New country wife with a new country life

Wow. I haven't written in a very, very long time. Update: That date I was so excited about, he is now my husband! :-) I was married 4 weeks ago to a dairy farmer. I don't even know where to begin with him. In a nutshell, he honestly is the kind of man that I didn't believe existed. He is so kind and selfless and funny and loving and generous and considerate. For the first time in my life, I feel as though I finally am realizing what it means to be unconditionally loved by a man. There is no fear, no worry, no doubt. He is amazing and God has been so good to bring him to me. I watched as God directed every step and made it obviously clear that He wanted us together.

So, now that I am married, a lot has changed. I quit my job and now am a stay-at-home mom. I LOVE IT!! This fall I will begin homeschooling my children. I am planning on planting one of two gardens this weekend and my M-I-L (the queen of canning) is going to teach me all sorts of canning things. Although I have joked with my husband that I am not a "homegrown country wife", I am looking forward to learning all that I can.

We live on four and a half acres in an old Greek Revival farmhouse. It is beautiful and has lots of "character", meaning, it's an old farmhouse and I keep finding surprises. The farm is located about a mile down the road (his parents live on the farm itself). My husband does two milkings a day at 3:30am and 3:30pm. He works long hours, but has rearranged his schedule to allow more time with family.

Speaking of family, the reason I am up (and not sleeping a wink for the past couple hours) is that my children are gone. This is the first weekend that my children are with their father all weekend long. He has had them overnight many times before, but never a full weekend. I get them back this afternoon, right before our Memorial Day parade. This has been a horribly difficult weekend. I simply ache for my children. My daughter cried and cried when it was time to leave with her dad. I stood on the porch and watched (and listened) as she cried all the way down the driveway on onto the road. As soon as they were out of sight, I doubled over in agony. It broke my heart. They will miss church this morning. I can't seem to wrap my head around going to church without my children. I have a feeling I will be teary most of the way through Sunday School and Worship. I am so thankful to have my husband by my side to hold my hand through this. We have spent so much time in prayer this weekend for these two little ones. Little ones being 10 and 6, but still very much my babies. My ex-husband is saying that he wants to take them for full weekends on a regular basis now. It really makes me sick. Literally. I keep crying out to God to hold them close when I can't and to protect them from the influences over there. But my mother's heart can't seem to let go, even for an hour. I am counting down the hours until I see them again. I want to grab them and hold them and not let go again. This would be easier if i thought that my ex-husband genuinely loved them, but he seems to view them only as either an inconvenience or a way to manipulate his situation. Right now his marriage is "on the rocks" and he seems to think that he can use the kids as a ploy to try and get his wife to stay (he tried this with me with my step-son when we were married many times). It makes me angry to think that he is using them as pawns. He was shown a picture of my children making silly faces at my wedding and he didn't even recognize them. He claimed that he has just never seen them make faces like that and that was why he didn't know who they were. Really? I don't care what kind of face my children make, I think I would know my own kids!! They were just spitting their tongues out and being goofy. Not smashing their faces beyond recognition!

Wow, I miss them. How soon till this is over?