My Dad

More life change. Lost my sweet Dad on October 6, 2019. Hard to believe both of my parents are gone.

https://www.charliemarshallfuneralhomes.com/notices/Patrick-Daly

Welcome, 2018

FIVE. Five years since we’ve lived in Colorado (again), and almost five years since I’ve written anything on this blog. Recently I hopped on to look up a recipe that I had posted long ago, and then got immediately lost in my old blog posts and felt incredibly nostalgic. So.much.life has happened in these five years.

Our boys were just 4 and almost 3 when we moved to Fort Collins. They’re now 9 and almost 8. More than DOUBLE the age they were when we moved here. Sheeshity-sheesh!

They’re now in 2nd and 3rd grade. They read. They write. They do math problems that sometimes stump me. They play chess. They ski. They run faster than me. They’ve played soccer, baseball, and flag football, and excelled at all. They are budding rock climbers, thanks to their Daddy. Westin is almost as tall as my shoulder. Life has just happened soooooo darn fast. 

I can remember being so very internally conflicted about moving away from Texas in 2013, just five months after my mother died. I had very deep-seeded feelings that I was abandoning my dad, and wondering if I was making the right decision. Fast forward five years, and I can say with complete confidence that we made a fantastic decision. Our children are thriving here. My husband is thriving here. I am thriving here. My dad, and many other family members, have come to visit us regularly. Colorado people are MY people and I love my friends, our neighborhood, my work, and my church. What was a hugely difficult choice has turned out to be the very best choice. I’m so grateful. 

Even though blogs aren’t all that popular anymore (Hello Facebook, Instagram, etc....) I see so much value in it. I truly would have forgotten so much about my “previous” life had I not jotted it down in words. I’m thinking about picking this back up again, as someday I’ll look back and be glad I did it, and get lost in the nostalgia all over again. 

Happy five year anniversary in Colorado, Hansen Family. I love us. 

HOME

We are here. The couple-of-year journey to find our long-term home is complete. We're under contract to buy a house in Fort Collins, Colorado. Jeremy has a great new job, I have my same job, the boys are getting settled into preschool, and we're deciding between some very good church options. God is good to us.

This song speaks to me on so many levels. Please take a moment to listen. It fits our journey perfectly. It has been one of sorrow, loss, frustration, hope, joy, hurt, exuberance, gratefulness, peace, and so many other emotions. There was adversity in us getting here. But we feel so good about our destination, and we've grown from the journey. I don't want to over-spiritualize this, but as the song says, I feel like the Lord said "I'm gonna make this place your home".

Oh yeah, and I'm 40.

Enjoy (after the required advertisement, of course)

HOME by Philip Phillips:

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

We live in Colorado!

Here's one way I know we're not in Texas anymore...

When cool things happen

Let me say that I am not a "prosperity gospel" person. Nor do I believe in karma. I do, however, believe in God and that sometimes He shows up in cool ways simply to remind me that He sees me and is shaping my heart.

Just this morning I was reading in Matthew 5, which is Jesus' sermon on the mount.  This verse intrigued me: "Give to those who ask, and don't turn away from those who want to borrow." (NLT version) The footnote directed me to Deuteronomy 15: 7-11, so I went there and read this:
⁷ “But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. ⁸ Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. ⁹ Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year for canceling debts is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. ¹¹ There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.

So basically.... BE GENEROUS. I prayed that God would help me be more generous, as I tend to be pretty self-absorbed and don't even realize when there are opportunities to give to others.

After I dropped the boys off at their preschool, I went to the grocery store. As I stood in the checkout line, the lady ahead of me was paying for her groceries but somehow the cashier missed one item, and the lady had already paid her bill. So, without really thinking, I just told the cashier to put it on my tab and give her the item. And before you think I'm super noble.... it was a box of Ritz crackers. They cost 2 bucks. But the lady was very gracious and grateful! It was a neat moment. I could tell the cashier thought it was cool, and the lady most definitely appreciated it. I silently patted myself on the back, completely forgetting that I had prayed that God would help me be more generous. And I went on my way. 

Next stop was another store to get one more item before heading home. I walked in, and told the sales guy what I was looking for. He walked me to where it was, and we looked at the variety of brands they had (for those with inquiring minds, it was a neti-pot type thing because I cannot seem to shake my cough and congestion and my husband suggested I get one.) The cost was $20. I then saw one other item, very similar, sitting beside it, and said "how much is this one?" The sales guy said, "You know, why don't you just take that one. It came as a sample from the distributor, and I should have taken it off the shelf a while ago." I said "REALLY" And he said "Yes - it's yours. I hope it helps!" 

Okay... I got back in my car and then it hit me what had just happened within a 10 minute window. I bought a 2 dollar item for someone, and minutes later someone gave me a 20 dollar item for free! That stuff NEVER happens to me. And as I said before, I do NOT believe in the prosperity gospel. Instead, I believe in a God that was answering my prayer, and showing me some grace at the same time. I might not have given God credit for being generous to the lady at the grocery store, had I not been distinctly reminded with an even bigger generosity by someone else. 

I like it when cool things happen. 

If you put something on Facebook, does that make it real?

I just posted this on Facebook, which I guess makes our announcement "official": 

"Friends - Jeremy Hansen and I are very happy to announce that we will be moving to beautiful Colorado in February 2013! Our house here in Texas is under contract and we are excited about this next chapter of our lives! We'll be living in the Fort Collins/Loveland area. Come visit!" 

No turning back now! Full speed ahead!

Getting caught up

I don't know why, but I feel like the "proper" thing to do on a blog is to have entries be in chronological order of the events in my life. So, for example, I've needed to post the conclusion to our Colorado trip back in September but haven't done it. In the meantime there are lots of things I've wanted to write about but haven't done it, because I had that one other blog post hanging out there. Silly, right? So, I'm releasing myself of that burden right now, and I'm skipping to whatever I feel like writing about. 

There. Freedom.

So, I'll start today with an email that I sent to my dear friends in The Posse. It captures "where we are" right now (edited to remove personal Posse stuff and to be appropriate for all readers.)Then you'll be caught up. Wow, that was easy!

Here's the email: 

Hi Posse, 

I am loooooong overdue in emailing all of you. You've all been on my mind but it has just seemed daunting to sit down and try to type a letter to you. But here I finally am!

Our big news first: we are moving to Colorado! It might seem like a sudden decision to you, but in truth it has been a long journey to get here. Jeremy and I have known for a while that we would not live in Texas in the long run, but with my mom's health in question we weren't focusing on timing. Now that she's gone, we feel a freedom to move on, even though it means leaving my dad and my sisters and their families. For a whole host of reasons, we are both confident this will be a very good move for us, and we plan to make Colorado our home for the long haul. We visited the Fort Collins/Loveland area back in late September and Jeremy interviewed for a job in the OR at a hospital there.

We put our house on the market just a little over 2 weeks ago, and we are praising God because we got an offer and are under contract! We are a bit stunned that it happened so quickly, but that's our God and we are taking it as confirmation that we're on the right path. We'll close the 3rd week of January, and we'll be off to Colorado in February! 

We're taking some time to have fun in January. We'll go on a 5 day cruise out of Galveston, just the two of us, and then we're headed to Oregon with the 4 of us to visit Jeremy's family for 2 weeks.

Westin is turning 4 on Friday and he's becoming such a big boy. Camden is a fully talking 2 and a half year old and they are getting to be really fun. We can't wait to explore the Colorado foothills and mountains with our little men. 

This has been a really hard season of life over the past year or so, and I think I could probably have been diagnosed as clinically depressed. We are SO ready to get back into a good church community, as that has been totally lacking here in Texas for us. I desperately need godly women in my life. We're ready to have friends that we can do life with that share our same values and also appreciate the outdoors. We're ready for cooler weather, beautiful scenery, closer amenities, and the list goes on. The ONLY sad part is moving away from my family. But I have a peace about it, as does my husband. He has been a gentle, loving leader during this time of decision making, and he has been a great comfort to me during my mom's funeral and in the months of grieving since then. 

I love all of you! 

Joey