EA Tour of Homes

Andrew and I packed up and spent the day in East Aurora yesterday. That’s pretty much what we have to do if we’re going to be there for more than an hour or so; we take the dog, his food, the computer, my homework, and, this time, a change of clothes to go out to dinner. Whew! It’s certainly a trip. I can’t image what it would be like with a kid, too.

We started off the morning with the East Aurora Tour of Homes. It’s a yearly event showcasing some of the older, nicer homes in and around the village whose owners are willing to open up to the public. I don’t think Andrew’s parents had ever been, but Moog provides tickets to some of their employees, so Andrew’s dad grabbed a few awhile ago and we thought we’d give it a try. The tour is a fundraiser for the Aurora Adult Day Services, and the crowd was just as you would suspect; 90% blue-haired old ladies.

We picked up maps and bite-sized treats at the Roycroft Inn before heading out in our cars. It was CHILLY yesterday! Cold and wet and rainy. Andrew said it was more “November weather” than October weather for here, which relieved a little of my fears that it would be snowing any day now. I love the cold, but since ALL my winter clothes and shoes are packed away, I’m in no hurry for it this year!

We started at the Dewey’s house, which Andrew had actually been in before. Their kids are our age, so Andrew ran cross country and played basketball with their two sons.

As you can see, it’s a gorgeous house. It sits on at least an acre, which is a very large lot for the village, so that’s another thing that makes it stand out. The Deweys have done a lot (or rather, not a lot) to maintain the historical integrity of the house.

All of the walls and wallpaper are original to the house. They even have a 1920s oven. The house was very large and certainly quite neat. Awesome kitchen, but I have to admit, I would have updated with some sleek, stainless steel appliances.

We moved on to a house on Fillmore Avenue, which is one of the most desirable streets in the village due to its proximity to Main Street. If only we could find something there! There is one for sale down the road, but it has a hot tub in the living room. IN THE LIVING ROOM. What do you do with that? If it were only that, I think we could figure something out, but it just wasn’t the one for us.

As you can see, fall is in full swing here with the leaves on the ground. Love the porch! This house was really neat because of the barn. It has a basketball court on the top level! Mr. Young went up with us and Andrew shot some hoops. We even signed our names on the drywall at the urging of Mr. Young, who was surprised Andrew had never been up there before for various events during high school, i.e. parties and homecoming-float painting. Guess Andrew just didn’t hang with the cool kids… (But I guess when you’re the valedictorian, your circle of friends is more smarty-pants than party-type.)

We left the village “proper” and took a side street to a neighborhood-y area and checked out this large, yet unassuming, house.

WOW. As Andrew put it last night, it takes A LOT of stuff to make a 5,000 square-foot home look cluttered. I don’t know that it looked “cluttered,” (all the decor was done very well), but man was there just a ton of stuff! It was insane. Everywhere you looked there were collections and paintings and artwork and everything you could imagine. But again, it was all done incredibly well. Actually, it was very much my “style,” (color, unique pieces, symmetry) but, basically, on steroids. I’m much more of a minimalist in my decorating, but basically with the same stuff.

The island in the kitchen was amazing. She said they called it their “bowling alley.” Gee, must be nice. She had collections of quilts and hats and artwork all over the place. I loved the mudroom area and the master bath was just beautiful.

The last house we visited is on Main Street and it’s one of the houses I always notice when we drive into town. Not sure why, probably the green color catches my eye… I love the columns in the front, although I think I would pull out the boring shrubs in favor of smaller landscaping to show off the front of the house more.

This one was beautiful and well cared-for. I wouldn’t say it was terribly historical or large or even unique, just beautiful. Honestly, the best thing about it was the double-chocolate cookies they had from the Elm Street Bakery! Holy cow–they were like smooshed brownies with giant chunks of chocolate inside. I went back for seconds.

After the tour Andrew and I checked out a rental house in Orchard Park. I think we’ve admitted defeat and are going to have to rent over the winter in the hopes that we can find something we actually want to buy sometime next spring/summer. The rental was in a great section of the OP village, the owner is fantastic and will let us have Hadrian AND is amenable to a short-term/month-to-month lease, both of which are important to us. It’s a three-bedroom and will fit all our stuff with a nice, DRY basement. The kitchen and living room carpet leave something to be desired, but really, what more can you ask for in a rental? We’re very thankful we found this one.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with car-cleaning (Andrew), homework at Taste (me), then going out to dinner at Rick’s on Main for restaurant week. I had the most amazing Asian-marinated and grilled chicken breast with an awesome black bean and ginger salsa. Then we headed BACK to Taste for dessert; Andrew got a too-sweet caramel apple steamer and I had a peppermint tea and a slice of their peanut butter/brownie pie.

More homework for me today!

still blue

Actually, I’m wearing blue today. How appropriate. Except that most of my wardrobe IS navy blue, so I guess it isn’t so coincidental…

I wish I could say things looked better in the morning. They don’t. Not one bit.

In fact, they look worse. I had thought we were completely at the end of our rope a week ago, before we found the house. We were depressed, hopeless, upset, discourages and fatigued with the house-hunt. And then we saw ‘our house.’ Now, it feels like the bottom has dropped out from under us–not only do we have no prospects for a house; we’re faced with an ever-hastening deadline and fewer new houses on the market. We don’t know what in the world to do.

But God isn’t in the business of giving us every little thing our hearts ‘desire.’ All He promises is His love, and all He wants is our joy. And that thought has been going through my mind since yesterday morning, BEFORE we found out we didn’t get the house. Go figure.

And after doing my first day of my new Beth Moore study, Living Beyond Yourself: The Fruits of the Spirit, this morning, in which it talked about Paul getting stoned and Christian martyrs all over the world, I got a little perspective.

Are we still terribly disappointed and completely unsure of what to do next? Certainly. But I am trying, desperately, to keep my chin up look on the bright side. We are happy, healthy and we will be taken care of. We will figure something out. God WILL open a door.

And I’m trying NOT to analyze it. It’s such a trap to fall into… Maybe we weren’t supposed to spend that much, maybe something better (my pessimistic side says that’s doubtful) is just around the corner, maybe we have to move in with Andrew’s parents for a month and we’ll all grow spiritually and emotionally because of it and we won’t know it until five years later… I don’t know! And we can’t really know for sure.

All we know is that (as my wise, WISE friend Emily Wilhelm says), God has us exactly where he wants us. (I love her. Her words of wisdom are often just what I need to hear in times like this.)

We are so thankful for all your prayers (here’s a special shout-out to the Simones, Wilhelms, grandma and both sets of parents) and well-wishes. We love you all so much.

In other news, I treated myself to half a blueberry bagel and cream cheese for breakfast this morning. I LOVE blueberry bagels with plain cream cheese. (Unfortunately, the hotel bagels leave a little to be desired, but it was something.)

devastated

Well, we thought we’d found THE ONE.

In fact, we’d all but moved in and painted the walls already.

It feels like someone came in and stole it right out from under us.

For those who don’t know, here is the short version:

Just as we were about to throw in the towel last weekend and ‘settle’ for something, Andrew found an amazing house that wasn’t even on the market yet. It was PERFECT: a 1900s farmhouse on 3 acres with a barn and room for a garden, a small front porch and pear trees. A beautiful, spacious, updated kitchen and enough bathrooms and bedrooms. Wide wood plank flooring. Attached two-car garage. A quiet country road just a couple miles outside the village. Seriously, we were dying over this place. We saw it immediately, but there were some questions we had for the seller, so we didn’t put an offer in right away. Our realtor met with the owner and we were planning to see the place tomorrow and put our offer in.

Well…we got a call Saturday evening from our realtor saying that someone else was going to put an offer in THAT NIGHT. So, we gave a verbal offer ABOVE ASKING PRICE over the phone and spent the next 18 hours praying fervently.

We know God heard everyones’ prayers, but he didn’t grant them; the other people got the house. This has happened to us TWICE now! And in this market, too. I think it just means we have excellent taste in houses…

Before I get too far, we know God has a plan and that His best for us may not seem like it at the time. But it doesn’t make this any less disappointing. Even our realtor was pretty upset for us. We got the call after church–I shed a few tears and Andrew spent the afternoon in bed, curled up in the fetal position. (Seriously, he did.) I threw myself into school work, laundry and online retail therapy (I need warmer clothes!!); Andrew watched the Bills defeat the Patriots–at least that gave him a boost.

I don’t know why God didn’t give us the house, but I do know there is a reason. And I’m OK with that. We just need Him to provide a place to live, at least temporarily, AND FAST. That’s the thing folks, we don’t have anywhere to go. In about a month, our time here at the hotel will be up, and while we can extend a bit if we’re under contract to buy a house, that’s looking more and more unlikely to happen. Sooo…we have to figure something out, and apartments that allow giant dogs are slim to none. And we don’t really want a year-long lease if we’re still going to try to find a house…

While I’m still very disappointed, I know in my heart that God has a plan. And that really, this is not that big of a deal. I mean, if Sara can go on praising God after a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis, and Susy can have hope after her sister’s Stage 4 brain cancer, and Heather can remain joyful while being a single-parent to Maggie while Silas is at pilot training….we can surely get through this. Surely.

We ended our day with a walk to the little ice cream place near the hotel. For the last month or so I’d been telling Andrew that that is where we were going to go to celebrate when we got a house. Well, today was its last day being open for the season, so we went to celebrate the “better” house God has for us instead. Not that we were in a mood to celebrate (I didn’t even want ice cream this afternoon–how crazy is that?!), but it was nice to get out and get some fresh air.

And here’s both of us… Can you tell Andrew was not into documenting for the blog tonight? I really need to figure out how to use the timer function… (I was doing my best to put on a sad face.) Pray for us!