Jeremy had just taken the girls out for their daddy/daughter date night, and I had just settled deep into my favorite ugly upholstered rocking chair (some day, I'll post of picture of it) to catch up on my blog reading before soaking in the garden tub and then taking my new library book to bed with me when the doorbell rang.

Good thing I'm not already in the tub, I thought to myself. A teen girl who I have never seen before stood on my front porch. "Hi," she greeted me cheerily but a bit nervously. "We just found a snapping turtle at the pond, and my dad said to come tell you guys so your girls could come out and see it. He said they get really excited about turtles and things like that."

Yeah, really excited is a major understatement, but I let it pass as I thanked her and explained that they were out on a date tonight. I closed the front door, and then ran to the back door to look out at the pond. Who is this person who goes out of his way to spread joy like this? The dad at the pond did not look familiar to me, but he was far away and not facing me at the time. His daughter joined them, and together they hauled a large snapper back to the pond.

You want to know something? I could share story after story of my neighbors (not just the ones next door and across the street but throughout our whole little subdivision). Stories that would make Norman Rockwell break down and cry his eyes out, but it boils down to this. THIS is why I love my neighborhood so much: We care about each other, not just in times of crisis, but also in times of fun, always looking to spread the love.

It's January third, already? I guess that means it's back to the real world again, huh.

I took a blogging break for the holidays, and enjoyed every minute of it. Jeremy had the week between Christmas and New Year's off, so we whipped our house into shape. Now there's nary a box in sight. (If you don't count the boxes of off-sized girls' clothing stacked in the basement or the skinny boxes "hiding" between my couch and the living room wall. They contain, I think, large hanging decor that would make our home gorgeous, but gorgeousness is on hold until we are completely organized...and until Jeremy feels like working on the gorgeous.)

We were going to hang fun stuff in the dining room tonight, I have a large clock and three small paintings to go up, but we've all come down with some weird stomach bug that forces all thoughts of decorating from our minds. Well, I was victorious over that symptom, but the rest of my family hasn't been.

Speaking of decorating, the girls love hearing Fancy Nancy books read to them, and Fancy Nancy enjoys decorating everything in sight. Last night, Liberty happily confided to me that after she went to bed, she was going to make her room "sooooo fancy!" I nodded and said something like, "Oooh, that sounds like fun."

A few hours later, near midnight, Daddy discovered that Liberty had sneaked to the bathroom closet and pilfered three bottles of bathtime body paint. She then used them to make all of the walls in her room fancy. Streaks of blue, purple, red and pink and a beautiful smell greeted him when he checked on them before his own bedtime. Liberty told us that Mercy did it, and we believe her since a large concentration of the paint hovers over Mercy's crib. The trouble comes with the question, "How did Mercy get the paint?" You see, Mercy cannot get out of her crib.

We hosted a scrubbing party in the middle of the night last night, and this morning, I noticed a small area of blue that we missed, but it is so high up on the wall that I'm still trying to imagine how Liberty reached that particular spot with her paint.

I have heard nothing from my literary agent. Their literature promised a response within three to five business days, but I've been telling myself that the lack of email from them is due to the week full of holidays. I mean, everybody has to take a vacation sometime, right?

Somebody please say, "Right," convincingly.

Since moving, anytime I come across an item that doesn't immediately have a home, I've been taking it to my bedroom to sit until I have time to organize an adoption league. Well, today, I'm hitting my room and hitting it hard! When I'm done with it, it will be the cleanest, most organized room in the house. I declared it to be a pj day for the girls, and they're loving it. Somehow, pj days are mellower. I, on the other hand, am fully dressed and in action.

After breakfast, I pulled out our new Squiggly Worms game to keep the girls occupied, then I started at my bedroom doorway. I've worked my way around the room, spending a great deal of time cleaning and organizing the desk. I'm saving the desk drawer for the very end.

I took a break to view the armada Liberty and Mercy created in the bathtub using my tupperware bowls, and I would even have a video to post on here for you if I could locate my camera cord. Hopefully, it's in my bedroom, and if it is, I promise you, I will find it before I am finished with that room. (Ironically, it's probably in the desk drawer that I've decided to save for last.)

I am now so close to being finished with the desk, that I'll go ahead and call it finished. Then I'm moving on to the four boxes left to unpack. Sigh. I'm not looking forward to that job.

I stopped about two hours ago for lunch (leftover turkey sandwiches), and after lunch the girls and I made finger puppets with the new kit we -- okay, okay, they -- got for Christmas from Poppaw and Nonna. I would have some cute pictures to share with you if I could just find that camera cord...

The girls are napping now, so it's back to the bedroom for me!

Hi, Everybody!

We slept in our new house last night!!!! Thank you, Tony and Amy!

Still lots more to do, and my internet connection may get lost when we move the computer later this week; we'll see.

When I come back, remind me that I haven't finished my marriage certificate/driver's license saga. (I have another installment for your reading pleasure.)

And now, it's back to packing for me.

HOORAY!!!!

The builder told me this morning: November 17th!

Can it really be true?

My brain is packing up our apartment belongings, fitting boxes into our van, driving them over to our new house and arranging things in just the right spots.

And while my brain does all that work, my children are leaping from the kitchen counters.

Back to reality.

We went to see our new house today. (Just like every other day.)

It was hard to leave it tonight, though.

Since the lights have not yet been installed, we always rush to get there after supper but before the sun goes down, and this time, we stayed even after night fell. We just couldn't tear ourselves away. It felt so good to be there.

Just for fun - and because if I didn't do this, I would cry - I played Pretend Day In Our New House with Liberty and Mercy. We started in their bedroom "sleeping." Then we woke up and rushed to the kitchen to cook breakfast. We took our pretend plates to the dining room table to eat, then cleared our plates and ran with them over to the sink. Then it was back to the bedroom closet to change our clothes. We quickly took our dirty clothes across the house to the laundry room, and then ran to the bathroom to brush our teeth. Then we headed to the toy room and remembered to exclaim "Thank you!" to Nonna and PopPop for the abundance we found there. After a short play time, we decided to do some crafts, so we pulled our pretend craft supplies out of the toy room closet (I wonder if I will be brave enough to store them there when we really move in) and accomplished some imaginary crafts.

Poor Jeremy had finally had enough of our nonsense; he'd been shaking his head bemusedly at me the entire time, and he announced it was time to go back to the apartment. The fact that it was pitch black in the house probably helped him determine our timeline. So I called to the girls, "Clean up your craft supplies, Girls! It's Library Time!"

"Hooray!" "Yay!" they shouted and very quickly picked up their fuzzy balls and glue sticks and glitter and paint and shoved them all into the closet. Of course, I had to make them pick their supplies up off the floor and put them away on the shelves they imaginarily came from. Then they ran to get pretend coats out of their bedroom closet and raced to the (real) car.

Once in the car, Liberty complained, "Mommy, I thought we were going to get into our 'tend car so we could go to the library."

Stopping her imaginary life and living the real one was not fun. About as much fun as stopping mine was.

Sigh.

They say we've only a month left!

A month of blankness. At least on my blog. My life, unfortunately has had so much in it, that I couldn't blog. Someday, I'm sure our family will be able to look back at this month and tell funny jokes about it, or find something to be amused about. (At least I hope we will, as that's my favorite coping mechanism.) But I think instead, we will look back on this month, years from now, and hold each other tighter -- thankful that we're all in one piece. We made it.

I know I promised my facebook friends some details, but I don't really want to re-live it all, so you're going to have to make do with what I chose to share here. (I'm not worried; I know you'll still love me!) :-)

About a month ago, Liberty was severely burned on our stove, and since that time we have been occupied with medically related concerns. She has now been officially released from doctor care, and she is expected to fully heal (as long as I can keep her from picking her scars into bloody messes.)

Now that I've explained my silent blog, let's move on to things that are infinitely more fun to discuss.

Our new house has WALLS and WINDOWS and a BACK DOOR! But no front door. We are having a wonderful time walking through the shell and imagining where to put furniture. (At least, I've been having a wonderful time doing that. Jeremy's brain has been focused on the best spot for boring stuff like speakers and computer equipment.)

We've already made friends with our neighbors on one side; they have a second grade boy. A four bedroom house is going up on the other side of us, so we're hoping a family with young kids will move in next door. The girls LOVE the park behind us, and through it, we made friends with another family in the neighborhood who also have two girls. Their girls are six and eight, but that has not stopped Liberty from bonding with them, and Jeremy and I really enjoy sitting and chatting with their parents. We've met up at the park unintentionally three times now. It's been nice, one of my favorite ways to spend a dwindling summer evening!

But it sure isn't fun to have to leave our home behind to drive back to this apartment when the sun settles below the tree line. One more month!

If Jeremy were here, he'd make me tell you that it's really two more months because this is the beginning of September, and we probably won't be in the house until the end of October, but he's not here! I can tell you that it's only one more month because this is September, and we'll move in during October!

Hooray!

I want you all to be the first to know that as of this morning, Jeremy and I are the proud owners of...


A PLOT OF LAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



We're buildin' a house, y'all!



It's that small plot near the pond and the playground in the neighborhood that I blogged about earlier, and maybe I have shared this with you already, or maybe I haven't (I can't remember), but did I ever tell you the story about my street names?

I haven't?

Well then!

When I first graduated from college and contemplated the idea of living on my own, I made a vow to myself. I promised me that I would always, no matter what, live on a street with a lovely name, and that if I were ever interested in a dwelling place that was NOT on a prettily-named street, I would walk away immediately.

My first apartment sat on the curve of Camelot Circle.

After Jeremy and I married, we moved to an apartment on Aurora Avenue.

We built our first house on Rose Lane.

Although the street name for this apartment is not something lovely like the other places we have lived, at least it's not a run-of-the-mill name that took no imagination on the part of the namer. (Plus, I've convinced myself that this one doesn't count since we didn't choose to live here and don't plan to stay any longer than necessary.)

The street name for the Yellow House was a BIG deterrent for me. The worst of all the types of street names, it was a numbered street like 15th Street or 23rd Street. How awful. I shuddered every time I thought of how my return address labels would look. My only consolation was the fact that since the house had such a looooooong lane, I planned to purchase a custom made street sign with the words Sunshine Way imprinted on it and have it posted at the beginning of the lane. That way, although my address labels would still be horrid, at least I could pretend that I lived on Sunshine Way. (I also planned to call the town's office and request that my street name be officially changed to Sunshine Way, but I did not hold out much hope that they would capitulate.)

But now, I don't need to worry. Our new house will rest on Bear Creek Pass. Isn't it just delightful? Images of stony mountains and blue skies and forests and berries and thickly-furred bears and rushing rivers full of salmon burst into my mind's eye, and I am immediately refreshed and exhilarated.

Home!

Last night, I drove past The Yellow House to get to my friend's home where our Bible Study was held.

And I cried.

Not big sobbing "Why Me?" kind of tears but just tiny, peaceful rivlets of goodbye to the dream.

And then...

And then...

My realtor was at the Bible Study. In fact, she hosted it at her house, and she told me that The Yellow House had NOT been sold. Something held the process up, and as of this moment it is not sold.

Well, whadda ya know?





I told Jeremy this news when I arrived back at the apartment, and he asked, "?"

"I know!" I said right back at him.

The End.















Really now, this is silly, right? We're building a house, for Pete's sake. (Well, actually we're building it for our sake.) But the owners of the plot of land we've picked out have not made any contact with us in the four weeks that we've tried getting in touch with them. Who knows?

(God does!) So we're leaving it at that.

We are proceeding with the building process (which means we are waiting on the land owners to contact us back) and ignoring The Yellow House. If God wants us to have it instead, He's going to have to call us on the phone and say, "PLEASE GO MOVE INTO THAT HOUSE ALREADY, YOU THICK-HEADED DREAMERS." And then we will.

Maybe.

But if He doesn't call us on the phone and say, "PLEASE GO MOVE INTO THAT HOUSE ALREADY, YOU THICK-HEADED DREAMERS," then we will move into our built home instead and live happily ever after.

On Thursday, May 6th, we received the phone call: The Yellow House At The End Of The Lane had been sold to someone else.

Surprisingly enough, I felt only a twinge of disappointment. Granted, other more traumatic events had recently clamped my thoughts into their choking death-grasp, and I didn't have a lot of brain power left over for thoughts of the home that wasn't meant to be. Also, God had hugged me a few days before the news of the house came, and His hug is still giving me peace as I write this. But from the very beginning when Jeremy and I sat across the table from each other in that restaurant and held hands asking God for His wisdom, we have been careful to keep this situation in His hands. He's smarter and sees further, you know. So we had decided that if God wanted us to have the house, HE would do what HE needed to do to give it to us, and if He didn't want us to have this house, He wouldn't. Finding out that He didn't do it was disappointing but not devastating.

Another possible reason for our relatively peaceful resignment to the situation was the fact that Jeremy and I have had time to prepare for the probable disappointment. We had already discussed what our options would be if God chose to give the home to someone else, and we knew we would go ahead and build on the small lot we had picked out before that was almost perfect for our family.

In the week or so since receiving the negative yellow house news, I have reflected on our absolute certainty that we should go ahead with the bid and the wait, which has now caused us to miss out on some of the relocation benefits Jeremy's company would have provided. I have wondered, did we misunderstand God's prompting? Did we make it all up? But having thought about it here and there when time and brain-space has permitted, I've realized a few things. First, I am sure beyond sure that we did follow God's leading. He made it very clear to both of us that we were to put the bid in and wait for the conclusion of the matter no matter what it cost us. He made that clear to us several times over the months when changing our minds would have been convenient.

I don't know all of His purposes, but the second thing that I have realized is that the wait for the house took us on a maze of twists and turns where God's working in the situations became extremely evident and His gentle-yet-persistent pull on some hearts traveled to the top of our prayer lists and has remained there. It has ended up being quite an adventure story with good guys and bad guys, thickening plot lines, justice hopefully coming forth, but more importantly closer relationships with God forming in several hearts! We were introduced to people who have become good friends; we were introduced to people who have desperate heart needs; we were introduced to people who became nice connections to have in this town, and none of that would have been possible if we had not ridden the wave of waiting. We have also made friends with neighbors here at our apartment complex who we would never have met if we had built a house months ago and moved on our time-table.

I'm so glad God is smarter than we are and that following Him is an unpredictable, sometimes wild, always worth-it decision.

So now you know. We are building a house! We chose a plot of land in a wonderful neighborhood where we already have friends who go to our church. I called it "almost perfect" earlier because we won't own a lot of land the way we had wished, but a small park, some rolling hills, a scenic pond and a gorgeous line of trees decorate the property just beyond the limits of our backyard, and we can easily pretend they are ours.

The house plans are finished. The decorator has done her job. The mortgage agent approved it all. Now we just need to sign the paperwork this week and begin negotiating a price for the land.

Let the new adventure begin!

Our lender notified us that the funding is dwindling in the lending program that we are planning to use to purchase the yellow house. This means that we need to begin the loan application paperwork within a week and a half, or we will not be able to purchase our home. (And even then, the funds may not be available to us anymore.)

I called the Short Sale Department at the bank that holds the mortgage and told them that we may have to cancel our offer unless they are able to hurry up the paperwork (MAJORLY hurry up the paperwork...to almost impossible speeds).

The agent that I spoke with named Danny was unable to pass my message on or tell me who the case manager for our house is because I did not have the seller's loan number or social security number (security measures with which I whole-heartedly agree). I asked him if my realtor could call him, and he gave me his phone number to pass on.

When our realtor called that number, she reached a lady who told her that there was no one by the name of Danny in her Short Sale Department but that there were Short Sale Departments all over the US. The woman listened to the message that we wanted to pass on to the bank, and then she responded that for security purposes, she could not pull up the information on "our" house or pass the message on to the appropriate personnel.

We have now exhausted every avenue available to us. It looks impossible, or at best, highly, highly improbable. The rest is up to God.

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Mark 10:27

"What's happening with the yellow house?" people ask me on a regular basis. I love getting those questions because it shows that you care, that you're interested in our lives. Or that you're just nosey. (But that's okay; I like nosey people, because I'm one.)

It's been a long and exciting wait due to complications that have come up. In fact, the wait has been so long that Jeremy and I had started looking at other houses, hoping that one would speak to us. Surprisingly, they all spoke to us. Each one told us, "Wait for your yellow house. Don't waste your time looking elsewhere." We finally decided to wait in quietness and peace, and the past several weeks have been restful to my soul.

But the wait may be close to ending!

Our realtor called the other day to say that an appraisal has occurred which will allow the bank to set an acceptable minimum bid limit. The paperwork is in progress to give the bank rights to sell the house, and soon (hopefully) the call for "highest and best" bids will go out to the two parties interested in the house. (We've been praying that the other party will choose to drop out.)

What can you guys do? Well, if you want, you can ask God to put a specific bid price on our hearts to submit when the highest and best call comes, and as always, ask God to help us remain content with whatever He chooses to give or not give us. Also, Jeremy and I refer to the house as "God's House" because of all the ways He has worked throughout the twisting circumstances surrounding it. Whether we get the house or not, God is obviously using it to draw others to Himself. We know for sure that some hearts are being spoken to by the Holy Spirit through these events. You can pray for those hearts along with us.

I'm beginning to get excited, and I don't even know for sure if the wait is ending.

As you know, I've had a bit of a block in my brain. I think the everlasting winter had something to do with it, and the wait to hear about the house has also frustrated me -- which is silly because we knew when we put an offer in that it would take a while to get an answer.

But here are some recently developed items of interest.

It has been sunshining for several days in a row, and our Mud Puddle has finally surfaced! Later this week we are supposed to get rain, so I am trying my hardest to soak up every ounce of sun possible before then. The girls are attempting to soak up every ounce of mud.

As evidenced by [The Splash Stomping Video] & [The Muddy Boots Game Video].

Two of the liens on "our house" have been signed off on by two banks. They have agreed not to receive any money back from the sale of the house. Another offer has been placed on the home, and Jeremy and I now have to evaluate whether our next move should be to increase our offer to some unknown amount and hope it beats out the other one, or to walk away. We're talking to God about that, and waiting on the bank to tell us when our decision time will be.

Jeremy's traveling for the next two weeks, so I've lined up days of fun to keep us occupied and not missing Daddy so much. Today has been ENJOY THE SUNSHINE Day and Do ALL THE LAUNDRY Day. Two activities which are slightly incompatible. So far, I've succeeded in dashing inside to keep the washer and dryer busy, but I guess I'll just save the folding and putting away for when the sun goes down. After all, Jeremy won't be home to see the mountain of clean clothes developing on our bed.

I find my mind wandering many times during the days and nights to what I've optimistically been calling "our house." I pick out and discard paint colors and furniture. I plan parties right down to the tiniest details. I see the girls RUNNING FULL SPEED through the rooms and hear them giggling together. Then I have to remember, all of this might not happen. Just wait.

Wait? Are you kidding me? I can wait -- because I'm forced to -- and I can choose to have a good attitude about it, but what in the world does patient waiting look like?

I've got no clue.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but a tiny bit of dreaming is fun, you know? So dream a little dream with me.

I will apologize immediately for keeping you waiting on the rest of the story. The cliff-hanger was caused by two main reasons. Well, one main reason and one secondary reason. First, I waited on our realtor for some more information before blogging. (Although I listed it first, that was actually the secondary reason.) The main reason is Jeremy and I have stayed up until around two am most mornings, watching the first and second seasons of The Mole. This activity drained my brain of any creative writing skills it may contain, and any spare brain cells unoccupied by day-to-day living spent their time pondering the question, WHO IS THE MOLE?

And now I must follow a tangent in my brain in order to tell you...well, I cannot tell you what I intended to, because I typed it all out and realized that if anyone wanted to watch season one on Hulu, I would be ruining the ending for you by telling you what I wanted to say.

Now the second season is a different story. I can say what I want without ruining anything, and I HAVE to say this because I have to get my brag on. I totally called that one! From the very second episode, I called it! Go me! And I did it without any of the producers so-called clues. Clues? Yeah, right. Those were not clues. Jeremy and I were so frustrated during the show because we couldn't pick up on any of the clues, but when they revealed the clues at the end of the season, we did not feel badly at all. Those were not clues!


And now back to our regularly scheduled post.


Monday came and went with no further knowledge about where to send our offer. Tuesday came and went. Wednesday came, and my phone rang. Our realtor's name showed on the screen, and I picked it up, "Hi!"

"You guys have been praying hard, haven't you?" she answered with an odd sound in her voice.

I smiled then joked back, "I like the sound of that opening line; tell me more!"

"You're not going to believe this," I could hear the reciprocating smile in her voice, "or maybe you will! I just got an email from the foreclosure office about that house. It goes like this:

You have been selected as the Agent for the Short Sale property at [the yellow house]. Please check your Workflow for any tasks assigned to you for this property. Thank you.

I hesitated, wanting to share in her joy, but not knowing exactly what that message meant.

Our realtor explained with excitement, "This email came to our office out of the blue, and I was copied on it because of my position within our agency. The foreclosure office had no idea that we were searching for that house. They had no idea that we had an offer on that house. In fact, after I did a little digging, I found out that if standard procedures had been followed explicitly, our office would not have been given this listing." When my "wow" sounded weak to her, she further explained. "This means that we know where to send the offer. It means that we have direct contact with the decision makers, and that we can dialogue freely with them."

"YES!!!" This time my answer came strongly!

"But Missy, you still don't understand," she continued earnestly, "In all the time I've been working here, I have never seen this happen, and in fact, if everything had gone the way it was planned to by the company, it would not have happened. This is definitely something that God did!"

We continued talking, marveling at the odd twists this house had gone through to get to where it was right now, and finally I asked a favor, "Would you mind sending me that email? If God does give us this house, I want to be sure that we remember what He did."

She sent the email with this note attached:

Please find attached the message I rec'd from [the bank]. This is the first time in my 5 years in real estate that we have rec'd a message like this! We've gone months with no communication from the bank and this just came in out of the blue. They were not even listed as the #1 bank in line for this mortgage. Pretty much unheard of......please keep praying!!!

I'll be praying as well!

Jeremy and I have submitted our offer, and now we wait for all of the lien holders and mortgage holders (there are several) to decide whether they will accept their losses and not ask for any money from the sale of this home or if they will reject the offer as too low because they will not be regaining any of the money that is due them.

Don't hold your breaths, everybody. This could take a long time...

But you can pray!

Also, I want to say, just because God has done this miraculous thing, it does not automatically mean that He plans to give us this house. I do not pretend to know what His plans are, but I do know one thing for sure: whatever they are, they are the best, and we will praise.

I do not need to tell you, do I, that the two of us prayed all through last week; actually, the four of us prayed because the girls have recently started asking God to give us a home and for wisdom about our home, too. Jeremy spent the week dreaming, describing and slowly dipping his toes back into the pool of reality, and I spent the week treading water in that realistic pool. Intrigued, yes. Wanting this to be Our House, yes. Hoping, no.

Last Saturday, Jeremy and I sat in the van and prayed again for wisdom while we waited for our realtor to unlocked the front doors of the yellow house. Then we walked through them. The pictures online had given me not even an inkling of what to expect. In fact, the pictures online had perpetuated my water-treading in the pool of There Is No Home For Us, but walking through those doors into the entryway and living room changed my perspective. Hope peeked through a tiny crack in the dry dirt floor of my dreams. I turned left and walked through the large archway into the nasty peach kitchen. Hope slipped her head above the crack so that she could get a good look at the kitchen and take note of what paint color might make those cabinets pop beautifully into view. I followed Jeremy through a second arched door into the dining room filled with windows, and hope's entire body jumped through the crack in order to stand firmly in the sunlight with me.

Jeremy and I looked at each other and smiled. We knew. Even if we had to compromise on most of the rest of the house, we knew. This was Home.

Jeremy, Hope and I joined hands and followed our realtor through the rest of the main floor. The laundry room had a mudroom large enough to accommodate a bench and coat/book-bag/shoe-collecting area. This is something that I have been wanting since I began dreaming of a house. The bedrooms told us exactly what role they would like to play in our family as we entered them. The one on the left side of the house would be an office and guest room. The front one on the right would be the girls' room. The back one on the right would be a playroom.

Upstairs, french doors led into the master suite. I actually don't remember much of the master suite except that the room was very large and contained several windows. The bathroom had enough room for a garden tub, but it was missing. The one thing I do remember was the large walk-in shower with double shower heads - another item on our dream list.

Because the home is in the process of foreclosure, it has been gutted by someone in order retrieve some of the value put into it. Many light fixtures are missing, and at least one bathroom sink that I can remember is gone. The flooring throughout most of the home will need to be replaced as we can afford it, but out of our entire dream list, the only two items not already in the home are a fireplace and a garden tub. Definitely things that we can compromise on or add in later.

The two of us did not say much while in the house other than asking questions of our realtor, but we made a lot of eye-contact. Each knew what the other was thinking. Six other homes on our list to-be-viewed that day forced us to keep our appointments, and Jeremy and I did not even discuss The House while driving to our other destinations. Another beautiful home on the list that day checked off most if not all of our dream list items, and Jeremy and I sat down at a local restaurant around two pm to eat lunch and talk.

In order to be fair to all houses involved, we set aside our feelings for the yellow house and created a pro/con list. Our choices were narrowed down to the house we wanted to build which incorporated almost all of our dream items and would eventually need a finished basement, the beautiful house on the cul-de-sac which incorporated a little more of our dream items and came completely ready with no later upgrades or work to be done, and The Yellow House which would require the most work (mainly decorative) to make it ours. Surprisingly enough, even with differing pros and cons for each house, the three were just about equal on our lists. We stopped to pray for the twelve-hundred-and-forty-second time that day, and when we raised our bowed heads and looked up at each other from across the table, we both knew. Together, we pushed the lists aside and said, "We only have passion about the yellow one."

We stared at each other, brains whirling. Slowly, peace and determination took over the thoughts. "Let's do it," I said firmly. "Let's go for it."

Jeremy continued searching my eyes, wanting to be sure I understood the risks involved in putting an offer down on the house. I understood his gaze and nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Because the house is only in the beginning of foreclosure, so many red-tape requirements come first. Additionally, the file for the house has been lost in the United States financial system somewhere, and no one has been able to locate it. If we were to put an offer on the house, that offer would float out in la-la land until someone somewhere saw it and put it together with the missing house file. Once it hit that house file, several mortgage companies would have to agree, come to terms with each other and respond. Our realtor told us the process could take more than a year before we even heard back that our offer had been received, not even accepted or rejected.

In June, Jeremy's relocation benefits will expire. Building a house takes three to four months, so if we start in February, we can be in the newly built house by June and still take advantage of our relocation package. But if we spend time waiting to hear back on the yellow house, and then find out our offer is rejected or that someone else has made a better offer (and someone else HAS made an offer, we just don't know any details about it), our window of building time will go past our relocation benefits expiration date.

We knew all of this, and yet God gave peace. Not only peace but readiness to take action and steadiness to wait it out. "Make the phone call," Jeremy said in his deep take-charge voice that I love.

I picked up the phone and called our realtor. "We want to make an offer on the yellow house."

"Okay!" she knew already, too. "I'll do some research and get back to you on Monday."

To Be Continued...

Since moving to Indiana, Jeremy and I have spent most of our Saturdays either touring the insides of houses to buy, or driving around aimlessly, searching for land to build a house on. When our original six month lease on our apartment expired we did a LOT of praying. What in the world are we supposed to do, God? We looked for nice houses to rent, but none met our standards. Eventually, we signed another six month lease, not because we wanted to, but because we had no idea what else to do and time to make a decision had run out.

With the immediate rental decision made, we went back to focusing on permanent arrangements for our family. Buy or build? Build or buy? We finally settled on a small plot of land and a floorplan that we both are happy with, but still we hesitated to make the final decision to build. Something held us back. Something that neither of us could define. Just a lack of...something. (I actually tried to put a definite word into that sentence, but nothing I came up with was correct.)

Two Saturdays ago, on our way home from The Place With All The Meat, we took a wrong turn and ended up driving along a country road with beautiful homes dotted here and there. It wasn't unusual for the bright yellow FOR SALE sign by the side of the road to catch my attention, because whenever we drive our eyes remain trained to the front edge of yards searching for those signs that could indicate Home! Your Home Is Here. But what was unusual was my lack of interest. I didn't even point the sign out to Jeremy. The almost-decision to build combined with the lack of believing that Our House could really be out there had caused me to remain silent. We've looked at too many houses that did not like us or that we did not like. Houses and I speak the same language. We bond. Even the most deplorable of homes could sing and dance if given the appropriate love and attention, and I've been disheartened by all the housely rejection we have been going through. I stayed silent.

Jeremy spoke up. "See that sign?"

I nodded and followed the nearby driveway with my eyes, trying to glimpse the advertised house. The gravel extended more than a few hundred feet and divided the yards of two different homes. The brown house sat confidently in full view of the road, but only a corner of the yellow house showed itself from behind the trees.

"I wonder which house is for sale," Jeremy mused, "Wanna drive back and see?"

"Eh," I shrugged, intrigued more by the potential for adventure than by any hopefulness of finding Our House.

Jeremy checked his rear view mirror, then put Wynni in reverse and approached the driveway. All the way up the long drive we scanned the houses for clues that might show us which was on the market. We parked in the driveway of the brown house since it was first in line, and from the safety of our van we examined the yard, windows, front porch. Nothing told us that the home might be for sale, and I recommended that we leave before the owners came out to kick us off their property. As we turned around, Jeremy asked, "You want to check out the other house?"

"No, let's just go," I answered. The brown house had not inspired a feeling of home to me; I didn't expect anything more from the still hidden yellow house. We slowly headed back down the gravel drive, still wondering which home might be for sale.

Jeremy and I noticed the neighbor walking rapidly towards us at the same time. "Let's ask him," I suggested. Jeremy eyed the posture of the young man's advance and hesitated. "He doesn't look so happy to see us. Maybe we shouldn't stop to talk." He hesitated, his curiosity got the better of him, and he said, "Well, only if you do the asking. You're cuter." He winked at me.

Jeremy rolled his driver's side window down, and I leaned toward it and said in my nicest, politest voice, "Do you know which of these two homes is for sale?" at the same time that Mr. Neighbor puffed out his chest and said in a deep voice, "I'm a Marine. How can I help you?"

A tiny pause lingered while our words crossed each other in the air. Then the young Marine smiled and his chest became friendly-looking. "The yellow house is for sale. It's empty. You can go look in the windows if you'd like. I'm sorry for my big tough turkey act. The house you were just looking at is my dad's house, and he's been in the hospital for the past three weeks due to lung cancer. He had his lung removed this morning, so I've just come from the hospital. It startled me to see someone staring at his house." He smiled again.

Jeremy and I asked a few intelligent questions about the history of the yellow house and about the neighborhood. Our Marine eagerly gave us a lot of helpful information, and told us the Story of the House, and believe me, it is a Story. Just the way I like it with love and tragedy, heroes and villains and a bitter-sweet ending. Without even seeing the house, my heart began leaning towards it.

After a long conversation, our Marine returned to his own home near to his father's, and Jeremy and I turned Wynni around, pointing her towards the corner of the yellow house. We proceeded along the gravel way, passed the corner of the house and entered the circle driveway in front. Triple archways on the front porch drew our eyes upward and highlighted the dome-shaped window above the double front doors. A chandelier inside the house sparkled in the light. Jeremy gasped. "This is our house. Look, Missy! Look! It's our house!"

I understood his enthusiasm because in all of our dreaming, he had described this entryway right down to the visible chandelier many times in the past. I understood his enthusiasm, but I didn't share it, not completely anyway. His grand entryway is not necessarily my ideal. But, I noticed, with a few tweaks here and there... Yes, the entryway was acceptable, even desirable, or could be easily. After the tweaks, I could readily see the two of us sitting on the front porch, watching our girls playing in the yard. And speaking of the yard, I shifted my gaze to the surrounding land. Mature trees of various kinds pushed their way skyward here and there around the yard. A double-line of possibly fifteen-to-twenty-year-old trees marched along the northern edge of the property, the same trees that had blocked our view from the road. While Jeremy was tall enough to peek into all the windows, I was not, so I contented myself with walking around the perimeter and admiring the view in all directions. The yard felt like home. What a wonderful feeling!

Since our two girls had stayed buckled in the van, I returned quickly from my sojourn around the house. Jeremy took longer, peering into every window on the main level and into the basement. He came back energized. "Missy!" he practically shouted, "This is It. This is Our House!" His boyish, happy grin that I have missed for almost a year exploded from his face. "This is it!"

All the way home, and late into the night, he described what he had seen from the windows. He tried to get me to comprehend the layout, the wall colors, the kitchen cabinets. I loved his happiness; I loved his excitement; I loved the switch in our roles. Normally, I am the happy, dreaming, excited one, and he is the cautious, wisdom-filled, (dare I say it) GRUMPY one. (He would call it realistic.)

For some reason, I could not get my heart to hope. Yes, the yard caused me yearning, but I kept a purposeful clamp on it. The inside of the house would probably not tell me it was my home. We made an appointment to see it the following weekend.

(To Be Continued...)