North Dakota, like it or not.

Our next big change will be moving halfway around the world to the arctic tundra of North Dakota. Ok……….fine………so it’s only a few states away. But one of those states is Montana and that’s a BIG state! 753 miles to be exact. And it’s actually just on the outskirts of the arctic tundra. But still.

I feel the need to explain this move. To justify it to everyone. So many people have had such negative reaction to it (including myself, at first) and I’m tired of trying to explain it.

I really hated the idea of moving when the idea was suggested. I was completely and entirely against it, said I wasn’t going to do it, that I was keeping my butt planted in Idaho. I fought it, made Chuck feel like crap about it, threw a Wade-worthy fit. But to be completely honest, my temper tantrum was mostly out of fear. I’ve moved away from home before, I’ve moved states away from everything I knew before, but this time it’s really scaring the crap out of me. I was so content with making this place “home”. My friends and family are close, I love the town, I love my church, I’m comfortable here. Recently though, the feeling of “home” is gone. Even though I have my boys and everything else I know here, without Daddy, it’s just a chunk of dirt. It’s lonely with no feeling of purpose. Everything is in limbo, like life is going on around us and we’re standing still, just waiting. As Chuck puts it, it doesn’t feel like home because “I have no one to argue with”. While, ironically, I cant argue with his logic, it is so much more than that. It’s impossible to freeze a family in time, but that’s what we’ve had to do. A marriage just doesn’t function correctly when you’re so far away from each other. This is the main reason our separation scares me more than I can explain. I’ve experienced, first hand unfortunately, what extended amounts of time away from each other can do to a marriage. It ain’t pretty.

Not to mention how hard it is on the kids. Just last night, Wade was talking to Chuck on the phone and I heard him say “Maybe tomorrow you can come to my house and play!”. As painful as that was for me to hear, I know it broke Chuck’s heart. And it’s just going to get harder when his baby girl is here.

And I cant leave out my own selfishness. As much as my husband gets on my nerves and annoys me to no end sometimes, he IS my other half. And while we definitely need our time apart from each other to keep from killing the other, I still NEED him. Next to me. With me.

Doing the chores. Haha!

Since last August when Chuck left for Montana, I knew in my heart that the possibility of moving would come up. Idaho just does not have the economy to keep someone with a career in construction employed year round. We simply cannot afford to live on unemployment six months out of the year. I don’t know how anyone can. So when he got this job in North Dakota knowing that they work FOR SURE through the winter every year, it was hard to argue with him when he started talking about getting ready to move. Especially since they hired him with the intention of using his knowledge and talent, considering a lot of companies just hire “bodies”. And the money is really REALLY hard to argue with. It’s more than we could ever dream of making here in Idaho. Job security and money to support a big family is all we really hope for. Just so happens that it’s not exactly located where we wanted it to be.

For a long time now, I’ve been praying about this situation. You would assume that I’d be praying to stay in Idaho, that somehow we could find a way to stay here, that some awesome job came up that he couldn’t pass up. But I don‘t. I pray that God would put us where we’re supposed to be, whether that be Idaho, North Dakota, or Africa. Whatever, just let me know what we’re supposed to do! Now, I don’t get stingray’s in the sky type of messages or anything, but I am starting to feel that we are supposed to move. That my fears are just that. Fear. Maybe I cant see clearly enough through my fear to see what might just be a really good thing for our family.

And ND cant be all THAT bad. Sure, they have miserable nasty winters (that, coming from a Utahn/Idahoan…..), sure, it’s middle of nowhere. But at least Dickinson is actually on the ND map. My little town here in Idaho isn’t! Lol!

So I’m starting to push the fear aside and concentrate on the great possibilities. Getting a little excited and maybe even starting to embrace it. It’s still small town living, so my boys will have the benefit of growing up “country”. It’s still got great hunting. Maybe even better hunting! (Other than the elk. We’ll still have to come to ID or MT for that! ;)) Dickinson actually sounds like a neat place to live from the research I've done. Now I am actually starting looking forward to exploring a new place. Making new friends, seeing new places.

So my house is going to be listed soon. We’ve found one in ND that we are looking into buying. It’s looking like it’s really going to happen. It will be our BIGGEST new thing for 2011!!