This Old House

Talk about your fixer-upper! Okay, so I might be exaggerating a bit.... (By the way...this is not a photo of our house)

We just moved in to a different house. We got the keys on the 27th of September and walked in to a mess!!! We were told that it would be cleaned before we moved in. Apparently, "cleaned" doesn't have a universal meaning! The tenants were smokers; nicotine dripping off of everything!

Last week, the Dow Jones rose 20 points when someone bought an insane amount of Clorox Wipes! (That would be me).
20 gallons of a highly toxic-nicotine-covering primer, and 25 gallons of paint (white trim everywhere) , 65 hours of painting (Thursday-Monday), lots of take-out, Starbucks coffee and we have a very clean, newly painted house!!!! Painters included: Me, John, Brianna and Tiff Marie along with the Hannula Family and some folks from our caregroup who gave up their weekend and help us out. We could not have done it without them (especially that vaulted ceiling in the entry way...thanks Diane!)

It's been a week and 2 days and we are all moved in! I even started doing some yard work. We have a beautiful yard; it just needs a little TLC.

We are so grateful for this house. It is just 2 miles from Jordan's school. The backyard is very large and has many pine trees and every so often we hear a train go by in the distance. We don't know how long we get to be here, but we will enjoy every day.

At first, this whole ordeal paralyzed me. It seemed so overwhelming and unfair! But once again, God assured me that HE would give us strength to do what needed to be done, HE would provide the help we needed, HE would give us grace and peace. HE did!

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:16-18