I sold my beloved South Pacific Blue 2012 Toyota Sienna, and I cried.  The whole experience was way more emotionally difficult than I thought it would be!  This is how it went down:  I had listed the car on Craigslist, and mentioned in the ad that I wasn’t actually able to sell it until the Friday before we leave.  Several people called and wanted to see it, and I had several very low offers via email, but one family called me and made an appointment to see it.  Earlier that week, I brought the car to CarMax for an appraisal, and I had another person offer me $2k more than CarMax did without seeing it.

The day this family came, I was doing a million other things that I can’t even remember now, but I was a little stressed already.  Ryan went and showed the van to them, took them for a test drive, and then they came back to the house to talk price.  I wasn’t ready to talk price. Honestly, just the day before I was scheming ways to keep the van somehow and use it when we get back!  And then on top of that, they wanted to buy the car that day and have me get a rental car until we leave.  I was out of my comfort zone, under pressure to make a high-dollar decision very quickly, and faced with giving up a vehicle I worked really hard to find two weeks earlier than I had planned.  But here they were, with cash in hand!  (A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.) So we made a deal.  They paid $500 more than my other offer (which was $1500 less than my asking price), plus they paid for a rental van that we can take back to the airport the day we leave.  From a financial perspective, I wish they had just paid us that full value for the car and been willing to take it two weeks later!  That would have been perfect to me, both from a price perspective and timing perspective.  But the value of having the car actually sold, one less thing to do before we leave, and no need to borrow a friend’s car that last weekend was very high.

So Ryan went with them to do the sale and get the rental, and I literally sobbed as they drove away.  What is wrong with me?!  This is a car.  It’s just a mode of transportation, and not one I could take with me to Spain (not easily, at least).  But I couldn’t get a hold of myself, so I sat on the sofa and had a good cry.  The kids – all 5 of them – sat with me a cried too, even the baby, though she had no idea why she was crying.  Ryan says we all cried harder about seeing that car go than we did the day we gave away our dog (and he might be right).  Maybe it was because we had time to mentally prep for the dog, but this was very sudden.  Maybe it was because I was a little too attached to that van.  I loved the color.  Every day when I saw it, it brought me a little bit of joy, seeing it sparkle in the sun.  It was my favorite color blue – a slightly greenish blue, and it looked different in different lights.  I always wanted a car that color, and just last year – less than a year, actually, I finally bought one.  I loved the convenience features, I loved having the 8th seat so we could bring a mother-in-law or friend with us, I loved the interior color, too.  And I hated selling the van for $3500 less than we paid for it just last May.  So I cried!  And I learned some important things from the experience.

1. How I choose to respond to an emotionally difficult situation will guide how my kids respond, and instruct them on how to respond in the future.  I realized that this is a pretty big deal – the example I set for these sweet kiddos who are learning how to deal with life’s disappointments is really important. My kids cried partly because they loved the van, too, but mostly because they saw me crying.  What was I telling them by my tears?  What was I teaching them about the right way to respond when sad things happen in life?  What was I communicating about what is really important?  Thankfully, I have a wonderful friend who is always able to set me back on track when I fall.  I called her, and she told me exactly what I needed to hear, and what I knew I needed to do even before I called.

2. It’s important to praise God first, even through our tears.  Praise You in this storm.  She encouraged me to “do the Psalms thing” and sing or verbalize, out loud, thanksgiving to God for the car and the provision of it’s sale, and also the raw reality of my feelings about it.   Just like David did, and like you see many places in the Psalms.  So I got out my guitar, and we sang “Lord, I Need You” and “Hosanna” and “God of Wonders”. We gave thanks for the luxury of owning a car at all, and for the beauty of that particular car.  We gave thanks that we were able to sell it without a hassle in plenty of time before our move, and that we have a rental van (which is white, by the way) that will meet our needs until we leave.  And we told God that we were sad to see it go.  I told Him that was sad that I didn’t stick to my bottom-line price in the negotiations, and though it was only $500 less than what I was hoping to get, I was mad at myself for not being more firm on the principle of the thing.  We talked about what we would miss, and we talked about how, really, the van is just part of the “stuff” of life – totally replaceable, not something we should be ruled by, and not something to take for granted, but really a grand privilege and gift.

I have been thinking about whether or not that van had become an idol in my life.  I certainly didn’t worship it, and caring for it wasn’t any sort of obsession that kept me from focusing on what is really important, so I don’t really think it was.  I think I just really enjoyed it, and it’s hard to give up something you really like.  Also, selling the van was a big step showing that this move is really happening.  It took the reality factor up a notch for us all, and though we are excited about our new adventures, it is bittersweet.  We will miss so much from our life here! But we know that Christ will strengthen us as we go.

The day after we sold the van, the message at church was about finding joy and contentment in every circumstance.  Pastor Dave shared verses that were exactly what I needed to hear that day.  Things like Phillipians 4:4-7:

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I was tormented by regret the night we sold the van, worried I had made the wrong decision, and I needed some of that peace! Psalm 63 was the perfect reinforcement of my friend’s exhortation to “do the Psalms thing”, and James 1 was a good reminder that we can consider it pure joy to face trials of many kinds, even the kind that comes from the difficulty of letting things go.

And Pastor Tom said something that really made me evaluate what was going on in my heart.  He said if you are carrying around a cup of some sort of drink, and someone bumps you, you will be able to see what was in the cup by what spills out.  What spills out of your heart when you hit bumps in life?  Is it gratitude?  graciousness? stinginess? fear?  I want my cup to be filled with the things that honor God.

So now it it is a week later, and I am feeling much better about the decision to sell the van early.  I am so glad that it is done, because there is so much left to do, I still don’t quite know how I’m going to finish it all before we leave.  I guess that means I’ve learned a third lesson, too: difficult things get easier when time gives you new perspective.  I know I will need to remember that when we hit tough times in Spain.

Feb 4, 2016 (I forgot to publish it when I wrote it!)

On Monday I bought plane tickets.  I have knots in my stomach.  Or butterflies, or something.  I can’t believe it!  We are really doing this – we leave for Spain on Monday, March 28th, the day after Easter.

Why and How?

When I posted this news on Facebook, several people asked “what is sending you to Spain”?  And I’ve already written about why we want to go to Spain.  But some other people want to know, “how?” No, Ryan didn’t get a job in Spain.  But he works in IT, so his work can be done remotely.  He will be keeping his US job!

It was pretty cool timing, because right as we were finding out this was possible, our pastor was preaching on resurrected dreams, and talking about how sometimes God closes the door on things we want, but other times, the dream can be resurrected at a later date.  We have tried several different times over the past 5 years to get a job for Ryan in Europe.  First Belgium fell through.  Then Zurich.  And the funny thing was that neither of those were our first choice, anyway.  We always wanted it to be Spain.  So when Pastor Dave was preaching on Resurrected Dreams, we couldn’t help but recognize this opportunity as our own personal dream being given another chance, and give the glory to God.  We feel excited and humbled!  Why would God allow us to see this dream realized?  We had almost given up, and just settled into our comfortable lives.  We are sure He plans to teach us through this, and we will be looking for His hand at work in it, and sharing what we learn with you!

Where will you live?  Do you have a house there?

No, we don’t have a place lined up yet.  We are planning to get a temporary place in Almuñécar for a week or two while we make our final decisions about where to live.  We really liked Almuñécar and also La Cala del Moral on our scoping trip, but we didn’t get to visit a school in La Cala, so I hope we’ll get to do that before we decide.   Either way, we plan to settle on the Mediterranean coast east of Malaga.

How long will you be gone?

The plan is to stay for two full school years, so that’s about 2 1/2 years total.  We will be putting our kids in public school there (BIG change for us!), so the twins will finish 7th grade there, Ella will finish 4th, Peter will finish 2nd, and Cora gets to hang out with Mommy at home.  That said, there are so many unknowns for us!  If we find this adventure really isn’t our thing, we could come home after 1 year, or if we really love it, we might stay a little longer.  It is nice to have the flexibility, but we are committed to a minimum of one year to achieve our goals.

 

 I can’t believe it! Just 16 days after we applied, we found out our visas have been approved.  Ryan got an email back from the consulate that I did not see, so he planned a fun way to surprise me with the news. As you can see in the photo above, it involved mustaches, red flowers, and the closest thing he could find to a Spanish hat at party store (Mexican sombrero will have to do)!  When he got home from work, he called all of the kids to him and then had them come into the kitchen where I was making dinner, each singing, one word at a time “our visas were approved!”  It was a super fun and memorable way to find out!
So now… The adventure REALLY begins!!  We hope to travel in two months, and there is a lot to do before we go.

The visa application checklist is coming along!  Last week Ryan and I got fingerprinted and sent off our criminal background check requests.  This week, the whole family converged upon the doctor’s office for our physicals, and we have our medical certificates.  We also realized that the kids’ passports expire next November, so we decided it would be best to renew them before we apply so we don’t have an issue with them expiring shortly after we arrive in Spain.  So yesterday we brought the kids to the post office to apply for new passports, and we left an unplanned $660 poorer.  We decided to pay expedite fees so that we’ll have the passports in hand when the rest of our documents are (hopefully) ready in January.   This process is not cheap!

We’ve been working on selling things on Craigslist, and the kids are getting into the action, too.  They are motivated because we told them if they list and sell their own stuff, they can have the money to use in Spain.  My personal hope and dream is that we can sell enough non-essentials to fund plane tickets for our family.  Ryan sold the saltwater aquarium last Saturday, so that gets us a good chunk of the way there.  Getting richer and getting poorer… this is an adventure!

I started the decluttering process, and the easiest place to start was the book shelf. We have a set of large, semi-built-in bookcases in our family room that are stuffed with books. Kids books, classics, books on marriage and parenting, bible studies, fun paperback novels, old textbooks, and more. I invited my friend Anna over to help me make some of the decisions with a bit more objectivity. We pretty easily boxed up many of the little kids books, outdated technical manuals, and paperbacks that have been read but weren’t so fantastic that we would read them again. I paused on the pregnancy, baby, and childbirth books, but then was reminded that if I need info about something going on with one of the kids, I just use the internet, not these books. After this first culling, we moved 6 boxes of books to the garage – but that represented only about one third of all the books on the shelves. Still, it felt good to make that initial step (though the empty shelves look a little weird now). I put them in my trunk planning to drive them to McKay’s immediately, so the process is complete. But I couldn’t do it!

There were two issues holding me back: first, this was before we actually agreed that we were going to go. Even though I really want to declutter whether we move or not, there is a part of me that is glad for the excuse of moving as it makes the decluttering decisions much easier. I know we don’t want to ship boxes of books across the ocean unless we’re really going to use them!

The second problem is that I find myself thinking if you have the space to store things, why not have them handy in case you or someone you know needs them? I’m not sure if this is an American mindset, or if it’s just a widespread human condition to think there is some sort of security or happiness in our stuff, but I find myself fighting it. If I have all kinds of books on my shelves, does it really make a difference to my daily life? I do like the convenience of grabbing books (outside of our curriculum) that relate to what the kids and I are learning in our homeschool adventures, but how often does that really happen?  If I press myself for an answer, it is probably not more than every couple of months.  We could go to the library or search the internet instead.

I still have the books in my trunk, so clearly I need some help in this area. First, I read a bunch of articles about how to let go of your stuff. Then Ryan and I talked through the various issues, and I came out of the conversation ready to drop off the books in my trunk and also go back to remove most of the other books from the shelves as well. Here are some of the key points that were helpful to me:

1. Most of the books we want or need to read for school or entertainment can be borrowed from the library, or purchased for a very low price from the used book store. This is not true for many of our Christian novels and parenting books, so those may get stored before our move so that the kids can read them later, or we can lend them to friends.  The homeschool curriculum books are a little harder to borrow, but there are so many used curriculum sales, I plan to only keep the items that we will really be using for our core curriculum, or re-read as part of our history cycles.

2. More and more often lately, we are choosing audiobooks or ebooks. Probably even the books on our shelves are now available in those formats, so if we ever wanted to read (or hear) them again, we might invest as needed to get a digital version. That means that the only benefit of the paper version is the visual reminder on our shelves that might help us remember which books to locate in another format. This actually happened recently: As we were seeking counsel on whether or not to move, our pastor recommended reviewing Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God study. I knew right where it was on my shelf! We pulled it out, and read a little bit, but after several days hadn’t gotten very far because it is hard to find the time to sit down and read. Then I looked up the title on Audible, and viola! We decided to use a credit to buy the audiobook, and we were off! Ryan was able to listen on his commute, and I listened generally in the early morning while making coffee, or right before bed. It has been so helpful!

3. The idea of having a stocked library in our home is a romantic one, more than a practical one. I do prefer to read longer books on actual paper rather than on an electronic screen. I think the notion of curling up by a fire or in a hammock with a good book is a happy, romantic one from my childhood. I was an avid reader, and paper books are what I had, so that’s what fits into my ideal. But Ryan pointed out that our kids have different preferences, because this is a new generation (and he asked them about it in my presence to prove it). They would much prefer to read on a Kindle, where they can have a super light thing to carry that has multiple books on it at once (joke books interspersed with novels), touch a word they don’t know for a definition, keep track of what percentage they’ve read, and even get an estimate for how many more minutes it will take for them to finish the chapter.

So then the idea of owning paper books instead of just borrowing what we need in either format becomes a matter of nostalgia. When we come back from Spain, will I want shelves full of books because of some positive nostalgic feelings it gives me? Maybe. But would the cost of storing the books be worth it? I think the freedom of having less stuff to move, maintain, and organize wins out. If I decide later I want to replace some of the books, I’m sure I can get copies very inexpensively.

4. Reading articles on how to let go of your stuff really helped me assess the reality of my needs and desires.    These two articles, in particular, were helpful:

10 Ways to Let Go of Your Stuff  (“Tear down the museum, and one day almost never comes” hit me in particular.)

Seven Keys to Letting Go of Clutter (Key 5 about removing obstacles is excellent to ponder.)

It is going to be a very emotional process, evaluating everything we own for our true need for it, and the relative value of the real cost of storing it vs. replacing it later if needed!  I think this exercise with the books was an excellent start for me on this process.