packing like crazy people

guess what?! we're not homeless! praise the Lord, we are able to rent the short-sale house until we find out if our offer on the house is approved by the bank. yes, i know. if it's not approved, we will have. to. move. again. but ya know what? if we'd rented somewhere else, and the sale is approved, we'd have to move again anyway. so we are taking it one month at a time, praising God for a roof over our heads. we were seeking out rentals however we could, but God closed door after door. and then... we realized that He left this door wide open. so we are walking through this door with the peace that He has provided and He will continue to do so.

here's what it's looked like at our house lately...


i thought it was safe to let the girls help me pack towels! and now as i am about to pack my dishes tonite, i'm wishing that box of towels weren't in this pile somewhere....


i may go searching for that box tomorrow if i run out of packing material. and i must say that amelia's poor little room smells so strongly of cardboard boxes right now. you know that smell?!? i am actually starting to be concerned that it is not good for her to be breathing it! (has anyone done any research of toxins in cardboard?!?!?)

tomorrow, i am heading over to the new house to spend the day cleaning out and cleaning up! i cannot wait! my sweet sister-in-law is having the kids over for the day, and i hope to get so much done. brian will join me after lunch to rip up some carpet and to help me trash the leftovers from an estate sale. when i say leftovers, i mean junk. there are some functional storage pieces and whatnots that i'm keeping... they are far from antiques, but they will surely be great for shelf space!

once i get the place de-junked, i will post some pictures on here. a clean palate. i can't wait. and then we move our junk in. :) we have our list of ideas of what we want to do to this house, but since we are just renting for now, we are making a concerted effort to put as little as possible into the house until the sale is approved and the house is officially ours.

so this weekend is clean-up, and monday night is moving night! it's a busy busy weekend!

the difference a month makes

exactly one month ago, our house was put on the market.

one week later, we had an offer! (thank you, God!)

another week later, we'd finally agreed on a selling price with the buyer. (nothing short of a miracle.)

and now, here we are...two and a half weeks from handing over the keys to our first home.


so. it's been a busy month to say the very least. lots of praying and house-hunting and praying and number crunching and praying. we've found a house that we absolutely love. it's charming, it's spacious, it's in a beautiful neighborhood... and it's a short sale. so we are living the saying "hurry up and wait". i expected the house-selling to be the part that would take awhile. boy was i wrong. we've jumped through several of the hurdles involved with selling, and now we are so close to our new house that i can just taste it. i can picture my dishes in the cabinets (that um, need to be painted. yeah.) and my food in the pantry (cue hallelujah chorus). i can picture my grandmother's dining room table next to the fireplace with room to stretch. and i can picture my children grinning from ear to ear as they ride their bikes up and down the quiet street. i can also picture us with our new list of projects to make this house our home. :) don't worry. we are not going to touch the kitchen cabinets for a long, long while.

if i had the phone number of the short sale case manager, you betcha i'd be calling him every week to see where he thought my couch should go or to ask what color he would paint the bathrooms. by week 4, surely he'd stamp "approved" on that paperwork, don't ya think?! we have no idea how long this short sale process will take, or even if it will be approved at all. we are praying for patience and God's guidance through these unchartered waters... and praise the Lord our realtor is awesome. to quote her, she is a bulldog, and she is not letting go of this bone. :)

we are still working on where we will live as of april 29. i ask for your prayers with that as well. i know God will provide. my heart knows this. but my head freaked out just a little bit this afternoon. i've been the one telling brian, "we will NOT be homeless!"....and then about 2pm today, after several unsuccessful phone calls, i called him, crying, "we're going to be homeless!" God will provide. God will provide. God will provide.

in the meantime, we have lots of boxes to pack. i have lots of memories to go through. we'll start with this one...


7 years ago, april 10, 2004, brian proposed to me in the gazebo in our future backyard. and for the last seven years, God has blessed us in this little house. He truly has blessed us. i hope that in the next two weeks, in the midst of wading through boxes and packing paper, i can take time to enjoy our last little bit of time in our first house. more reminiscing to come...