressed, I don't know, can you be a little depressed?
We have been in transition for months. We've not really had time to adjust to one transition before the next came along. We found out in February that we were moving to Greece. We put the house on the market in March, within two weeks it was sold. We hadn't even adjusted to the reality of a move before I was having to get the house ready for prospective buyers. Then, Matt came home from Baghdad in April. Before we even adjusted to him being home, we had moved into his parents house since ours had sold and the movers were coming to pack up all our stuff.

During the last 6 weeks in the states we were finishing up the school year, finishing up Elijah soccer season, finishing up Bible Quizzing, with a trip to Atlanta for Regionals, finishing up Kayla's violin lessons, with the recital just a week before we left.

Then we get here and we are adjusting to a new culture, new friends, a new apartment,  finding a new church, and still trying to adjust to Matt being back and the kids having two authority figures, not just me and not Matt's parents as well. I was also adjusting to not having a car, having to rely on taxis to get me where to go, figuring out where to do food shopping, and needing to start some kind of plans for school so I could order my curriculum.

Sometimes, things aren't what they seem and you never know what's truly going on inside someone. I want my insides to be just as fine as my appearance (actually better!), but sometimes it's hard.

In the last two weeks, I've been sick, twice, a cold and these past few days struggling with dizziness. We have gotten our sea shipment, which was good, but we have been living in chaos every since. We have an over abundance of furniture, which is a good problem to have, but it's made it hard to get everything organized like we would like. And, Elijah does not thrive in chaos, in all actuality it makes him very difficult to live with. He is easily overwhelmed and there has been many, many fits that he simply can't help (and some he could!), but thankfully we understand his issues. I've also gotten another year older (funny how one day you can get a whole year older!!), and that birthday was nothing to write home about. I was simply glad when it was over. My feelings on it had nothing to do with getting older, I don't mind that, just the events on the day were not great.

We are happy to have our things, and we are happy to be getting settled, but we are still adjusting. It seems like things this time have taken so much longer and affected us so much more. I feel like we need a vacation. The sad thing is, the summer is almost over, I need to be planning for school, yet I don't feel like we've done much fun stuff this summer and I am no where ready for school. I imagine the kids are the same, it will just be another adjustment. Matt has also had a hard time adjusting to work. I think a vacation would do us a world of good, but have no idea when we will get one.

So, in the next week the Embassy housing people should come and pick up our extra furniture and we will finally be able to have all the apartment in order.

 

 

 

 

 Below: Gift from my younger sister :)