Losing my mind!

OK, so I'm not sure how I'm keeping this all straight, but I am just putting my head down and plodding along...

We are hosting Graeme's pharmacy staff for one final get-together/Christmas party - tomorrow night.

We've FINALLY finished unpacking the office.  It's amazing!!!!!!  I love it.  I will take pictures and post them soon - tonight?  Tomorrow?  Monday?

I put two items onto Kijiji, and both were spoken for within 2 hours of posting the ads.  One got picked up that night, and another got picked up the next day.  My weight gym is officially gone.  :(  We couldn't assemble it in our basement - ceiling was too low for assembly.  I guess Graeme has to let me get out to MP once in a while now again.  But we are a few $$$ richer.  Maybe that'll be our Christmas fund?

Work for Graeme is NUTS!!!  Big suits everywhere (and by 'suits' I mean head honchos from Rexall)... installing new technology and equipment that the 450 square foot store doesn't need and doesn't have room for... getting in the staff's way so that they can't get their jobs done... what a mess.  People are about 2-3 days behind on their work because of these trades & technicians getting in the way.

Now that the computer is officially downstairs and in its place, I'm seeing it a lot less.  This is a good thing AND a bad thing... 'good' because it means I might spend more time doing productive things.  Because connecting with friends is not productive, right?  :(

Today - Costco run, Superstore run, Wal-Mart run, recycling run... kids keep losing hats & mittens so I need to find some back-ups... tidy house, put away junky toys (and by 'put away' I mean 'fire into the garbage'!)...

Tomorrow - Sobey's run, finish cleaning house for party tomorrow... do a bit of baking... prep the meal for about 16 people... and maybe even *gasp* sleep tomorrow night!!!  Joshua also has a dress rehearsal for our church Kids' musical tomorrow...

Sunday, I am on worship team, and we're standing in the gap for someone at church who is under a bit of attack from someone else at church who is not quite healthy in the head...  that's a whole 'nother story...  kids' musical for two services...

And then i get to sleep.

I ramble.

OK, so some really cool news - we've been getting to know this other young couple a few houses down from us; Jeremy helped Graeme get out of the cul-de-sac the other day, and his wife Kim was overdue with their third baby.  Well, shovelling snow must've kicked things into gear for her - she had a HUGE baby boy on the 7th, and named him Seth Clancey.  He was 9 lbs 6 oz.  Their first boy was 7 lbs 6 oz, but the same length.  Their middle was smack in between these two...  But they are home and resting.  Yay for babies!

I gotta jet, change the laundry, and get the littles up to go get Joshua from the bus stop and hit the road again.

This girl knows how to ROCK a mug!!

There's this mug... it's part of a year-long practical joke at church... the mug belonged to one of the administrators, but it got swiped at last year's Christmas party by another person at the party - presumedly a staff member.  The front side says "Mistress of the Messy Desk", and the back side says "Organized people are just too lazy to look for things."

Betty's Coffee Mug (who has her own facebook profile page!) has travelled many places, but then got run over.  There's even a video on her page documenting the accident.  She got put back together, and, along with her friend, Master of the Messy Desk (who came into the story soon after the original swiping), continued their world domination.  They were silent for a while, but have recently resurfaced.

I've been begging the Mug to come visit me for a couple months now.

And it did.

I did a modelling session with Meaghan.   This is my favorite picture, a full version of the 6th picture above:

I also have a few other pictures from Betty's Coffee Mug's adventures in my home.  The mug exercised...

...and had some relaxing time...

...and had some 'mug' time with some friends...

...and even helped decorate our house for Christmas...

...and let's not forget the computer time!

...but before all of this, it also got caught in the blizzard...

...this is where it stayed at night.  Nice & cozy!

And thus ends the adventures of Betty's Coffee Mug in our home.  I'll miss you, Mugsie!

A new beginning

This morning marks the beginning of a new chapter for the LaRue household.

Graeme is officially no longer a business owner.

It's been a long week of administration, paperwork, meetings, file clean-up, pharmacy clean-up, inventory, and so on, all in preparation for the takeover.

A new manager is in place - she is Graeme's other main staff pharmacist. Most of the staff is staying intact, which brings a very certain peace of mind to Graeme, knowing that the customers will still be looked after even though he is not the man at the helm any more.

Graeme will work under Raija for 4 weeks, then take 2 weeks to do data entry after a software conversion (who knew? The software companies make compounding conversions impossible to do!), and then he will be off for maybe 4-6 weeks.

I am looking forward to Graeme reclaiming his head space. Looking forward to seeing him be engrossed with things beyond "pharmacy". There is a certain amount of 'grieving' that will go on for him, still - you can't just let go of something you've owned for so long and not be affected by that. For now, it's bittersweet, but it will soon become more sweet than bitter.

I'm looking forward to seeing how God changes our home. I'm thankful for the support of friends during this harrowing time. God is good.

SNOW!!

So.

Living at the very back of a cul-de-sac is great... except when you've got over a foot of snow (even more in the drifted spots) and can't get out and there is nobody else to pack a path for you.

Graeme has inventory count (and a bunch of Rexall big-wigs) at the store this morning to prep for the business transaction on Monday. He had to be there at 7:30, but didn't even get out of our cul-de-sac until about 7:35... we're thankful for helpful neighbors! Then, he called me about 10 minutes later to let me know he was stuck on the main road and that 3 guys pushing him couldn't budge the van. :(

This is going to be an interrrrresting day. I am certainly not interested in trying to go out to our Christmas party tonight in these conditions!

Big News

No, we're not pregnant.

No, we're not moving.

No, we're not dying.

No, we're not leaving our church.

But we did sell our pharmacy.

I know, this probably sounds a little shallow, but believe me, it's not. I've waited about 7 years for this day.

Some history:

We have been in business for 8 years now. Our first location was in a dumpy little strip mall next to a doctor's clinic. The books, when we first bought the business, showed a certain volume of prescriptions. In reality, the actual volume was about 25% of what was stated on the books (they'd manipulated a few numbers). This was not even enough to live off of, and as a result, I had to go find a full-time job. This was not ever our intention. So I worked full time until we were able to *finally* have a baby.

So we spent 3 years 'catching up' to where we originally thought we would be on day one of the business. We then were bought out by a guy who was opening up another Shoppe two blocks away (head office wasn't going to tell us, but Conrad was kind enough to get us in the loop). So we combined the two stores, Graeme became 40% shareholder for his investment, and a partnership was born where Graeme was the operating manager and pharmacist in a new location, and Conrad was the financial investor (and hasn't worked a single day in the store).

The changeover happened when Joshua was 4 months old. Graeme missed most of the first year of Joshua's life - he doesn't really remember anything. Overnight, the business volume quadruped, and to date, has probably almost doubled again over that (in 5 years). Graeme spent about 6 months tweaking, refining processes, doing renovations, and all sorts of things to make that tiny space more functional.

And he did it. He is a good manager. He is a good pharmacist. But to do both and still feel like you're involved with family... it's too much. Sure, he could spend 14-hour days every day at the store... and that's exactly what he did for quite some time. We had very little family time. And slowly Graeme's headspace went from being "his" to completely belonging to the operations and frustrations of the pharmacy ownership. Staffing problems, customer issues, doctor issues, stuff going on in the world of pharmacy in general created stress for him that was not healthy.

Living and breathing your job is not good, especially to the detriment of your family and your own personal being.

After we had Dustin, I started my own personal downward spiral known as 'hormonal depletion' and consequent post-partum depression. It was pretty dark for me, and Graeme supported me the best he could given his own dedication to the pharmacy... and I supported him the best I could given that I could barely function most days. You can see how this might have affected our marriage and family.

So, after the last 3 years of going back & forth, going on a vacation with the family to clear our heads and see through, me wanting (and ready!) for Graeme to reclaim himself, and him not being ready and thinking that he can "try one more thing" to see if he can make it work... he finally has realized that this is not what he's meant to do.

The final decision came (believe me, there was a LOT of flip-flopping on his part, and even now, many doubts!) a couple of months ago, and when Graeme called his business partner yet again to tell him once again that he was ready to sell (again), we were met with a little twist in the plot.

The original plan was to find a buyer for Graeme's 40% shares. That might've been Conrad, or another couple of people we had in mind to approach.

Conrad said that two days previous, Head Office had called him and said that Rexall was very interested in buying our store... Rexall has been buying up and moving all the Medicentres in the city, and the medicentre next to us was no exception. So negotiations began, due diligence was initiated, paperwork and forms were filled out, meeting with lawyers were executed, deadlines were extended, and pen put to paper a few times.

And it's done.

Graeme has doubted, wavered, worried, and felt guilty about how his customers and staff will feel. I have not doubted this one iota in the last several years... when I see how it's changed Graeme and reduced him to a slave to his work, of course I don't doubt.

December 7th will be the changeover date. The banner will be changed, and Graeme will no longer be an independent owner of this store. His staff has all been interviewed and will likely all be offered jobs, the location will stay the same for the time being, and in a few months (maybe years?) the location will disappear and be merged with the new Rexall in another part of town.

Graeme will stay on during the transition. Telling his favorite patients and his staff and the doctors has been hard, but for the most part, he has been met with support and encouragement. (Again, I knew he would be, but he was worried about worst-case scenario.) His time at the store will be an extra 4-6 weeks after December 7th, through banner change and software system changeovers.

Then...?

Hopefully 4-6 weeks completely off, to clear his head of all this baggage. Hopefully a little holiday somewhere in there. Beyond that - well, he's not allowed to work retail dispensing pharmacy for 5 years within a 5km radius of the current location (unless it's Rexall), which encompasses all of our town. He will be allowed to work clinic style pharmacy - PCN, travel clinic, consulting for doctors - in town, or work dispensing in the city. There's a reason he wants to get away from dispensing, so we're not too worried about the non-competition agreement he had to sign as part of the deal. He already has 3-4 job offers, so getting work will not be a problem at all.

I am looking forward to Graeme rediscovering himself. I am looking forward to us reclaiming our marriage, and seeing our family fluorish. I am looking forward to seeing what God will do with us.

But, pray for us. The next 2 months will not be easy - long hours, lots of stress to come - and difficult decisions to make yet.

Some progress

A few notes:

I am *close* to being able to tell you the cause of all the stress. Since some of my readers live really close to me, I still have to be careful. :) Be patient, mes amies, be patient! But the stress is sending me over the edge... leading worship yesterday was a bit painful and very much exhausting.

Meaghan has been ca-rabby lately! Not like all day or anything, but just cranky. Her gums have been swollen, gone down, tooth popping up, tooth popping down... but TODAY, the tooth is here to stay!! And guess who has a happy Dollie again?

Life with the boys is really hard right now. I am struggling.

I made my first digital scrapbook!! :) I can't share deets yet... sorry... it's a gift for someone. I am using a program called MemoryMixer. I like it a lot, but am running into a few glitches here and there. Not sure why....? But anyway, I have it mostly tweaked and mostly uploaded to Shutterfly.

I leave you with this: a note from yesterday's sermon: The question is not "Is God on my side?", but rather, "Am I on God's side?"

Another chapter closing

Still can't share too much yet...

...but a phone call we've been waiting for a week for has finally happened. (Prior to that, it was meetings, lawyers, signatures, more meetings, deadline extensions, more meetings and more signatures.)

Pray for Graeme. He is sick to his stomach, although he knows this turn of events is ultimately a good thing. For me, I've been waiting for this day for, umm, about 7 years.

There's a long road ahead of us still, and a lot of stress, likely - me carrying the load here while Graeme deals with *stuff* - but in the end we'll be better for it.

Will keep you posted as I'm able....

Thanks, ladies. I am blessed to have you all in my life. :)

a new week

Last night I got to bed around 12:45.

It was the best night of sleep I'd had in what feels like ages... Dustin didn't come in with any bad dreams. Normally he comes into our room and just talks like it's daytime - loud voice, intrusive, funny, sweet... but then we're awake for a long time afterwards. Last night, he slept through. Whew!

My sweet dollie woke up with a fever in the night, though. Not sure why... it's not H1N1 as she doesn't have the classic cough and breathing troubles, so I'm not sure what her issue is. It's just so sad to see the wee ones become so helpless. She's so sweet, though. Limp li'l girl.

So, we're waiting, and waiting, and waiting... there's something sorta big coming down for us in the next couple of months, but we're now playing the waiting game on something that is totally out of our control. It's ups & downs right now... leaning on Jesus, learning to trust all over again...

Have a splendid day! (Lunch today is leftover soft tacos from supper last night... yummmmm....)