:: the end of an era ::

so this may be news to some of you, but probably not many- i am leaving payless and will be home with isabelle and we are moving to salina... holy smokes, those are some big life changes at one time.  this has actually been going on for awhile; jacob has been driving so much from salina to lawrence {approx. 2 hours one way}, staying in salina overnight so he doesn't see isabelle and i, which in turns makes me a bit crazy with doing everything at home... i also want to be with iz more, i just miss her {i thought it was supposed to get easier, not for me!} - SO, we are burnt out and over it!  i can't believe we have been doing it for this long, especially jacob, i could never do that match driving {and if you've done that drive, you know how fun it is!}.  

i'll try to make this as short as possible... we started talking about it almost a year ago and then a house came for sale in salina that was basically too good to pass up... jacob called me at work, sent me some pictures of the house and put an offer on it that day without me seeing it in person {i know, crazy right?}, but i trusted him to make the call.  so we bought a house in salina and then had to get our house on the market fast.. it was on the market for about 2 months with a realtor, took it off and put our own sign in the yard and sold it within about a week {with the help of st. joseph buried in the front yard, you should try it if you need to sell - close to the street, upside down, facing the house}.  we were simultaneously working on our salina house {pulling up all the carpet and re-finishing the wood floors, tearing down all the wall paper/painting everything and gutting/redoing the bathrooms - before + after pictures to come} and closed on our house in lawrence at the end of december, but our buyers let us stay thru march {thank you}.  i have to say, the whole thing has not been easy for me at all, i love our house {yes, we just renovated it and i didn't want to sign the papers}, i love lawrence and don't want to leave, but what we have been doing is crazy and i want to be with isabelle more, so in the end, this is what we have to do for our family right now and family is most important.

i am finally able to post about this because they announced it at work on thursday that i was leaving after 5 years.  i have had so many mixed emotions about everything and that just made the tears flow.  my manager and director were the only ones that knew {i told them about everything after we bought the salina house and before my july china trip} and we had to keep it that way until i was actually leaving, so obviously couldn't post about it {which was one of the hardest things because we have gone through a lot with the whole thing in the past months}.  i have worked since i was 15, so this is going to be a big change for me but i'm excited to see where the road takes me.  i hope to: cook + bake, sew, create + make things, take pictures, maybe have an etsy account, blog... so i will keep you updated during our new adventure!

just some light at the end... this precious girl - eating/smashing her pb+j into her face.

i told her she has no idea, it's going to be her + i and we are going to be best friends - my side kick!

i just keep telling myself -

it's not about where you are, it's about the people you are with. 

that's the truth.