Our favorites

There are about one million and one things I love about our house, but some things are just over the top.

 Like my kitchen. Over. The. Top. 

*happy squeal*

I’m in love! There’s so much room! It’s easily twice the size of any kitchen I’ve ever had before. For the first time EVER we are able to fit all our dishes and food together in the kitchen cabinets. No extra pantry space for food, no stupid shelving in some other room for dishes. It’s all in the kitchen…and with room to spare. I have 3 empty cupboards! And don’t even get me started on the countertop space! Am I dreaming??

Dave is loving his garage and shed space. He’s added two cabinets and a couple of small shelves in the garage and filled them with auto repair tools and household maintenance type stuff. The shed is full of yard work tools and the lawn tractor. We also set up one unused corner of the garage as a man cave for him. He now has a place for his whiskey barrel table and chairs! I see all sorts of father-son and buddy time happening around that table.

The kids are completely enamored with the yard. I don’t think they’ve played inside once since we moved in. They run, climb, dig and yell. They ride bikes and scooters. They swing, slide and do sidewalk chalk. They catch creatures and have nerf gun battles in their tree fort. Every single night they willingly drop into bed at bedtime. Several nights they’ve been asleep before we could even kiss them goodnight.

This house is amazing. 

One week

We’ve been in our house for a week now. What a busy, crazy, weird, awesome week it has been.

Three things stood out to us this week about living in the country:

1: It’s quiet. We don’t hear neighbors on the other side of our walls anymore - no footsteps above our heads, no tv playing at all hours of the day, no trampling up and down the stairs as they get ready in the morning. We no longer fall asleep to the sounds of the highway or the neighborhood traffic.

2: It’s dark. Really dark. I had begun to think street lights were the standard and the glow of businesses down the street were normal. Neighbors always left their porch lights on and car headlights shone through our windows. We used to keep black out curtains on all our windows so we could sleep, but there’s no need for that here.

3: There’s a lot of life in the country. You name it, the country has it. Far more plants and animals than we ever encountered in the city. In the week that we’ve been here we have seen 3 families of turkeys, 4 bunnies, a snake, a groundhog, an inchworm, chipmunks, squirrels, a robin’s nest with 3 babies, about 50 toads, and endless spiders in our yard or on our road. We have special buckets outside now for holding the creatures we find. 

Moved

We are now in our house! It was a long road, but worth the wait. We couldn’t be more in love with this place. Its so perfect for our family. We’ve planted our flag and claimed the place as our own (literally – we put an American flag out on the front deck that wasn’t there before we moved in). 

We’ve been so blessed by our helpful families. We’ve emptied most of the boxes and set up most of the furniture. There’s still more to do, but for now it just feels good to be in our house and have all the waiting and prep work behind us. We are looking forward to feeling more settled.

Our first day, Saturday, was spent moving boxes in and partially setting up the kitchen. We got about half the cupboards filled. We had family over to see the new place and check it out.

Sunday was the real moving day. We called in all the family we could find and had them help move the rest of our boxes and all our furniture in here. They also stayed to help unpack several boxes and make our beds so that the house was functional after they left. Dave pulled a muscle while lifting something heavy so he wasn’t much in the mood for hanging out so we all got to bed quickly that night.

To give us time to get settled, Dave took some vacation days and had Monday – Wednesday off work. It was so nice to have that time. We set up the brand new bunk beds for David and Max, finished setting up the kitchen, started unpacking things in the master bathroom, worked a bit out in the garage, organized the stacks of boxes in the dining room, went grocery shopping to stock up on food, and changed out all the locks on the doors.

It was one of those days, Tuesday I think, that we found the cause of the stinky smell in the kitchen. We’d notice the odor right away when we moved in and thought it was some rotten food stuck in the kitchen sink pipes. We gave them a good rinsing and the smell continued. We then assumed it was a dead mouse under the house that was stinking things up. We lit candles, sprayed air fresheners and did everything else we could think of to get rid of the smell. None of it worked. While heating up lunch on Monday, we blew an electrical circuit and half our house went dark. We called Dave’s dad over early Tuesday to help look at it. They weren’t able to fix the electrical issues (though they did determine there’s 2 blown circuits, not just one) but they did discover 2 propane gas leaks in the kitchen. They tightened and adjusted all the pipes around the stove and – voila! – the smell is gone. Note to self: if you think you smell decaying rodent, first check that you aren’t leaking toxic fumes out of the stove.

I’m so thankful for the Lord’s protection. If it weren’t for the electrical issues, we never would have found the gas leaks. A minor inconvenience saved us from something so much more harmful. 

Be Still

Several weeks – maybe even months – ago now I ran across this verse from Exodus. We were facing some discouragement in our house search and I feeling a little down. This verse struck me to my core.

I was discouraged because things were not moving according to my timing. I was frustrated because my plans were failing. I was trying to win this one on my own. I was holding so tightly to my ideas that I was missing that God had a different plan and a different direction for us.

This verse brings so much peace to my heart. I love the promise that “will” insinuates here. It doesn’t say the Lord “might” fight for me. It doesn’t imply He’ll try to make time, but may not get around to it. It says He will fight for me. When I give my situation over to Him, when I stop struggling and just be still before Him, He will fight for me. What relief!

I ran across this verse again this morning and as it always does, it spoke right to my heart. We’ve been encouraged by several people in just the last several days to be angry at our realtor and mortgage lender for the delay in closing on our home. They’ve insisted we need to fight for this one. That we need to stand up and say we don’t accept the idea that they’re already doing all they can. We need to insist they do more. That we need to contact the sellers of the house, who are friends of my family, and try to work something out to speed this up and get into the house sooner.

In my heart, I know I can’t do that. That would mean taking back a situation I’ve already given over to God. I must be still, stop struggling and have faith that the Lord is fighting this fight for me. 

Progress

We are slowly but surely making progress with our home. We were supposed to close June 23^rd, but we were delayed due to paperwork and documentation. We’re told that week that we’d likely close the following week {this week} but that isn’t happening either. I was told Monday the 30^th that all paperwork is in, the blurry photos and inadequate research in the appraisal has been corrected and we have cleared all inspections. We just need to get our file through the right departments at the bank and then schedule closing with the title company.

Back at the beginning of June we had to make a huge decision with the apartment we were renting. We could either give notice June 1^st and vacate at the end of the month or give notice July 1^st and vacate at the end of July. Without a big hassle and a lot of begging, they don’t prorate rent and they only accept keys at the end of a month. Our closing was tentatively scheduled for June 23^rd so we took a leap of faith and set up a U-Haul rental for June 28^th and gave notice that we’d be leaving at the end of June.  We were confident that the Lord would go before us and work it out. If we closed in time and had our house, we’d know that was God’s perfect plan for us. If not, we knew that would also be part of God’s perfect plan for us. Though it would not be the path I’d take given the choice, we still hadn’t closed on the house when moving day came. I will forever be grateful to my parents for opening the extra bedrooms in their home to our family and our truck load of furniture and boxes.

We know in our knowers that this home, this city, this timing is what God has for us. We’ve had our moments of frustration and impatience. We’ve felt stress. Each time, God has been faithful to gently remind us that what we are waiting for is worth waiting for. Every day, every hour, sometimes every minute, we remind ourselves to choose patience. To choose to stand in God’s perfect peace and hold our new home before Him with open hands, not holding too tightly to our own desires, plans or ideas. Open hands require faith. They require stepping out of our comfort zone and giving up control. They require trusting that God has a plan and a purpose.

 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”    Jeremiah 29:11

We are firm believers that all things happen for a reason. Sometimes, you know that reason right away and your faith grows right in that moment. Other times, you can only see God’s hand in a situation after you have some distance from it and look back. But at all times we know that God works all things for good for those that love Him and are walking in His purpose and will for them. I can’t tell you yet why God saw fit to delay our closing on our house, but I can say I’m trying daily to wait with open hands until He moves.

A Fresh Start

We woke full of anxious excitement. Today, things change. Today, we move.

We hit the ground running and finished our last minute packing immediately after finishing our coffee. My mom and dad arrived bright and early to help with last minute details and picking up our U-Haul. We had THE BEST helpers! Our whole house was packed and stacked neatly in the moving truck in just under an hour and a half. After a quick bite to eat, we unloaded in about the same amount of time. The whole thing – from picking up the U-Haul to dropping it off – took about 6 hours; Far better than we expected! We are so overwhelmed with gratitude for the family and friends who selflessly gave up a Saturday with their own families to lug our boxes and furniture around on this disgustingly humid day. Thank you doesn’t feel like enough.

We spent much of the rest of the day settling in and trying to make things as normal as possible for the kids. From emotions to actions, stress is written all over them. After giving them naps and quiet time to decompress, we set about finding swim trunks so they could splash in the kiddie pool to cool off. David and Max had a blast, Titus cried and went off to play in a dry spot because he doesn’t like being wet or messy and Kira sat around giggling, squealing and looking adorable in her pink ruffley swimsuit. Classic. Dave and I were completely enthralled in just watching them play. They are all so different, but each one so dear to us. There aren’t even words…

Aunt Ashley was working the paramedic station just down the street today so we took a little drive down to see her. The boys {and Dave!} were captivated by her truck, her station, and the garage. David found a frog hopping around near a mop bucket in the corner and quickly caught it to show off to his brothers. It blesses my heart so much to be able to give my boys the freedom to do what boys do. They {and Kira} are why we made this move to the country. Kids need freedom. Kids need space. Kids need adventures and mud and learning opportunities and frogs that pee on your hands a little when you pick them up. Ok, no one really needs that. It’s actually kind of gross. But my point remains the same – living in the country will give our kids opportunities the city never could.

After saying goodbye to Ashley, we took the long way back home. We may or may not have driven down “our” road and looked at “our” house. Ok, we did. We totally did. We wondered out loud about who our new neighbors are, what they’re like and what they might think of us. We wondered just what kind of neighbors we’ll be. What impression will we make on them?  How might we like to go about introducing ourselves?

I made mention to the town’s mayor which got us talking about local politics. We took a quick tour downtown our new little city to see the town hall, mayor’s office, and library. Dave expressed interest in someday running for office here and getting deeply involved in the community. With his passion for growth and forward progress and his ability to look at all sides of a problem and possible solutions, I know he’d be perfect for it. We need to get settled first, but we’ve discussed this as a very real possibility in our near future.

In many ways this move feels like a fresh start for our family. We’ll be living in a new house, next to new neighbors, in a new city. The kids will have a new school, we’ll check books out of a new library and we’ll shop new locations of our favorite stores. For the first time ever, we’ll own our home and have new responsibilities like maintenance and yard work. Also for the first time, we’ll live well out of town in a rural setting and not in the middle of the city.

I grew up in this tiny town and in true small town fashion, not much has changed since then. Everything about it is comfortable and familiar. But yet, it doesn’t feel real that this is now my home. Maybe I feel unsettled from not having my own home and staying with my parents? Perhaps such a drastic move takes more time to adjust and settle in to? I feel I’m balancing in a state of limbo, not quite belonging here and not belonging there.

Praising God for his faithfulness and praying for a good night’s sleep. 

happiness

Me: "Max, what makes you happy?"
Max: "Playing in the snow, eating bacon, playing with Aunt Ashley, sharing with my brothers, Christmas trees with stars on top, when Kira smiles at me, all my friends, dance parties and going to church. All those things make me be happy."