Empty Inkwell

Change is good. Change is time consuming—big change, any­way. And change has rocked my world over the last five months. I’m still me, of course. But aside from the things that don’t really change—family, life­long friends, per­sonal val­ues, etc, a lot has changed. Cir­cum­stan­tially, lit­tle in my life is the same as it was the last time I wrote words to share with you all.

I’m cur­rently liv­ing in a small town in Wash­ing­ton State—about twenty-five min­utes from the Ore­gon border—the same town that my par­ents and two sis­ters live in. It’s a lit­tle coun­try, a lit­tle old mixed with a lit­tle new, and has tons of character.

I am work­ing full time for a prop­erty man­age­ment company—and yes, I miss my daugh­ter ter­ri­bly dur­ing the day.

Cora stays with my sis­ter while Matt and I are work­ing, and luck­ily, she loves it. She has loads of fun play­ing with her cousins, Han­nah and Stephen—so much that Matt and I occa­sion­ally have to tear her away from them at the end of the day.

Matt and I bought a house roughly five days after mov­ing our belong­ings to Wash­ing­ton, and have been liv­ing in it—our brand new, beau­ti­ful home—since the end of April. Our house is four lots down from my sister.

I’ve adjusted to the rain (to be hon­est, it hasn’t really both­ered me yet—at all—and I’m thank­ful for that), but… I am cur­rently enjoy­ing eighty-degree weather. Sum­mers are beau­ti­ful here. It feels like home.

I’m ten and a half weeks preg­nant. Matt, Cora and I are expect­ing a new addi­tion to our lit­tle fam­ily in the first week of Feb­ru­ary 2012. I can’t believe how much more quickly my preg­nancy is fly­ing by this time around!

With the help of an amaz­ing sup­port group and a Young Life area already in place in our county, Matt and I are in the begin­ning stages of start­ing a Young Life club at Bat­tle Ground High School. Years and years of thought and prayer and excite­ment about this very idea are finally mate­ri­al­iz­ing. God is so good, and I can­not wait to see what he has in store for the youth in our lit­tle town.

I am sell­ing Avon again. I took about a year off shortly after Cora was born, but have recently opened up my online store again, and am work­ing on a new cus­tomer base to get things rolling again. (For those of you who may be inter­ested… feel free to shop ‘til your heart is con­tent at www.youravon.com/jmarbrey).

And while my love for writ­ing and the arts is and always will be as strong as can be, I haven’t painted, scrap­booked, stamped, cro­cheted or crafted—anything—since I’ve lived in Wash­ing­ton. And to be hon­est, it’s been so long since I’ve opened a Word doc­u­ment on my com­puter that I actu­ally for­got where the icon was on my desk­top. Sad.

So yes, change. There’s been a lot of it. And in the com­ing months I can be almost cer­tain that more will roll my way. Change isn’t always easy, and many times can be bit­ter­sweet, but I am thank­ful that for the most part, I can still say that it’s good.

To end… In a whirl­wind of change, it’s nice to remem­ber that some things never do. I just looked at my last post in prepa­ra­tion to post this one, and iron­i­cally, I’m sit­ting here eat­ing a Lit­tle Deb­bie Oat­meal Cream Pie. Told you I love ‘em… always have, always will.