I'm the LAST person on earth who should be "preachy" about contentment. I get distracted every single day seeking after material things in this world. Trendier clothes. Cuter home decor. Bigger and better party decor. It can suck. me. in. sometimes. It's easy to overlook what's currently around you and hard to appreciate what you already have when you're staring at the newest pinterest idea on how to make your living room that much more adorable!
There's one thing God's been teaching me though. We have been SO content to live in our little house. Sure, it only has a one stall garage. Yes there's 3 bedrooms and only ONE bathroom. No, there's still no fence in the backyard. But after 5 years of living here, we've been slowly updating and painting and decorating and settling in. Both Greg and I love living here. LOVE it. It's home. It's a piece of us and our family. Heck, it's where we started our family. So many good things about this house. And it's kinda nice only having to clean ONE toilet now and then! Yes, small can be good.
Then reality struck. We're pregnant. Again. Except this time with twins. Surprise!
But here's the funny part. We only seriously considered moving for maybe one day. Maybe. Then we closed that door as quick as it opened. "NOPE! We don't want to go through it." Many of our well-meaning friends asked, "Are you crazy?! You can't live there with 4 kids! You guys need to find a bigger place." We even had people offer to look at houses for us. But we stood our ground, "No thanks. We'll make it work. We have no worries about staying here and maybe we'll move in 3 years or so".
We even drew up plans to temporarily move our king sized bed into the dining room! With some quick re-arranging using a portable accordion-style, free-standing wall, we could then free up one of the bedrooms to turn into the twins nursery. It sounds crazy now, but our minds were made up. It was going to work. And Greg and I just knew we could happily survive for a few more years here. We were also 90% done with our basement project, which would provide a large playroom for the kids to romp around.
That was that. We were NOT moving. And we were verbal about it.
So when my dear mentor/ friend called me a week ago, Wednesday and said, "Don't be mad but I scheduled a walk-through for you to look at a house I found for you guys!" I laughed out loud. After I hung up the phone she texted me again...."Get this. They r meeting a realtor at 3:30 today to list so they want u to see it first."
Okay. Sure, what's a walk-through anyway? I love real estate in general and find walking through homes to be absolutely fascinating. It's so fun to see different floor plans and how people design a house. And hey, if my friend was providing a babysitter while my kids napped, then sure I'd go!
So while my friend was on her way over, guess who else pulled up? Greg! Home for a surprise lunch visit from work. He normally texts me, but this particular day he didn't. I gave him the quick story and how I was just going to look at this house because our friend sounded so excited about it, but I had absolutely NO intention of looking twice. He decided to come along with us during his lunch break since he knew he'd probably hear all about it that night. So off we drove as we waved goodbye to the babysitter.
It's a great house. Four bedrooms, two full baths upstairs. A half bath on the main floor, with 2 large living areas, a formal dining room, a new kitchen with granite counter tops, tasteful flooring throughout, and a finished basement. A private backyard with a large deck, hot tub, trampoline, and fire-pit area. It could use some new light fixtures, a new front door, some paint on the walls, and the bathrooms are a bit outdated. But nothing major needs to be done right away. It's located at the end of a cul de sac, in a neighborhood I've always dreamed of living in. There are never For Sale signs in this neighborhood. Picture perfect in my book.
And you know the funny thing? I drove away from the first showing telling Greg in the car, "Yep, this would (hands down) meet the needs of our growing family. But I could also go home and resume our life in that little house no problem. We both know we can make it work. I'm good either way Greg." Only God could have given me such peace in this situation. I'm usually an emotional shopper. Worried that if we walk away, our lives would be over. But this time I was just at peace with whatever God wanted us to do. Thank you LORD!
We asked if the owners would hold off on meeting with their realtor for 24 hours so we could make a decision, which they agreed. We stayed up until midnight that night weighing all the pros and cons. There were very few cons. Especially the price. We would be foolish to walk-away from such a great investment. And with the awesome housing market in our area, we figured we could sell our house pretty quick under the circumstances. So, the next night we took a second walk-through and met the owners in person to discuss it further. On Saturday, we signed a purchase agreement with them and handed them some collateral...so basically there's NO GOING BACK! We are in the process of buying this house! Since there's no one currently living there, the moving date is very flexible.
I took the kids one afternoon to snap some pics on my phone with them. They love the backyard, and I would feel totally safe letting them play back there while looking out the kitchen window.
If you want some more back-story on the owners.....
The owners moved out a year ago. They were empty-nesters looking to down-size. Around the time they moved into their condo, they started hearing of families in their church that needed temporary housing. So they offered some very affordable housing for various missionaries and families who just needed somewhere to go for a short period of time. So cool, right? Well, they are now ready to sell!
My mentor/friend was sitting at a table having lunch with this couple while they were helping set up an event at their church. The couple was stating how they had to hurry to get out of there so they could meet with their realtor in the afternoon to list their house. My friend inquired further, found out the details of this house, and immediately thought of us! So she called me to schedule that walk through.
So there you go. When you least expect it and your happily content with your circumstances, God just might bless you more than you ever imagined! That's been our experience through all of this. The icing on the cake was during the second walk-through when the owners stopped us in their entryway, held our hands and asked if we could all pray over this situation. I was emotionally pretty stable up to this point, and then totally lost it. It means so much to me knowing that this house has been dedicated to God from the very beginning by this sweet family and that they want the best for us, whatever we decide.
And another thing. If God has orchestrated all of this without any of our own doing, I just KNOW he will sell our house without any trouble. We have a For Sale by Owner sign currently in the yard and just trying to spread through word of mouth right now. If we can't sell on our own in a couple weeks, we'll list with a realtor. And if for some reason it all falls through, we still know we can make this house we currently live in work!
I'll post pics of our current house in the next post. For me, they are "good-bye" pics. But the pics will hopefully aide in the selling of our house too.
Ciao!
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