an update long overdue. 10.25.19

what's going on with us?
welp. how much time do you have....?

i haven't even updated since we moved to north carolina!

after a year of working on fornite for epic in utah, bradley was reassigned to a different epic project which required him to relocate to HQ in raleigh. so we packed up and shipped out to north carolina in june. even though there were whisperings of other opportunities out west coming into the works soon, we felt strongly that raleigh was the right destination for us.
we had a fun road trip down, followed by a whirlwind week of unpacking, followed by the best family reunion EVER with my family in charleston, followed by starting up school immediately, due to year round school! bea has the best first grade teacher in the history of the universe and we love her school. leaving miss jen behind for oliver was one of the saddest farewells from utah we had, but we found a great preschool for him as well. it's not miss jen, but it's a close second.

i love it here. i have everything i could ever want. we ended up snagging our dreamy little house. i live among tall, beautiful, thick, deciduous trees, we are in a supportive ward with fast friends, bea has a perfect school, ollie loves his preschool, bea is in a great dance program, our neighborhood is an amazing community (with a great pool ;) ), it seems like every day there is a new lake to go hiking by, the weather is amazing and it doesn't get too cold, but we have enough chill to change the leaves, everything here is affordable, we're close to the beach. and to top it all off, within a month of moving here, brad got an ENORMOUS  raise. i have it all.
except one thing.
a happy husband.
it's no secret that epic had become more and more dysfunctional the more popular their games became, and it reflected in the workload and harmful work culture. they began to develop a terrible reputation, and with good reason. soon, crunch went from once a month to every single day. hours were extended to late hours of the night. more work was being demanded with no new man-power to back it up. everyone was (and still is) exhausted, cranky, and overwhelmed.
what we thought would be a good change with getting closer to HQ ended up being a disaster. brad was more unhappy than he's ever been at any workplace before. he came home wanting to quit every. single. day.
meanwhile, 2 companies (one in the bay area, one in seattle) had been asking him to come work for them.
it infuriated me. at first i wouldn't even entertain the idea.
we JUST got here! i had everything i wanted! we just got a huge raise! isn't that enough to keep us happy?! surely he could hold out a LITTLE longer to see if it gets better?
he did, and it didn't. it got worse and worse every day. the little time brad did get with me and the kids after his late hours he spent exhausted and irritable. he worked all weekend long. he woke up at 6 am to manage things at work and was at work until late into the night. he would come home and then work at home. and with no reward. no positivity at the office, low morale no matter how much was getting done, all while feeling like nothing was getting done at all.
i finally started warming up to other ideas and entertaining offers elsewhere. i couldn't live like this anymore. even though we had everything we thought we wanted, no one was happy.

i was so frustrated and wondered if this whole thing had been one big stupid mistake. i felt foolish. i  couldn't figure out what i was doing here. i felt so so so strongly that we should come here, but now it looked like there was no way we could stay and keep our family functional. i thought to myself "why in the world would god give me this amazing setup and then almost instantly snatch it away???" it felt cruel. i felt stuck. but then i had an epiphany one day, and it changed everything. i felt stupid for not realizing it earlier.
you can have a perfect life on paper, but if your family members are miserable, everything is miserable, no matter how perfect your life may seem. but i still wondered, why did i get such a strong prompting to come here? how could that possibly have been right?
i shared my struggles with my sisters and shannon sent me a story from the new era magazine (linked here). it is basically a story about a father and a son who are heading home from a fishing trip at dusk. they come to a fork in the road they didn't remember, even thought they thought they knew the way home. they said a prayer really quick to find out which way to go. they both felt a strong prompting: "go to the left". so they went to the left. it was a dead end. they turned around and took the other path, leading them back to the familiar road home.
they asked each other, "why were we both prompted to go to the left, even though it was the wrong way?"
the answer became clear. they had to be absolutely sure that they were going the right way, before it got too dark, and they got lost completely. it took finding the dead end path first to be certain the other way was the right way.
what a perfect lesson! it illustrated EXACTLY how i was feeling!
brad and i both agreed, had we entertained the other opportunities first instead of giving epic HQ a fair shake, we would always have wondered if we should have just stayed with epic. we would get to the expensive west coast wondering if we would have just been happier back in the easy, affordable south.
spoiler alert: we aren't.

SO. it is without further ado that i announce our next and imminent move to seattle, WA!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhh what even is this life?! brad got a very attractive and enthusiastic offer to work at wizards of the coast in seattle this week and put in his notice at epic on tuesday. if you are unfamiliar with that company, buckle up for the nerdiness because they are the fellas that brought you Magic cards annnnnnd dungeons and dragons! (among other things lol). it's not fortnite but for that we are eternally grateful. we have learned that fortnite is not a nice place to be. (for more info on that i highly recommend checking out Hasan Minaj's netflix patriot act episode about the video game industry. it is insanely accurate and eye opening).

is it going to be hard to leave this all behind? absolutely. am i worried about moving our family and disrupting the kids? obviously of course. but honestly, as brad's interview process moved further and further and epic for him got worse and worse, the idea of leaving got more and more bearable each day. at this point i can honestly say i am excited to start over somewhere new and get bradley back to good health. he has been put through the wringer. we have been pumping positivity about this situation to the kids for a month now and i think even they are getting amped for it.

we're adding another state to our list, and i can't lie, i am EXCITED.

on friendship

i've had some thoughts on friendship lately that i feel like i've needed to share.
lately, i feel like i don't really know enough about my friends' lives. i know some really, really great people, and i love them all dearly, whether i just talked to them yesterday, or have only been able to "like" their facebook and instagram photos on the daily. a lot of the time these days, i feel like i haven't been great at keeping on top of my friendships. i feel like the older we get, the farther apart we live, and the more that's happening in our lives, the more we realize that friendships require maintenance. i'm realizing as i get older how important it is to foster friendships. often, good friendships are what get me through the day, and i feel like i'm not on top of it like i should be.

i've thought about why and how i've gotten to this point and i think i know why, but i'm not sure how great of an excuse it is. since bea was born, i have had a lot of struggles. i had some really crippling PPD after her, and just as i was coming out of it, we were inspired to bring oliver into our family and it started all over again. for the past 4 years, as hard as it's been, i've really had to "just do me" for a while to just get by in life. i had a hard enough time taking care of myself and my family, it seemed just too overwhelming to try and manage everything else. i wanted to be a part of my friends' lives and put in the work to maintain my friendships, but i couldn't get there. i couldn't make it. i couldn't handle long phone calls since i was constantly on the brink of tears, i didn't have the energy for sending out christmas cards and birth announcements, and responding to the ones i received. and now that i'm finally coming out the funk after oliver, i'm realizing how much i've missed of my friends' lives. and now i feel like i've been out of it for so many years, it's hard to play "catch-up", i feel like people may feel that it's too little, too late.

i guess i just want the people i love (which is so, so many of you) to know how much i love you, even though i've been a crappy friend for a long time. i'm ready to work on it now. i don't know if i fully know where to start, and maybe that's why i'm writing this out, but i'm ready to finally be a good friend again now. i won't screen your calls, and i'll try my hardest to get that christmas card out! even if it ends up happening in march. i've been doing the best i can to manage my life and now i feel like i can manage my friendships too. i love you! don't be a stranger!<3 p="">

2 broken funny bones is not very funny.

you guys. i'd be lying if i told you my life was smooth sailing right now.

i'm trying really hard not to be a downer but life has been really tough this summer.

in the middle of spring we were blessed to buy a home that we really love, and love more each day (even though it realllllly needs to be painted), in a location that makes me say "I LOVE WHERE I LIVE!" at least once a day.

then, the day after we moved in, brad broke his arm. it was really tough for all of us. it threw the kids off, pained brad quite a bit, and heaped a ton more responsibility on me. it really stressed us all out. brad couldn't hold the baby for six weeks, he had trouble typing at work and was frustrated a lot from having to do things slowly and not being able to help much around the house. there was just this dark cloud hanging over us from all the looming stress. sometimes we were able to forget about it but we were just exhausted and spent. luckily the break was mild, and after six weeks he was back to normal, starting physical therapy, and finally able to help out around the house more. it was great. we were finally going to get our summer back!

enter break two. two weeks later he took a bad tumble down the stairs and shattered the same arm into 3 pieces. it was bad. really bad. for 2 weeks i felt like i was in a bad dream, just waiting to wake up. luckily the angles at which it broke were in a promising direction which avoided surgery, so they were able to set it and put it into a brace and sling. this time, his pain was immense, his arm and hand swelled up to twice their normal size, he was constantly on pain killers, could hardly type at all, can still hardly stay awake even after three weeks (like it's to a point where it's almost dangerous for him to drive, because he'll fall asleep), and needs some help getting dressed, tying shoes, carrying things, etc. for the first two weeks i had to completely dress and undress him and clean his brace, and dry it after he showered with a blowdryer. it is all of the complications of before, only amplified exponentially. oh, and i am constantly running after 2 very active children, who have become very needy and cranky from all of the shift in routine and normality this summer.

it's just a lot. he has to be in the sling for 6 weeks and be in the brace for 12 weeks. he'll be busted up until november. and then he'll have MAJOR physical therapy to do from having an immobilized arm for 20 weeks. we're not even sure he'll get full mobility back.
also looming is the possibility of a deeper issue with his bones. it is very unusual that a healthy 30 year old man would get a break this bad from a simply tumble down the stairs. normal for an elderly woman, but very strange for a guy like brad. he is getting a bone density scan in a couple weeks to try and find the root of the problem. 2 breaks in 8 weeks in an otherwise healthy person is very odd.

you guys, i am exhausted. everything is twice as hard and twice more work, and we're not even halfway done. brad can surprisingly help me out with unloading and loading the dishwasher one handed, for which i am eternally grateful, and he can keep an eye on bea if she is watching a movie or playing legos or something, but that is about where it stops. i didn't even realize all the chores he used to do for me until the garbage kept filling up ALL THE TIME (seriously we take it out like almost twice a day!) and all the clean laundry started piling up (he is the main clothes-folder at our house). i've had to take oliver's early morning feedings and changings since the first arm-break, which is tough since the PPD medicine i take at bedtime is very sedating and keeps me asleep for a long time in the morning. brad used to do the morning shift with the kids and now i need to do it. i can't leave him home alone with the kids because he can't lift oliver, so i have to take them everywhere i go. also, i do bedtime now with half the help. he can supervise bea, but only if she is cooperative. if she decides she doesn't want to get dressed herself and has a tantrum (and there are so. so. many of those), i have to step in and do it. oliver is out of the question for him since i need to change a diaper and put his jammies on.

we've had to put off home improvement and decorating projects we planned on doing once we moved in; we can't set up our new garage door openers because i can't reach the top of the opening mechanism. we had to call for help to change our smoke detectors because i can't reach them. we can't hang our art, because i can't do it by myself. we can't configure a lot of our media because i don't know how and he can't reach around to do it. there's so many little things that either have been put on the hold or just have become a huge production because neither of us can do them.

also, i just got called to teach the 5 year olds in church. brad can't take the baby so i have to take him while i teach. he is always either screaming in my arms to get down, or running out the classroom door, which i have to keep open because my partner NEVER COMES (even though she is at church). this is after i've already dealt with a sacrament meeting where my children are so unruly and misbehaved that i just want to cry, pack up, and leave, and then holding a tired, hungry,  fussy, wiggly oliver all through sharing time. the class-teaching is just the cherry on top. we still don't know many people in our ward so i don't know anyone i could ask to hold him for me during primary yet.

oh yeah and we had to cancel our disney trip that bea was looking forward to SO MUCH. we were supposed to be leaving tomorrow. she will ask every so often, "hey mom when are we going to disneyland?" and it makes me want to cry.

brad also had to sit out his company trip to seven peaks tonight (where they rent out the whole place for the night for just us).

bea also just got pink eye today. so there's that. just another cherry on top.

our summer is just slipping away from us. it's the summer of the broken arms.

i'm sure from the outside, it doesn't sound like that much, and i know single moms have it so much worse, and i shouldn't be negative about it, and i try so hard not to be. i know it could be worse. he could have broken his back or neck or legs, we could have had bad insurance that made us pay for all of it (we have paid nothing for any of this, nor the physical therapy), he could have broken his hand or wrist and not have been able to work at all, he could have died (...? from a fall down the stairs..? i dunno i guess stranger things have happened), i could live far from my family and not have their help (and holy cow they have helped); there are really a lot of ways this could be worse. but the situation is what it is, and it is really unpleasant. and at the end of the day when i am so exhausted and stressed from just our day to day life with all these trials, i am frankly too tired to count my blessings.

i've been wanting to write about this for a while but i'm not sure why. i don't feel like i really have anything positive to offer about it yet.

i'm still trying to work out what i'm supposed to learning from all of this. i'm not typically an "everything happens for a reason" person, but i do believe there is something important to be learned from every situation. i'm just not sure i'm finding it here yet. maybe it really is a situation for me to learn to be more positive. i'm so overwhelmed with everything right now i'm finding it so hard to stay positive. i have been breaking down into tears more often than i care to admit. some days i just want to pack everyone up and move to my mom's for the next 12 weeks. brad and i are both run ragged, and often cranky; our kids are at ages where bea is always pushing our limits (or pushing her brother) and oliver is so busy, and always on the brink of getting himself killed. staying positive requires energy that i'm just not sure i have. i am surviving on diet coke and prayers.

maybe i feel like sharing this because i really am open to suggestions. maybe this is supposed to teach me to humble myself and ask for help; something i am not very comfortable doing. so really, what would you do in this type of situation?? more often than not i just feel like shutting down, curling into fetal position, and just quitting. how would you try to stay more positive? how would you keep your head above water amidst all the chaos? how would you try to stay patient with your kids, yourself, and your husband? how would you keep from being angry? how would you keep from crying? how would you keep from feeling sorry for yourself? how would you stay sane?
i have all of these questions and more. i am ready for help. i am ready to start trying to gird up and look on the bright side. help a sister out.



PS! if you opened this to figure out how brad broke his arm both times, here ya go:

1. fell out of a dumpster while trying to push down packing paper with his feet. the dumpster had wheels, and he used a wheeled cooler as his stepping stool. not his brightest moment. the fracture was minor and we basically all laughed about it.
2. fell down the stairs. he was in so much pain he was in tears, and he does not cry. his humerus is in three pieces. i kept it together at the hospital, but that night in bed i cried myself to sleep. in the morning i woke up thinking i'd just had a bad dream.