History Surrounds Us

Steve's grandma passed away a few weeks ago and we went up to Huron, OH for the funeral. While we were there, we went through the house and found many family treasures. One of them was a box of letters exchanged between Steve's grandparents while he was serving as a Sea Bee during WWII. I nominated myself to go through all the letters, type (and possibly scan) them all up and put them together in some sort of a book. Needless to say, I have a big project underway. . .

I started the project by picking a random bundle of letters. It ended up being the very first stack (I've pieced together that he left 2 days before Christmas 1942) including letters from January & February 1943. I've only been through about 30 letters, but I feel like I've read years of their lives. I was even surprised to find out when they started dating (around 1938) and their desire for marriage so early on in the project process!! I can't wait to get through them all to see what other treasures are buried within the words.

All the letters that I have gone through so far are written from Carl to Kay. He was a very detailed and faithful writer. He wrote a letter every day to her, so the letters read more like a journal. He describes life in camp (located in Rhode Island), training, and preparing to head to the tropics. Whenever he explains something, he draws pictures and puts in side commentary -- you can really see his humor, character, and good spirit in the simple words he used. As I type up the letters, I think to myself, I wonder if he had any idea that his grand kids would someday read those letters. By his in depth explanations, I think he did.

Why I'm behind on blogging. . .

We still have not settled on a house. In the past week alone, we've viewed around 10 houses. One of them is really sticking out at the moment, but I'm just going to keep you all in suspense since we really haven't committed to a house yet. (Don't want to ruin another dream. . . ).

Last week was spring break for the schools in Jackson, so I had a lot of free time last week (spent grocery shopping, cleaning, hanging with friends). This week, however, is a different story. I've subbed 3 days this week which has drained me quite a bit. One day was for a 5th grade class I'd already subbed for, and the two other days were at the high school for Resource Algebra (haven't really figured out what that means, except for students who need extra help).

Next week (Wednesday to Sunday to be exact) my sister, her husband, and their three girls are coming to visit! Emily & Allie are on spring break and they wanted to spend it at their favorite Aunt Zee's in Tennessee. I'll give a full report on our shenanigans but here's some of the plans -- Memphis Zoo trip, possible slip-n-slide, crafts & craziness.

The week following after the Adams' Spring Break Extravaganza, I will be subbing for a 1st grade class for 5 days in a row! I think that one subbing experience will double the amount of times I've subbed at that school in the past 6 months. Ha!

A Crushed Dream

A week ago tonight, we headed out to see another house. Steve had found it online and showed me the pictures. My response was, "it's nothing special." Boy was I wrong. We just walked through a couple of rooms and I looked to Steve with a "this is THE house" kinda look.

The house is situated in a "ritzier" neighborhood, but was on the lower end of the price bracket. (For you house novices, this means a potential in making money on the house if we can sell it at the higher end of the bracket). As we walked through the house, our Realtor informed us that there were a couple of offers just put into the house and if we were interested, we'd have to make a quicker offer. There was only 1 downside to this house-- the "death" driveway. Okay, maybe it wouldn't bring about death, but it could bring about damage to the car. The driveway was very steep & required you to enter & exit on an angle (it took us a couple times up and down the driveway to figure this out).

After viewing the house, we headed home for dinner (after dinner is when we drove back to the house to experiment with the driveway to see if it was a deal breaker). Once we scratched the driveway off the "con" side of our list, we called our Realtor so that we could make an offer. We met her back at her office and wrote it up.

I was trying really hard not to get excited about the house, but I could just see us living in it. I had already figured out the paint scheme & furniture set-up. We had to wait the weekend to hear back from our Realtor. Yesterday, we got the call that the seller had decided on a different offer.

My dream was crushed.

Here we are a week later -- we fell in love with a house, made an offer, lost the house, and back to square one. We also found out that one of our "top picks" (Weatherstone) has been sold. We've gone through all the houses for sale in Jackson and have come up with a new list of potential houses. Hopefully, we'll get to see some of the houses this weekend and maybe fall in love with another house.

My Very Own Mechanic. . .

Last week, Steve had to be in Cincinnati for another leadership training conference. We decided to break the drive up over two days. We left Tuesday night after he got off work and headed for Bowling Green. We decided to stop for ice cream at a McDonald's adjacent to our hotel. When we got back in the car and pulled out of our parking spot, we immediately knew there was something wrong with the car. Steve reparked the car, got out and checked things out. He said, "Oh, it's just a flat tire."

I have never changed one before, I know the basics of the process but have never had to do it. Apparently (and lucky for me!) Steve is a tire changing pro! He completed the whole process in less than 30 minutes. I was so impressed how quickly he got to work and the attitude he had about the whole process ( I know no one wants to change a flat tire, but he never once complained ). All I can say, is that God was with us because:

1. We had hit some serious pot holes about an hour back which is probably when the tire blew, meaning we should have been changing the tire on the side of the road instead of in a parking lot.

2. Steve wanted to stay in Louisville to make the next day's drive shorter; however, a last minute decision and hotel booking made us go to Bowling Green instead.

3. I have made the trip up North by myself several times & never had a flat tire. It is a rare occurrence that Steve & I were making the trip together & in the same car!

4. Once Steve put the spare tire on, it was flat as well. Right next to the McDonald's was a gas station with a working air tank!

5. We weren't rushed for time -- since we decided to break the trip over two days, we were able to stick around Bowling Green the next morning to get all new tires put on. Which brings us to. . .

6. 4 minutes away from the hotel was a Walmart!

7. P&G provides Steve with a traveling stipend which was the exact amount for new tires, gas & hotel!!

If that's not enough reasons that God provides, then you'll never find any other proof!! The rest of the trip was smooth sailing. We got to visit with Scott (Steve's sister's fiancée) and make a trip to Ikea. I stayed with Steve in Cincy on Wednesday night, and my mom & amazing friend April came to pick me up. Steve drove up Friday night & I met him in Carmel (45 minutes from my parents' house) to visit with some awesome friends from college. On Saturday, Steve and my dad tackled our taxes (and played computer games of course!) while I made some sweet cash judging a piano contest.

I took piano for like 12 years and even got my "piano teaching certificate" (not quite sure how, ha ha). A few years ago, my piano teacher called me up and asked me if I'd like to judge the very contest that I had done since I was five. The contest involves months of preparations of 2 songs per category (you pick as many categories as you want to do. example: patriotics, hymns, sight reading, solos, duets. . . ). I got to judge hymns, levels 1-5. Needless to say, I heard the same 5 songs all day long.

On Sunday, I got to help my mom set up for my brother's wife's baby shower. I was there for the beginning, but Steve and I had to hit the road to make it back to Jackson at a decent time. We woke up to the news on Monday morning that Steve's Grammy had passed away. She had been battling cancer and sick for awhile. It's always hard to say goodbye to a loved one, but we have the assurance of knowing that she's no longer in pain & in a way better place than we are!

The Search Continues. . .

I've been pretty busy this past week with subbing, babysitting, and researching houses (which is why I haven't blogged all week, sorry to leave you all in anticipation. . . ). We met with our realtor last weekend to view some houses, and then again this weekend. On our second trip, we actually saw a couple of repeat houses in order to look at some areas of the houses we were concerned about. As of now, we're doing to three favorites. We aren't committing yet to one specifically because we aren't going to make any offers for another month or so (since we're locked into our rent until June).

Here are some pictures of our top houses (in no specific order). Each one has something different to offer and we're still weighing the pros & cons of each. Plus, if one of them gets nabbed by someone else, it'll help us in making our decision since we like them each equally.

Weatherstone

This house brings the most square footage. It's a whole lot of house for a minimal price. If we were to choose this house, we'd have to buy all new appliances as well as resurfacing the floor in the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, & laundry room. So it would not necessarily be "move-in-ready".

Executive

This house has a BEAUTIFUL backyard & deck. The kitchen appliances are in need of an updating and most of the house would need some cosmetic fixes (like paint, new hardware, carpets cleaned). There may also be an issue with the roof that would need tended to, as well as an issue with the hard wood floor in the dining area.

Parchman

This house is the smallest house on our list (as well as the cheapest). It has recently been remodeled and would require zero work from us. We just have to weigh the option of move-in-ready versus the space.

This process has been quite overwhelming at time. I hate making decisions and "shut-down" when I have too many options in front of me. Steve has been doing a great job of limiting options and helping to make decisions through the process. It's crazy to think that one of these houses may be or new home. However, it may also be that we haven't seen our new home yet. Again, it's still too soon for us to make an offer or get attached to a house, so we're continuing our online efforts. As of now, these houses are what we're interested in. It's just so tough to weigh them against each other when each one offers something completely different from the other. Good thing we still have some more time before a decision must be made.