I mentioned that we are now going to be renting our NJ home.  We have been primary residents of PA now for over a year, but we were still spending a few weeks back in NJ and had the majority of our storage things there because it is a bigger house.  But with having to clear out the basement, we could not keep things there while renters were in there, so things are slowly being moved out to our home here or to storage elsewhere.  We had been thinking of renting or selling for a few months now, and here is why we finally decided to make the move:

1. Financial burden. Paying two mortgages is a tough thing to do when you only spend the summers at those homes.  It really didn’t seem to making much sense from a financial standpoint to have two homes at this point in life.  Renting should relieve us of a lot of the financial burden of having two homes.

2. Joe’s job. Basketball season may only run 9 months out of the year, but the summer is actually one of the most important times for Joe to do his job.  He spends all season beating his body down, so he really needs to be working to build his body back up during the off-season.  Where we have a home in NJ does not offer easy access to the facilities and professionals he needs.  In PA, he is able to play with the college guys from Penn State and has access to a great trainer, masseuse, podiatrist, applied kinesiologist, etc.

3. Simpler time at home. As I mentioned before, we were thinking of some bigger ways we could simplify.  This is a huge way for us to do that.  Joe and I were both worn thin this summer keeping up with two homes.  Now that we are renting our NJ home, we will have a management company who will take care of t eh home for us.  We won’t get the calls about house issues and have to figure out how to take care of them (although hopefully once this basement problem is taken care of, there won’t be many more problems!)  Joe is even passing along the work of some of the other little projects around the house to them.  Our PA home is very low maintenance, so it will hopefully allow us to spend our summers doing what we would like to do more: spending time with others.

Moving away from NJ is hard because we have so many great relationships there.  That is where our children have friends, which makes this hard for them too.  Joe’s family is there, so we will still be back during the summer, we just won’t stay at the same house anymore.  Hopefully the friendships that are meaningful will last through this season of life.  That is one thing this basketball life has taught me: true relationships can survive over a distance!

Usually the middle of August is a busy time in the life of a basketball family.  That is typically when Joe needs to go overseas to begin training camp for the next season.  But this year there have been some different spins on this time of year:

1. Joe signed late this year. Usually Joe is signed by the end of July, but Joe just signed a contract yesterday to return to Lega Due with Barcellona Basket.  I think we were both starting to think that we may be waiting until the December/January signings this season, so we were not really in “leave mode”.  Plus they want him to leave on Tuesday!

2. Our NJ basement has to be completely gutted. We came home from our week at the shore to find our NJ home with water from a rotted pipe.  After further inspection. It looks like our basement is infested with black mold and we all had to move out on Sunday night.  We have been at Joe’s parents house for the last few days as we clean everything out of the basement and either throw it away or disinfect it and store it upstairs.

3. We made a last minute decision to rent our NJ home.  It has been wearing us thin to have two homes.  We thought we would have an easier time this year because we would be in PA the majority of the time, but we still have to look after our NJ home and deal with things like rotted pipes.  So we decided we are moving out of our NJ home and turning it into a rental property.  The packing for this has also been done in the last 4 days!  Plus we have been dealing with the emotional toll this is taking on our kids (and Joe) who are attached to the home.  Doing this without AC (have to turn it off when you have mold) and in between Isaiah’s feedings has been a bit draining for me.

4. I have been dealing with some issues with Abby’s school. Last year we used a charter online public school for Abby’s schooling, but at the end of July we got a call saying that we could no longer be a part of it.  Thankfully after some calls to our local school district and being in contact with the charter school, we got things figured out.  So I should be getting the supplies today!

So there are my excuses for my lack of blogging and general contact with people.  I am going to be staying behind a few weeks once again so I can get packed up, settle all of our stuff in State College and hopefully wrap up some more things in NJ.  I have been fighting to believe the promises that God has nothing but good for me in this time.  Just another reminder that God wants to do a good work in me and that refinement of character does not come when everything is smooth and easy!