Nomads No More

After having adopted the nomadic lifestyle for nearly one full month, sleeping on our air bed, and letting family and friends tend to our nutritional needs I am more than excited to report that we have found a place to land and to lay our weary heads. After offering prayer after prayer that we would find the right place for us that would allow us to keep our dog, we have found such a place. There were a lot of tears and frustration along the way, there were times when I was ready just to turn around and go back to Idaho, there was a time when we had even planned to re-home our Gus Gus, heck, we even posted an ad on craiglist, but for some reason we only had one response and by the time Kevin called her to talk about the possibility she had already convinced herself that it wasn't going to work out. Gus had even run away twice since we'd been here and once before moving day and each time we found him unscathed. Now you tell me that we weren't meant to keep him.

My faith has been tested and tried but something that I can say for certain is there are no coincidences. When something aligns perfectly, being at the right place at the right time we cannot take credit for it. Instead we have to look to our loving Father in Heaven who hears our prayers and can see the big picture enough to know where in this maze of life we need to travel. Trusting in God is not only such a basic concept but such an important step towards finding happiness in our life.

So many times, we are so worried about what we want that we miss out on what we need. What we wanted was everything we had before, right around the same price, but maybe nicer, maybe more bathrooms. We had been looking at twin homes, and townhomes ( none of which allowed pets without extravagant rental amounts) in the beginning, we had it all worked out and could picture everything just falling into place, we even imagined Gus moving on and being in a new family, maybe having some kids around to play with him and adore him, but that's not how it turned out all.

It all started out with a sturdy wooden sign, placed at the end of a driveway, which read: Home for Rent. One day as my mom was returning from a trip to a nearby thrift store she noticed a sign, knowing that we were looking for a place to rent, she took a mental note of the approximate area where it was and and mentioned that she wanted to show me where it was after we had checked out some other rentals ( which were pet friendly, but not people friendly at all - ick). When she spotted the sign again she slowed the car and encouraged me to jot the number down and call it when we got home and I did, although I glanced at it thinking ick - another falling down house, the paint was definitely peeling and at first glance I thought, "No way". But my mom just kept telling me that she must have noticed the little house for some reason and when we arrived home told me to call about it, I resisted at first, expecting the same old line, that it was not pet friendly or vey big and then I'd be able to cross it off the list. But that was not the response I got at all. The lady on the other end of the phone mentioned that it was a 3 bedroom house, about 1100 sq. feet, 1 bathroom and when I asked if we could have a dog she said, yes an outside pet would be fine. She mentioned that it was about $700 a month, which was a high as we would go with a rental amount and I thought nothing more of it. I even crossed out the phone number and the notes I had jotted down. And that was that.

Well, after a frustrating Friday night in front of the online classifieds, desperately searching for a pet friendly rental, Kevin and I came acrossed a pet friendly town home that was more than we wanted to pay, but we decided to drive by and check it out anyway. So we hopped in the car, with Gus along for the ride, drove by and thought - nah, then we decided if we were going to pay that much for rent, we may as well drive past the very first place we saw and had loved, that was re-done in 2007 and completely adorable. At that point, any price was acceptable as long as Gus could come with us and be an indoor and outdoor part of the family like he had previously been. So on we drove, towards Pleasant Grove, when a thought about the peeling paint house popped into my head, I mentioned to Kevin if he'd like to see it and he said yeah, so I showed him the sign and we pulled into the driveway. It was night time and dark and I asked if he wanted to peek in the windows, so he hopped out and did just that. He returned to the car announcing that it wasn't that bad inside, but I declined peeking and we drove on. As we drove further towards our destination, he explained that the living room was huge, with a fireplace and it looked as though it had been updated inside, the backyard was deep and huge which would be good for Gus, he seemed interested, which I must admit, made me curious. So after having driven by the cute duplex in Pleasant Grove, which was obviously still unrented I suggested another idea. "How about we drive past Wal-mart and stop in to buy a flashlight so I can check out the house too." So, that's what we did. And upon the closer inspection we both took, we were very surprised to note, new carpeting, and updated paint, with a definite charm about it. The peeling paint house was cute, so we decided to call about it again come Saturday morning to see if we could take a peek at it in person.

Saturday morning came, and Kevin called the telephone number, but to no avail, there was a message that stated the hours and the businesss that owned it was closed, I was bummed, but we called my mom to tell her all about it ( asking that she not rub it in that she was right) and we made plans to go with her, so she could check it out as well ( peeking into abandoned houses has long been an interest of hers , so I knew she'd be on board) and of course since we were headed in that direction we may as well stop in at our favorite local thrift store to see if there was any good deals. So we all loaded into her car and stopped at that sign, did our fair share of peeking and then headed on to the thrift store. We made our rounds at the store, and as my mom was still shopping Kevin and I decided to get some burgers just up the road from the thrift store and return to get her when we were done, cause we hadn't eaten and it was getting late into the afternoon. We ate some lunch, got her from the store and headed back towards home, which was south of where we were shopping. Normally, we would have taken the free-way to get home fast, but instead we meandered down State Street and luckily as we drove past the peeling paint house we saw a mini van in the driveway. I got excited and asked Kevin to turn around, maybe someone was showing the house and we could stop in.

First we approached the house, and knocked on the door, then, we peeked in the windows. No one was there, so Kevin called the number on the sign and the same lady answered. She said she was next door at the business and to come get the keys so we could check it out. It wasn't bad inside the front room, like we had noted before the carpet was new and the paint treatments were recent, the rooms were huge, the kitchen wasn't a bad size ( no dishwasher ) but other than that, not too terrible at all. We thought for sure this was where we were supposed to land, everything was aligning just the way we had hoped. Yeah, there was some definite fixes that needed done, but it was heads and shoulders above most of the other places we'd seen. One of the bedrooms was painted bright blue with fish on the wall, the other had beige walls with storm troopers, darth vader, and godzilla traced onto them with a sharpie, but it was a house and it had a 1 car garage, plenty of room for Gus outside, and it wasn't even 3 minutes up the road to Kevin's work. It was almost as if we had heard angels singing, but then. . .

We stepped inside to return the keys to the lady and she told us a few things about the place. She mentioned that there were 4 others interested in it, and we could fill out an application but we'd need to be serious, if we wanted it, we'd have to have a full deposit up front if we were chosen ( $700 - which we did not have). She had explained that the first people that wanted it had filled out an application and been less than honest about their income , she was all set to let them rent it when she discovered their lack of honesty. As we filled out the application my mom chatted with her about our dog, Gus and how he was the nicest dog ever and she loved him, and then she mentioned that if this house rental didn't work out she had a basement for rent, and that it was bigger and nicer and less. She had mentioned that the owner of the business owned each of the houses on either side of the business and he wasn't big into fixing anything etc... Hmmm, that's no good I thought. She mentioned that her basement was also 3 bedrooms and she had couches we could use and how she had just been talking to her husband that very morning about how she'd like to get a nice couple down in the basement so she wouldn't have to worry about the house when they were away. Coincidence? Well, you know what I think about coincidences. That is, if you've been paying attention to anything I've been writing previously. We joked around a little about me tearing up the application for the house, and just renting the basement instead, and we left with a phone number and address, so we could take a look at the basement.

Sunday rolled around and our curiousity about the basement mounted, the day before we had driven by the house ( an older home I'd guess from the 70's) on a private lane, but just what did it look like inside? We called, made an appointment and stopped by about an hour later. We thought it was cute, had some updates the master was huge with a nice big walk in closet, there was new carpeting and tile throughout and it was 1500 sq. ft. for only $600 a month including utilities. Woah, hold the phone we thought, we are interested. Forget the peeling paint house for a 100 more a month plus ultilities. Not to mention they were fine with our dog indoors or out. We explained our situation, that our house sitting gig was ending on Tuesday and we didn't have anywhere to go other than my mom's living room floor on our airbed. We explained that we could pay the rent on the 10th, and was there anyway we could stay here starting Tuesday night. They were both hunkey dorey with that idea, and even gave us the keys before we left that day, they did explain that it would need cleaning out because they had rented it to some 20 something boys and there was still stuff down there, but we didn't care. We were so excited! After about 2 months of searching for just the right place, we had found it. And just as planned we moved all of our temporary stuff that we'd been toting around in on that Tuesday evening and we've been here since, dog and all.

So, to make a long story even longer. We believe in miracles. We believe that there are no coincidences, had we not driven back past the peeling paint house and stopped to check it out when we saw the minivan we'd never have met the lady who had a basement for rent. In fact, normally she's never there on Saturday's but she had stopped in to work on a tax document that needed attention that very day. If we hadn't stopped for burgers, or even gone to that thrift store in the first place, we'd be well, my guess is on the living room floor at my mom's. Isn't it amazing how when you let the Lord work in your life things just come together? I'm still in awe at the thought. I know the Lord heard our prayers, and I know he made that tax document due, sent us off for burgers, and made us travel down that street past that business because this is where he wants us to be. And because of that, I will trust in him and lean not to my own understanding, because I have faith that he has great blessings in store for us, and that this move has not been in vain. I already feel closer to gettting back on the right track, and I cannot tell you grateful I am for his wisdom and most especially to be nomads no more!