This post is about a week late, but for good reason.
We were able to move a week early!
Don’t get me wrong… we are so grateful to God for providing
housing for us here so that we could be here for a good amount of the busy
summer season. But, we are so grateful to God that the house we were in was
just temporary housing and that He had something so much better in store.
I don’t mean to complain, so I’ll just show some picts of
the old place.
Top row (from left): under the bathroom sink, not finished
or well insulated (one of the places the mice liked to enter; “insulation;”
mysterious stains on the floor.
Middle row: Moldy, dirty windowsills (all of them were like
this); our bedroom; a piece of the floor in our bedroom that John screwed down
because when we lifted it up, it opened to the outside!
Bottom row: our landlord’s broken down truck sitting in our
yard; our bedroom closet floor – also the home to the water heater and the
favorite entrance spot of our little mouse friends; the bathroom that was built
onto the rock (and the bathroom that leaked muddy water when it rained).
Just imagine the pictures I didn’t show you!
Needless to say, this place was not a safe home for our
kids, nor would it suffice for the winter months here in the mountains. It is
more of a cabin than a home.
We were praying that God would provide us some place safe
and warm for our kiddos for the winter and His answer has SO MUCH MORE than
exceeded our hopes. Our new landlord is so sweet and kind and willing to work
with us to make all of our hopes a reality, but the thing is, this place is so
great that I don’t want to change a thing!
It’s also just the simple things like having a dishwasher
that actually gets the dishes clean (I really didn’t mind hand-washing them but
I like to know that I can really sanitize things in the dishwasher) but our new
one actually dries the dishes, too. And, it’s so quiet! I ran the old one when
we left because it was so loud! AND, one of the best things: our old range took
about a half hour to boil water and even then, it never got to a rolling boil.
Five.Minutes.Tops. with our new one. Amazing. Tea has never tasted so good! Our
old oven took over an hour and a half to preheat to 350 degrees. Now, it takes
less than 10 minutes. Our old dryer made a loud screeching noise every rotation
that was just metal on metal. This one is nice and quiet and actually dries
clothes! I’m overwhelmed. Don’t take stuff like this for granted, friends. It’s
a big deal to have good appliances. I feel so spoiled.
The really interesting thing to me is that there are things
I always made do without that God has blessed us with in this new home. I’m
choosing to believe that those are God’s sweet little love notes to me. Things
I never even thought of. All the houses that weren’t available. All the time I
was frustrated at the places that were falling through. All of that was so that
God could spoil me.
Oh me of little faith.
I wish we could buy this place ;)
-kt
Instead of boring you with pictures of moving boxes and all
of our stuff scattered chaotically around a beautiful home, I’ll save picts of
the new place for next week when we are more settled.
For now, I’ll show you picts from trick or treating. That is
part of the exhaustion… not only are we settling a new place, but we have to do
all the normal life stuff, too: buy groceries, make food, do dishes and
laundry, do to church and bible studies… all good stuff, but lots to do!
My mom gave me the beautiful homemade costumes my brother and I wore as kids. I have an astronaut costume, a clown, snow white, a pirate costume, and some other things we could piece together. I had the Little Mister try them all one. What did our very particular and PICKY 2 year old want to wear?
My graduation hat and cords.
That’s it.
So, he was a graduate.
The principal of the school here in town got a kick out of
it.
The Little Miss wore a pumpkin hat made by my very talented
mother-in-law. She was adorable!
Oh, and we are so close to crawling, I can’t believe she
isn’t doing it yet!
Come back next week to see picts of our new place!
-kt
