3, 2, 1 Happy New House!!

The last 18 days have been a whirlwind (has it really only been 18??). I am not sure that I haven’t avoided this post because I was too overwhelmed at the task or too fuzzy on the details to do it justice. Nevertheless…

Rewind to my last post – our 6th anniversary, 12/28/08. We were busy packing boxes and preparing to close on our new home, which we did on Tuesday 12/30/08. We were very productive on Tuesday evening, emptying our mobile attic and reacquainting ourselves with belongings we hadn’t seen in 5 months. The next day we began the process of moving our lives from Payne Street across town – a process we thought might take a full day of work and maybe two u-haul trucks loaded down. Let’s just say that Saturday afternoon (yes – I mean 3 days later) we finished that process. We did spend our first night in our new home on New Year's Eve, which was an exciting way to ring in the new year (and yes, for the first time in years I did actually make it to midnight)! For the next few days, balancing the two locations proved to be more of a challenge than I expected – wanting to be at the new house working and organizing, yet needing to clean and have closure at the rental house.

However, we are in our new home. And we love it. Building a house was a tremendous task; but one that I enjoyed immensely and would do again in a heartbeat. It makes me smile each time I walk into my kitchen and see my black granite counters and hardwood floors and think, “This is just what I wanted.” What a treasure to be able to design your home into something you love.

Here are the pictures of the interior final product. Thank you to the many people I encounter on a daily basis through face to face interactions or blog comments who have complimented us and encouraged us along this journey. Your encouragement helped me be confident that we were doing a good thing. Enjoy the slide show!

(Disclaimer: I am a little neurotic about organization. If you can’t identify with that, you probably want to skip this paragraph.) Settling into the house was (and still is) much more difficult this time than in the past – mainly because we have a 14 month old underfoot constantly calling for our attention and time. And she deserves it – so she gets it. There are still boxes unpacked, and pictures unhung, and a garage full of things with no “home” yet - and it’s driving me completely mad. At night I get this “I think I might explode” feeling when I try to balance being a mom and wife and all the activities that go along with those roles, with the internal urge to get the house “fixed”. And to be quite honest with you, I fear I am doing a pretty stinky job filling all of my roles right now. Thus a vicious cycle - feeling guilty about not being a good mom/wife/etc. yet wanting to ignore all of those roles to finish the task at hand. As I have battled these demons, I came across a Christmas version of 1 Corinthians on a friend’s Sunday School class blog and it really gripped me with conviction. Oh how I lose perspective sometimes. So, I adjusted it for non-Christmas plain-old life, and plan to frame it and hang in my kitchen as a visual reminder of prioritizing my life correctly. Here’s my version; those of you who see me regularly please hold me accountable.

Perspective from 1 Corinthians 13

If I decorate my house perfectly with exquisite flowers, pristine vases, perfectly leveled pictures, and fine rugs, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of cakes, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, sing at the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I bake meals for friends in need, attend a myriad of social gatherings, attend church regularly, and sing in the choir, but do not focus on Christ (and share Jesus), I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Can I tell you a couple of things to do and not to do for people who are in the process of moving? Please know that I don’t mean this to be as a complaint, but I realized through this process that we do so much for people who have babies, or experience loss, and we tend to forget that a move is a major life change (read: ministry opportunity) as well. We had amazing servants helping us physically move our belongings, but I think that those of us who maybe can’t physically help can minister in other ways:
1. Drop off a meal or deliver a restaurant gift card to the family.
2. Offer to babysit children so that adults can be productive without constantly having attention diverted to a child.
3. Don’t ask people two days after they’ve moved whether they are settled – they probably aren’t. Along the same lines, don’t tell people how quickly you got settled when you moved. If they are like me (slightly neurotic I guess?) that only adds to the guilt they feel for not being settled.

One of the neatest things about this process to me was watching God’s plan unfold for us. We sold our house in 8 days. A rental house (clean, big, and convenient) was immediately available to us for as long as we needed. We build a house we love in 4 months and 2 days (not the year that some friends projected). And to put the cherry on the top, the day before we closed on the house interest rates fell one more time – to me that just stirred something in my soul that said, “Here you go Mark and Sarah. Here’s one more specific blessing, just because I love you.” God is good.