All moved in

One week and one day after we moved in, I finally have a free moment to write an update. It is a rainy Saturday here in High Ridge, Missouri. Saturday! I suddenly have a new appreciation for Saturdays.

If you are on Facebook you may have already seen a few of these pics, but there are also a few new ones.

We had our closing last week on Friday morning and then, keys in hand, drove straight to the house. Shortly after we arrived, so did the moving van.

Move-in went well. We had a very good team who worked hard to get us settled.

These next three pics are actually from the walk-through the night before closing. The previous owners left us flowers and a handwritten card with much helpful information. Our realtor gave us wine and chocolate-covered strawberries!

You aren't really moved in until the piano is moved in.

New peek-through spot.

Happy Evan and Willard.

Welcome committee. (Hunting friends, just so you know, the deer in this neighborhood are not the edible kind.)

After a week, the kitchen is almost unpacked! These things take a bit longer when you're working full-time!

Last night was the first night we actually slept in the house! Since we didn't have appliances yet, Evan and I spent the week sleeping at the rent house. The appliance situation has been somewhat frustrating. The laundry room is not large. It also has a utility sink. That, plus the fact that the dryer hookup is on the left and the dryer door opens to the right, necessitated this arrangement for me to be able to access the dryer. 

Although it doesn't look like it, there is sufficient room for me to work. The problem is that, as arranged, the line to connect the dryer to the washer's water supply (to enable the dryer's steam function) did not reach. So I have no steam on a dryer that is supposed to have a steam function. I haven't given up, though. I'm wondering if a plumber might be able to provide a longer line. 

In other appliance woes, the refrigerator I bought is too wide for the freezer door to open without quickly hitting the wall and limiting access. 

I had measured to make sure the unit fit the space, but failed to think through the ramifications of the refrigerator being against a wall. So this fridge is going back and a 3-inch narrower one is coming. Lowe's is being great about letting us use this one in the meantime. They will pick it up in a week and trade it out with no restocking fee. And in an unexpected turn of event$ for a narrower unit, we are getting a little more cubic footage in a French door model with a utility drawer. Oh, darn. 

This morning I was feeling very frustrated facing all the appliance issues (did I mention that the valve for the refrigerator water line is now dripping?) while preparing to take my husband back to the airport after he was here for barely 24 hours. (He was supposed to come Thursday but didn't come until yesterday due to his flight's being cancelled for weather.) How quickly thankfulness can turn to exasperation. 

Reflecting on the morning, though, it occurred to me that had I bought the narrower refrigerator right off the bat, we would have gone another week without a fridge, as the replacement is having to be ordered. As it turns out, I have a fridge that I will be able to use in the meantime while I'm waiting for one that will fit better. I found my exasperation turning to thankfulness as I observed yet again the Lord's capacity for taking the difficulties in our lives and working them out for good. Then I found myself wondering if that is a rather self-centered way to look at it. As if God cares about my refrigerator when there are parents mourning children who went to school last week, never to come home. 

Yet I know that God cares about every aspect of our lives and that indeed He is present, working out all the details for the ultimate blessing of those who trust in Him. I don't know if He had anything to do with our appliance struggle. But I do know that we are called to cast all of our cares, large and small, upon Him, knowing that in all things He cares for us, and that because of that knowledge we are able, in all situations, to give thanks. So thank you, God, for a new house, a crowded laundry room, a refrigerator that doesn't fit, a home warranty to provide a plumber, and a husband that is fulfilling his call as both a cantor and a husband and father. It is good to be home. 

Last Night

A little over 26 months ago, just a few days after we moved from our Oklahoma rental home into what we thought would be our Oklahoma forever home, I took this picture:

Tonight I took this one:

"Forever" is looking different from what we had planned, and tomorrow we will leave this place behind. How fondly we will remember our time here. That view!--oh, that view. What a salve it has been to weary hearts. How many mornings and evenings we have passed just sitting, gazing, basking in sunrises and sunsets more beautiful than we could have ever envisioned, drinking coffee, or wine, or caipirinhas as we watched a boy and his dog romp among the fireflies or head across the common ground to feed the neighborhood horses some apples.

I'm sad to think of leaving a home we have loved as much as any place we've ever lived, but in a few years that boy is going to be headed off to college, and his dog is going to feel less like romping, and as much as I pictured this view with grandchildren in it some day, I think maybe it's better that on Wednesday morning we will be turning over the keys to a family of 7 who needs the space and yard a lot more than we do at this time in our lives. I am so thankful for the short time we had here, even as I trust that God has wonderful times in store for us about 375 miles up the road in a place called High Ridge. I think the grandchildren, if and when we have some, will be able to find us there, don't you?

I'll be back in a few days to post our first pics of our new home. :-)