Be Still

The past few weeks have been..well, busy and stressful. We have been house hunting, had family visiting, and had a few members (Everyone but me) in the house get sick.
Needless to say, I have been over loaded. But really who am I kidding? Isn't life always this way anymore? Isn't this, just the way it is during this stretch of life?
I think for most people with small children, or anyone taking care of anyone for that matter, it is. What's different here is the way we are dealing with it all.

Let start with the house. Yes, it is so fun to dream big and imaging the beautiful kitchen I have created for my own personal pleasure. Walking into a perfect new setting where the kids can play in the street with no fear of cars or kidnappings would be blissful.

But let's be real here. This is not the reality we have chosen. Yes, I said chosen. We have chosen a more moderate approach. Deciding to buy what we can with what money we actually have on hand. It's not much to some, but it's giving us a future that will be more than we could ask for. No, I do not think my kids will be kidnapped where we are buying, but it's definitely not the road that Beaver Cleaver grew up on either. It's just a road we are comfortable living on in a community we love.

We should be closing in the next week, so after days of dreaming of bettering the place, we headed back in to get our materials list and measurements. I mean after all there is some work that has to be done.
 It's kind of funny how the mind works. I thought I'd have more space to work with in the kitchen, and the backyard is much bigger than I remember. Some of the repairs are going to be a simple fix and some are a bit more complicated. With all of this in front of us, it's easy to forget the process that led up to this point.
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 The search for a suitable home was crazy y'all! And to boot, I was a Realtor for 5 years prior to moving to the area. So I'm kind of familiar with the up's and down's of the whole process. What I wasn't prepared for was the emotional toll and  worry for our family.

Staying in Cayce was rather important to me. I'm not really sure why, but I just felt as if we were in the right place. Now, we looked at all our options; financing some, renting, buying as much as we could, buying as little as we needed and so on. We looked online, in the paper, through word of mouth, and even called the property management company listed on the windows of some foreclosed homes
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Then we found a place! I just knew it was the one that would work. The day we went in and looked at the interior, a bid for the property was accepted by HUD. Not our Bid, but someone elses. Ugh!
I was disgusted and angry at so many things.

   I did what I always do in tough times, talk with God. I vented quite heavy and took a deep breaths. "What I am I to Do?" I asked. I just don't understand.

For the next few weeks, I was delayed by trains, held up by slow cars, spoken directly to at a comedy event and even had my husband come home from work with a text message ( not directly from god, but a friend). Then I slowing started hearing him. Wait. Be still. Listen. The more I spoke to people about what was happening, the louder I heard the message. Wait. Be still. Listen. If you know me, you know that being still is not something I am really good at. I'm a fixer. I like to solve the problem and move on. One day on the way to pick up the kids from school, I out loud, asked for help in listening. Help me listen. How do I decipher it's you and not just me making stuff up in my head? In my heart, I knew I would just know. I needed to stop questioning. Stop trying to fix "it", and I would know.

 Another home became available, and we bid on it. I just didn't feel certain about it, like I did about the other. But at this point I had started to question my gut, so we made the offer. Turns out three other people like that house a whole lot.The seller was asking for highest and best offer.
 Financially it was going to max out our plan and would have taken longer to get to the next stepping stone. By now, my poor husband is dealing with an emotional me saying "Screw this, let just rent".
Now my brother is here visiting from Germany and I'm sure he is feeling the craziness going on. The Stress level is through the roof and our house is a disaster from the pre-moving.

The hubs and I had to set a meeting. We both needed to approach this in a "Business Type" thought process as we were starting to separate our alliance. The best way for us to realign our communication, is to act like we are business partners discussing a transaction.
At this meeting we discovered a few things we both hadn't disclosed but thought we had. The biggest item: the original house was now back on the market! Oops, sorry, my bad. Well at least now he could understand why I was so squirrely.

After our meeting, we pulled our bid off of the popular home and resubmitted on the original place. We got it! And we got it for less money than we originally offered. Now, again I am told to be still. Which by now you'd think I should be pretty good at since I've been smacked upside the head with everyday for the past two months.

Ha! After the visit to the house yesterday, the plotting started. Put the stove here, the fridge there blah blah blah...
We got home, fed the kids and off to be we all went. Seriously, it was nine o'clock when my head hit the pillow and I was out. Snoring, completely out apparently.
I woke this morning to two toddlers ruling the house. Totally missed school, and I was just puzzled at how I slept .I was laying there thinking on the house when I grab my phone to do my daily checks. I first messaged the hubs that we could just add on to the house in the spring, got his reply and continued on with my morning routine. Email, Facebook.... and Bam! There it was again. First thing on the feed!

"Be still, & know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."
Psalm 46:10

I think I might actually be getting the message. Being still, and in the moment is one of the most difficult things for me to obtain, but I will try. I'm not really sure why I'm putting this all out there, but I think there might be others who need to be still too.