We're Home!

As usual, it has taken me awhile to get back to you. I'm going to get better at this, I promise, because we are getting HIGH! SPEED! INTERNET! At my house. Didn't think it could happen, did you? Well, I didn't either, because I was beginning to think that high speed internet didn't really exist, that it was just some horrible lie that someone made up to antagonize people like me who lived on the other end of the earth. Since we FINALLY moved at Thanksgiving, we actually live within 15 minutes of the city, so we have access to natural gas AND cable. (GASP!) In fact, we are 15 minutes from everything, and my husband finally said to me about a week after we moved, "I don't want to hear you say 'Now we're close to...' anymore!" You can tell God was in control of this move, because we are in a middle ground, about 15 minutes from everywhere that we go during the week - church, school, and town. With gas prices these days, I praise Him every day for helping me get my new house!

I won't bore you with the wonderful details of moving, other than to say that we had quite a crew helping us: Brad's father, Brad's older brother and his two kids, Brad's baby brother, two of Brad's best friends, Leyden, and my mama. I acutally got rid of a large amount of JUNK before we moved. Brad and I sold just about every large piece of furniture we owned. After all, the house we bought is a little over 1800 square feet and we had some major downsizing to do. All we had left were the beds and a few chests of drawers, a small upholstered chair, several outdoor rocking chairs and an end table or three. Of course, I kept my washer and dryer and my deep freeze. So, most of our stuff was boxes that we packed prior to the moving day. (Because I tried to be the best little mover.)

After we moved in to the new Kountry home, we began having some problems. Our phone service wasn't transferred correctly. Our provider put our service on top of the existing service at our new house, so nothing worked. It took two weeks and lots of phone calls to people in several different states to get that straightened out. Starting right after we moved in, every other day when someone drained a tub full of water, water would bubble up into the toilets and continue to bubble up out of the toilets and all over the floors and the nice, new, white rugs. It was clean water, but LOTS of water nonetheless. Let me just say that this wasn't the most pleasant time to live with me. Brad is a saint, he really is. Just ask my mama and daddy and my brother what a saint Brad is - they'll tell you. (My brother warned the man not to marry me and he did it anyway - must be love.) And poor Leyden believed us when we threatened to call the realtor to put the new house on the market, which sent her crashing into "we CAN'T move again" mode. Turned out The Problem was caused by a gi-normous hole in the main sewer pipe going from the house to the septic tank. And this wasn't just a hole, ladies and gentlemen, it was a hole filled with roots at least three inches thick and lots of rocks. I saw it with my own eyes on this handy little video screen when they put a camera down the pipe. After about six weeks of dealing with water in the bathroom floor every other day, and going outside in the wet, mucky grass to flush the lines, our saving grace came in the form of a man named Rodney. Rodney talked to the previous owner, who agreed to pay for the repair of The Problem, and then he came and dug up the busted pipe and replaced it. Of course, it wouldn't be my life if Rodney hadn't broken the water main while digging up the damaged pipe and caused the Almighty Mud Puddle to form in my side yard. But, The Problem is fixed - who cares about the mud! Come Spring, I'll throw some grass seed out there and see what crops up.

Christmas and the New Year came trucking right along regardless of The Problem. And boy were they good! Last year's Christmas was a little thin, what with it being Brad's first year of full time pool business. However, God blessed us throughout the year and we were able to have a nice Christmas. If you ever want something to go right in your life, just do what God says. I promise, it really IS that simple. Because you know, even with The Problem and other such bumpity-bumps in the road that we've encountered with this move, God has blessed us. I tried to keep that my focus through all the fun we encountered the first several weeks here. I kept telling myself (and Brad) that we may be experiencing some inconveniences, but we are all healthy and alive and have so much to be thankful for. I was telling MYSELF this repeatedly, trying to be a good girl and love the Lord and be grateful for all He's given me even though life was dumping a truckload of lemons in our front yard. It wasn't hard to keep my perspective straight when I was reading blogs about folks who were facing their first Christmas without their loved ones who died during the year, and about folks who are facing life-threatening health issues and could die at any moment. I tell you, I am blessed. Beyond mesaure. And I am grateful to my Jesus for those blessings.

Stay tuned... my next post will be about how my dog, Blue, is adjusting to the move.