busy December and African anxiety

Happy New Year y'all, from this Georgia transplant.

So remember when I said I would blog three times a week in December? Yeah, that didn't happen. But honestly, I should have been more realistic with myself. Here's a rundown of what December held for the Harknesses:

• Visit from my Alaskan bestfriend 
• Three days after Lisa left...A week-long trip to Chicago
• ER visit on the way home from Chicago after Nate had what we thought was a heart attack (still awaiting our ER bill...yay)
• Ten-day visit from my parents (who arrived two days after we got home from Chicago)
• Annabel's two-week break from preschool (still going!)
• Levi's birthday, Christmas, and New Year's! 
• Googles of house projects 
• Nate's preparation to leave for Ethiopia 36 hours from now

How's that for busy & full? But in the best possible way, with some of the people we love most in the world, at my favorite time of year. [I LOVE the holidays. I've realized this about myself this year, more than ever, perhaps because it's the first time I've celebrated them in our own place. I get a little depressed when they're over.]

So anyway...with all of that going on, I should have been realistic enough to give myself the month of December off from blogging. Because that's what happened, and I could have seen that coming. And my priorities were in the right place - being with the people I loved.

But here's the deal: in case you missed it above, Nate's leaving for Africa in 36 hours. Making me a single parent, in our new hometown without family, for 2.5 weeks. This is about all I can think about right now (besides our HANGING BED! Which is AMAZING!). 

He's done two Africa trips with WDA so far and left me home with the kid(s), but both of those times I was staying with my parents. Nothing will probably ever beat the last one, when we were in the middle of buying our house in Georgia and the whole thing exploded, and I had to deal with it all, from Minnesota, without him. (It's really a miracle that we got this house at all.) But still...I had my parents in house, and the rest of my family close at hand. 

This will be the first time it's just me. Alone. I would be a total liar if I said I was anything less than terrified. I do NOT rock the single parent thing with a lot of grace or finesse. It takes everything I have and more just to feed, clothe, and sleep the three of us. (Bathing often doesn't make the cut.)

One of my number one sources of anxiety might surprise some of you: FOOD. I do not cook. In my mind I can't cook. Now obviously this isn't true...I am *technically* capable of preparing food that my family can eat. But I don't know how, and I definitely don't feel like I can. Nate does 98% of the cooking in our family, and 100% of the grocery shopping. That's his thing. He enjoys it and is good at it; I don't and I'm not.

Adding to my food stress is our extremely limited grocery budget right now. I don't have the luxury of just going to the grocery store and buying the things I would like to have, or picking a recipe and just getting all the ingredients. We have to be extremely careful about how we spend our food money. Many of you know that we rely on a good bit of dumpster diving to stock our shelves. (Yes, I do mean that literally.) Nate strategically gets free food that would otherwise go to the dump. This saves perfectly good food and makes our grocery budget stretch a LOT further. But again...that's his thing. I'm not about to take it on with two kids by myself.

So when it comes to food, I was extremely blessed by my parents' generosity and the timing of their visit, because my mom took me to the grocery store and stocked my pantry to overflowing. She wanted to make SURE that there will be food available that I feel capable of making for us. THANK YOU MOM. I could physically feel my anxiety level go down after unpacking all those groceries. Our budget can handle the weekly necessities (eggs, milk, produce), now that I have the staples taken care of.

But I'm still nervous. (Understatement.) 2.5 weeks is a LONG time, especially when I'm used to us being together a LOT throughout the day. I've come to realize that we're a "together" kind of couple. We are quite happy spending most of our time in each other's company. In six years of marriage, only two of those years were spent with a normal-ish full-time work schedule where Nate left the house. And during one of those two years, we both left everyday and Annabel was in daycare. The other four years we've been grad students together, support raising together, and now, adjusting to life in Georgia together. We share one car which forces us to make all our plans together - and we like it that way (for now at least). We split parenting and household duties 50/50. Actually, to be perfectly honest, the household stuff is probably closer to 70/30, with Nate taking the lion's share. Yes, on top of not cooking, I am significantly less domestic than my husband. Honestly, he thrives as a stay-at-home parent a lot more than I do. (So why is he the one leaving!? ...This is what I ask myself.)

I'm trying to remind myself that I'm not really alone. God is also reminding me of that this morning. I have kind coworkers and new neighbors looking out for me, one or two new friends in town that I can call on, a few playdate potentials, Skype, Facebook, texting, emailing, blogging, and of course, I have the Lord. My goal is to call upon every single one of those resources to get me through the next three weeks. Blogging is big on that list. Since Nate won't be here to hang out with me after the kids go to bed, I hope I'll be checking in with y'all instead. 

So my goal for the next 36 hours is to be with my husband asmuchaspossible before he takes off (literally). After that...we'll see how this goes.