This Old House.

Home is where your pillow is. That's what I came up with when I was 15 years old and living at a boarding school in a strange country. In fact, I haven't really lived in one specific place for longer than a year since I was 15. Three years in Germany doesn't count, because every year I changed rooms, roommates, and floors. Three years in Chicago doesn't count because every year I changed roommates, and the last year I changed buildings. Some people don't understand that for MK's, eventually you just get used to moving and changing locations, so much so that you actually feel uncomfortable if you don't.

We've been in our apartment, managed by crazy people (see previous blog post), for about 8ish months. We'd thought about moving to a house eventually, like in a couple years once we'd saved up enough for a down payment. And then when things got really bad at the apartment, we started looking for new apartments to move to as soon as we could. But something crazy unexpected happened, and it happened so dang fast that we now have to stand still and look back at what happened.  Here's a timeline for you.

JAN: Apartment managers give us many many many reasons to yearn for another living situation. We start thinking about moving.
FEB 1: Still thinking about moving, see another nice apartment complex, find out about a loan first time home buyers can get that will give them NO DOWN PAYMENT. We think, cool
FEB 2-4: Talk about possibility of getting a house instead of moving to a new apartment.
FEB 5: Talk to realtor at church about wanting to start looking around. She has a half a dozen houses in mind already.
FEB 6: Call the bank and get approved for a loan, cuz we are awesome.
FEB 9: I go look at 6 houses around the neighborhood. Find the one I like.
FEB 10 (later): Take Robert to the house I like, he's not as impressed. Thinks it's old.
FEB 10: Realtor calls me and tells me another realtor showed the house to different buyers, and they want it. So it's either place a contract on it or lose it.
FEB 11: Take Robert to other 5 houses so he can see why I chose the house I did. He agrees and loves the house I chose. We decide to put a contract on it and wait until Monday to see if the other buyers have a better offer.
FEB 12-13: Panic. Stress. Wonder. Hope. Fear. Anxiety. Anxious.
FEB 13, 5:00pm: Find out the other buyers got scared off and weren't interested in a bidding war.
NOW: We totally got this house and we close the deal on April 8th.

I'll have you know that it was 8 days between the time we decided to look for a house and when we got one. 8 days. 8 days. 8 days.
And it's one of those things that you know God gave it to you. We weren't even supposed to see that house, but my realtor took me there anyways. It wasn't being shown because the basement (yes, full basement) was being gutted, and the owner was really self-conscious about it. And check this, a while ago some people were all ready to buy it, and then some internal scandal erupted with a termite insurance company and the buyers were scared off, leaving it free for the taking. Heck yes. OURS.

So not ONLY is it in a premium location, a couple blocks from downtown, but it has a full basement which we can convert and turn into rooms to rent to college students. Hello people who will pay our mortgage for us! The backyard is big, and it had two old rusty BMW's in it, totally worth something at the scrap metal yard. Hello money to pay for repainting and refinishing the hardwood floors that some silly-face painted over! Hello new awesome house with brand new appliances. Hello yard that I can convert into the garden of my dreams, complete with swing, pond and water slide! (maybe not the water slide.) Also, most importantly, hello place I can cower in when the infamous NWA tornado  scares start pummeling us once a freaking week.

The Lord always provides what's best for us, even if he has to yank us from our path and throw us into an old house that wasn't on the schedule. Isn't it great not to be in the driver's seat? If we were, we'd sure miss out on a heck of a lot.