FINALLY - Pictures

Now that we own the house, and I'm there every day I have some photos. I know I'm slow. No excuses. Forgive me.

This probably shows best the color we have just had the majority of the upstairs painted.
It's called Toasted Cashew. Its made by Behr, but our painter uses Kwal Howell. He used two coats over the green that was previously here. This is the dining room. My favorite part is how it contrasts with the crown molding.

Here is the Spring Garden that has now been replaced. Love the blank area where the seller's entertainment center was, highlighting all the colors previously attempted.
This color is actually called Knot, by Kwal Howell. It is just like Toasted Cashew. I thought there would be a contrast, but there isn't really, and its okay. We'll be using Rafia Cream by Behr to offer contrast in the rest of the upstairs, but what you're seeing is Knot. The light diffuses it because the right side of this room is all picture windows, but it looks like it matches the dining room. However, this room doesn't have crown molding, and I think it needs it, so add that to the list of projects for 2011. And, replacing the fan. And covering the spackle on the fireplace to stone. . . lots of projects ahead.
The kitchen when it was green.
Not a very good picture, but this was as the painter was painting other parts of the kitchen. Its more restful, and will look good with my red dishes above the cabinets.
What goes in must come out. I'm going to be busy next week.
Hopefully it will become the heart of the home again. I miss my kitchen. I miss cooking. I miss eating home-cooked food.
Miss my friends. This one I owe big. She sent me the money for my house. Its a long story, but it involved powers of attorney, several calls to my bank manager, etc. It was a stressful Thursday, and she made it a wonderful Friday. Thank you!

Hope

ALWAYS before something really good happens, some BIG obstacle comes up. . . .
That's my observation, and its been consistent enough, that I just expect it.
That doesn't mean that I'm always happy or unworried going through it, but
I do know NOT to give up, because good things are around the corner.

This week has been like that.
I almost had to fly back to Maryland to buy my house!
But, my dear friend, Cynthia, answered my tearful phone call, and saved us.

MyCowgirl has just started back to school full time and she's doing well.
Then, she was in a car accident, and now in need of a car. She spent three
days looking this week and found nothing. However, quitting school and going
back to work full time would be the wrong decision, and she's not going to do that.
Good things are to come, its just getting to that point.

Another friend has had so many challenges in life. She's on the path to good
things, but right now there is worry. "Will all my efforts go up in smoke?"
Life is just hard sometimes. We don't see, but we keep going. Sometimes
slowly.

It is Hope that continually burns within us.

And, that's what I'm most grateful for today. Hope that tomorrow will bring
a new day, new chances, new opportunities, new mistakes to learn from, and
new progress to be made.

I am tired, from all that has transpired in my life in the past six months,but
I have hope it is for the best, and that a good life exists for us. Its just around
the corner now. Seven more days until we move in. I am impatient. I want
that day to be now, but I have hope that it will come soon enough. I am SOOO ready.

A Picture

I have finally cut and pasted a picture off the web of our new home.
Because its winter, it looks different with the aspen tree bare and
no flowers in bloom. But, its the same stucco house and 3 car garage,
which we'll be using for the motorcycles and trailer. And, hopefully
some other stuff too, because our basement storage area is about
1/5 what we had before. Part of that is intentional, though, in our
desire to reduce and simplify. Now we will be forced to have less
with no room to put it all.

The past week has been spent trying to get the house ready for us
to move into at the end of next week. If you know me well enough,
you know that making big decisions can be challenging for me. Well,
I even struggle picking dinner at a restaurant - too many choices. I
really want MyMike to validate things for me, then I'm good to go.
Nevertheless, I have made some decisions without him, and I was
feeling pretty good.

Then came the selection of carpet. So far, this has been the largest
expense, and after a day and a half of going back and forth between
two stores, I had Mike go with me, and he easily made the decision.
Thank you. Good. That's done. Here the installer is separate from
who you order the carpet from. Fortunately, he can get a great pad
for a great deal, so I keep telling myself its worth it.

On to the painters and wood floor man. These are not MUSTs like
the carpet. The previous owner had cats, and Mike and Steven are
allergic, so we had to replace carpet. However, all walls are green, which
we don't want everywhere in our house, and the wood needs to be
refinished, so we might as well do it all before we move in. I met them
all at the house yesterday afternoon. Only the first bid is in so far. All these
decisions all at once, . . . I am about at the end of my decision-making limit.

In the past couple of weeks I've heard a number of comments about how great it must be to be living in a hotel, some even referencing the "Suite Life of Zach and Cody." Without sounding like I'm whining too much, I'd just like to put a couple of things in perspective. 1. The maid only comes by once a week since we are staying for a month. The rest of the week, the burgundy carpet looks bad. When I asked if I could just borrow the vacuum quickly in between, I was told No. 2. Although I brought a crock-pot, there is no room in the mini-fridge for anything more than a gallon of milk, a quart of juice and a small jar of mayo, thus I either must grocery shop every day and/or all leftovers must be thrown away. 3. We cannot afford to eat at a sit-down restaurant every single night. When we do, I always order a salad. Our vegetable consumption has taken a hit, and we miss them all very much. My goal before was half of our plate was veggies. . . I am a new fan of Subway's salad - best $5 I've spent lately. 4. Laundry with quarters in a shared machine. Enough said. 5. This is not a suite. This is two beds, a TV, a desk, a table, two chairs, and a bathroom and closet. That's it. Oh, and our company is picking up the tab, so we really can't complain. We will, however, really be happy to finally get to move into our home! There are things we like, still . . . 1. The indoor pool is great and open until 10. 2. The atrium area is beautiful with leather sofas and a fireplace. 3. They allow Alex, our guinea pig, to stay with us. 4. Free cookies every evening by the front desk. 5. Our location is within a mile of 40 restaurants. One more lesson to teach me not to ever judge. You never know how good or bad something is until you've actually lived it.

Our New Home

What a week it has been for us! The weather, a perfect 50-55 degrees. No coat required to househunt for three days in a row. After seeing a dozen, and going back to a few of those more than once, we found a home we think we can live in for the rest of our days. Its a ranch house, which will be different for us, and the closest neighbor behind is over half a mile, so we'll have lots of views and wildlife once in a while I'm sure. After making an offer, counterings, etc. we got a good price, and we close the 21st of Jan. - less than two weeks! Sweeeet! After that we'll put in new carpet and have the wood floors refinished, and be ready to go before the 1st of Feb.

Its all happening so fast. . . just in time for a big snowfall. It was coming down on the way from church, and the bishop cancelled seminary for tomorrow morning. The good news for me, when I move, seminary will be starting at 6:30 a.m. and the church is about half the distance from us than it used to be. We won't mind a shorter drive and sleeping in another half hour. Since our house isn't in Colorado Springs, where most of the high schools have release time, but Monument, this is one of the sacrifices. But, there is a bonus for Little Buddy. 6th grade here is still in elementary school, which is only seven houses down from where we live! So, he can walk to school, make new friends, and when he goes to Jr. High (only 7th and 8th grades) next year, he will be riding the bus with kids he already knows. He was feeling quite concerned about that last week, so this is such a blessing for him. He is much happier now and so am I.

We were so welcomed at church today. My favorite moment was when we stood up after Sacrament meeting was over to go to our next classes, four young women came up to MyGirl, quickly introducing themselves, telling her, "You come with us this way." By the time YW was over, she was with a different group of girls who had a party planned, realized one of those girls lives in our subdivision, and is her age and only moved here a month ago herself, and everyone was so excited she was coming to seminary! When I asked her how many Laurels were in her class, she said, "Too many to remember." What an answer to our prayers. Our girl has needed some friends to want to hang out with her for a long time!

There are nine elders serving full time missions from our ward, (the Palmer Divide Ward,) one sister, and one couple. The ward was recently divided, about seven months ago, and now is settled down and were eager to welcome us in. It felt wonderful! I loved that there was an "empty-nesters" sign-up going around with almost a dozen couple's names on it, plenty of families with teenagers and plenty more with little ones. Its a good mix, and feels like a great ward to finish raising our family in.

So, that's the good news - life is coming together. Home, school, ward. First page of the first chapter, so far, so good.

I'll post photos later in the week.

A New Chapter

Well, the chapter of our Maryland life is closed. As Mike and I walked through the house together one last time, making sure we hadn't left anything, that all the lights were off, the keys, openers, and manuals were in place, and that it was clean for the new owners, we finally got to the front door. We stopped, he wrapped his big arms around me, and I just had a good cry. I'd been so busy the previous couple of weeks, I hadn't given much time to my emotions, but here it was. It was over. Time to turn off the entry light, lock the door, and drive away.

"We've had a good twelve years," he said. I couldn't say anything, only nod. In truth, our family has grown so much over this time. None of us will ever be the same. We have been blessed by so many good people. There has been so many personal victories by every member of our family. And yet, when I said the dinner prayer over our Subway sandwiches that night, I felt very strongly that we are going elsewhere to be influenced by more good people. And, we will influence others too, and that is what lies ahead in the next chapter.

LittleBuddy turned to me in the car somewhere in West Virginia and said, "I want to go back home. I know every nook and cranny of our house even with my eyes closed." Our homes do hold special feelings for us, especially in our childhood memories. I remember feeling the same way about my house on Lemon Avenue in Long Beach. Fortunately, he is a map-guy, so giving him the Rand McNally atlas kept him busy and looking ahead, not behind.

If lives have chapters, this next month could be called, "The Temporary Home." A hotel room with 10 suitcases, 17 boxes, a mini-kitchen set up in an area the size of a small closet, a few more miscellaneous stuff moving companies won't take, and laundry to be done upstairs in the coin-operated machine is going to make for a long month. Fortunately, the hotel itself is lovely, and has what I am now referring to as the family room - an area filled with leather sofas, comfy chairs, and a fireplace, just past the next room and around the corner from our room. LittleBuddy and I played farkle and Chinese Checkers today on the sofa table. It also has a 24 hour indoor pool, a well-equipped fitness center, and fabulous restaurant. We had our first two meals today there. Financially, however, I need to get to a grocery store soon.

It was great having Shaena and Steven home in Maryland and then able to help us drive across the country. Both of them love Colorado Springs, and can't wait to really live here. That helped the younger two, who although willing, are more nervous about actually living here. Although I miss having them close to me already, and they only left this morning, I am grateful they are headed back to the college chapter of their lives. They are great students, and will continue to grow and make great progress there.

Today I have just been exhausted. I've had two naps in my hotel room and have yet to leave the hotel premises. I drove the Suburban the entire way, pulling our trailer behind it. When the wind was blowing and I had to hold tightly to the steering wheel, I thought of Elaine's Dalton talk about doing Hard things. Even if our challenge only lasts a few hours or a few miles, knowing we are capable of doing more than we really want to, and doing it, helps us to grow. I only had a near miss once, and fortunately I saw the speeding black car in time not to hit it as I was changing lanes. We were traveling in a caravan, with me (and the GPS) leading the way, Shaena/Steven behind in the Infiniti, and Mike bringing up the rear in the car with 180,000 miles. The rest of the family gasped watching my stupidity, and later breathed a sigh of relief. I felt myself blush with embarassment. I'm grateful for the Lord's little whisperings, to check again. He saves me so often in so many ways every day. I am especially grateful my dad gave me the advice to drive along I-64 instead of the 70 for the first half of the trip. That gave us perfect weather the entire time, and made for a much easier trip than it could have been.

While it was a good road trip as far as road trips go, we did lose Mike in downtown St. Louis. He assured us that he got a better view of the Arch than the rest of us. We all met up later at a Steak and Shake down the road, and everything was right with the world again. A coyote the size of a large German shepherd ran in front of me in southern Indiana, and fortunately I didn't hit him and I realized I don't associate coyotes with Indiana. What would normally be miles of cornfields, was miles of brown fields and farmhouses. Still, it is a beautiful country and a good one. Listening to Christian stations on the radio I felt humbly reminded that the breadbasket of America follows the bread of life because they love Him. I am grateful to be an American and while I think of my friends "back home" a lot and hope they're all doing as well as can be expected, and I hope to see them again, its time for the next chapter in our lives.

I surely don't want to drive all the way back, so here we go. I'm ready. Tomorrow the house hunting begins. A new life awaits. Its the ultimate new year's resolution - to create a new life in a new place, making all new memories, and redefining myself in hopefully, better ways. I hope the next twelve years we can look back again, and say, These were good years.