the rental

My latest Eat This column is up! Winter Squash 🙂 I included two of my favorite recipes; both for butternut squash. I used Ina’s roasted squash recipe, which is great as a side dish or as a first-step for using squash in other recipes, like a salad or soup. I chose Foster’s Market’s butternut squash soup recipe because it’s one of the only ones I’ve made that isn’t overly sweet or curried, which are probably the most common types of butternut squash soup.

And now, without further ado, is the REAL point of this post…

Here it is folks, the house we’ll be renting for at least the next six months, if not longer.

While renting certainly wasn’t our first choice (hello, moving TWICE), this house is truly a blessing in so many ways. In fact, we weren’t even looking for it; a friend from the hotel took a wrong turn on their way to dinner one night, drove by and wrote the address down for us.

I grow more convinced every day that God has a special plan for Andrew and me in terms of our housing arrangement, and I know that this is just part of it. I said before that renting wasn’t our first choice; I’ll just come right out and say that until a couple weeks ago, I didn’t want to rent AT ALL. I DID NOT want to move twice. I didn’t want to give up on finding a house at the 11th hour. But, in the end, I truly think God had to bring us to this point–all the anxiety and disappointment and losing that ‘perfect’ house and now renting–so that we would truly surrender ourselves (and our desires) to Him and His plan. It’s been a looooooong summer, full of activity and “noise,” and I think we’re finally ready to “be still and wait.”

Countdown to move-in: 10 days!

It may not be much to look at on the outside (it’s in a super cute part of the Orchard Park village, but it’s definitely missing the TLC that only a homeowner can give), it has three bedrooms and a big, dry basement–which is important since much of our stuff will be down there!

Here’s our “short list” of things we’re looking forward to:

-a REAL trash can: just the other day Andrew was rhapsodizing (literally, with gestures and everything) about our big stainless steel can with the foot-operated lid

-a kitchen! the baking bug has bitten HARD and I cannot wait to get back into the kitchen with all my gear and cookbooks and go to town… Too many recipes have gone unmade this summer!

-having enough room that I’m not (literally) tripping over the dog every time I turn around

-our coffeemaker–the hotel coffee may be free, but it isn’t that good

-NOT having to change out of my pj’s to have my morning coffee or let the dog out

-Hadrian NOT barking at every passing person outside our door or hotel window

-Hadrian NOT barking at housekeeping EVERY DAY

-a desk for studying

-a door to SHUT while studying

-being only five minutes away from East Aurora, instead of 25

-did I mention the cats? We can have them back, too. (I’ve all but forgotten we own cats at this point….)

Yay for my “off” day! I love Tuesdays, but they often get booked-up with lunch or coffee dates and various errands. Today, my coffee date had to reschedule and Andrew is out of town, so I have the ENTIRE day (and night!) to get ahead on schoolwork, organize details for the move and other various ‘tasks.’ First up: the gym!

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!