Happiness
Since the last time I truly wrote, which was August 30, 2023. A whole lot of things have changed since then and man, am I so glad that it did.
So, life felt mundane and unsure of everything. Then on September 30th, everything changed. My family and I were in a car accident. Thankfully, it was only I that got seriously hurt. A car ran a stop sign and ran into us, on the passenger side where I was. I thank God every day that no one else got hurt, including the other driver. Just me. I spent a week in the hospital with a broken fibia, tiblia, and a fractured sternum. Fun times, indeed. I got a metal rod placed in my left leg. I had hard times breathing whenever I try to stand up and relied heavily on a walker. It was a hot mess. I couldn't even do simple things like brushing my hair or getting changed, I needed assistance in almost all that I did. I never felt so vulnerable as I did during this time. It took a month to go from walker to a cane. Then another two months of the cane to being able to walk independently, although even today I still have a bit of a limp and I am not running anytime soon.
I had some dark moments of understanding how isolating it was to be in this state. Granted we had a wonderful community of family and friends bringing us meals and care packages, it was wonderful. But I definitely struggled a bit in those first few days back at home, being stuck on the first floor and sleeping in a recliner. It was just rough. But my faith in God really grew as a result and so grateful for that.
In that time, my husband and I were discussing about next steps in our lives. A conversation that we had many many times before. Our house was situated on a main street, so we always had car noises and our fair share of cars getting hit in front of our house. Add in a house that is well over 100 years old and we were wondering what do we do? Our house is also two stories and it was hard to walk up and down each day. Although it's not as terrible as it was back in October/November, it wasn't easy either. So the talk of what next was do we remodel or move. Pretty much the premise of the show, "Love it or List It."
So my husband looked into what it would cost to remodel the house. Well some quotes given back were the price in which we bought the house, so we thought could we move? With one income, we weren't sure with the rising housing market could we afford anywhere. My husband has moved countless times, so I know that the next move had to be the final move. We also were looking for a few things, including most importantly, a ranch style house. We wanted to have additional bathroom since we were in a one and a half bathroom home. What do we do?
So we started to look at houses online. We also wanted to interview a few realtors before moving forward with getting our house on the market, if we found a house. With my love of the HGTV house hunting shows, I was always on the Zillow app seeing what was out there, not even sure if we knew what our price range would be in. Yet a house showed up. It wasn't necessarily in the area we were originally thinking but thought let's look, it wouldn't hurt. After interviewing one of the realtors, we called him up and said we pick you, can we look at the house that same day? So, we did. My husband was on board and I really liked it but wasn't sure if we could even get it. We were not preapproved yet and I heard stories of how crazy the market is with multiple offers and people going way over asking. I asked my parents to come see the house two days later so I can get another set of eyes, because I liked it but was worried. We only seen this one house, how can be sure this is it?
Well they loved it, thought it was perfect. It had everything and then some on our wish list, it truly hit every thing, it had the amount of bathrooms, it was a ranch style house, it had a huge unfinished basement. It had a two car garage, a screened in porch/sun room. The rooms were a bit smaller and the backyard was as well, but it fit us perfectly. Plus the house was a year younger than me, which we also loved and didn't have to worry about lead paint and other concerns you may have in older homes. It was perfect.
We had to get preapproved and also what was our offer price going to be? We wanted to go in strong and my husband actually kept referring to the asking price rounded up when discussing with the realtor. So that's what our offer was. And only by the grace of God, did we get. We won against another offer by $100. That's it. The other person offered asking and because my husband kept referring it to the rounded number, we won! We got the house. I was in utter amazement. The only house we looked at and the house was on the market for almost two weeks at that point. It can only be God. He was so faithful and good to us with this process.
The next step was getting everything ready for our own house to ready for the market. We started to pack and get the house ready for pictures and to sell. In the timeframe of buying the house and closing on the house, we packed up our entire house, got it on the market and had multiple offers in a month's time. Our house sold in two days. Again, utterly shocked and was in amazement of God's faithfulness.
In just a few days, we close on that house with the new buyers. I pray that they find the comfort that that house brought to us in those six years we spent there. It is truly a special house and we saw our boys grow in that house and our many pivot moments of life that only has God's hands in it all.
Yet this new house, our home, it's everything we ever wanted. Everyday I look out at beautiful scenery. The quietness, no more car noise! We are off the main street, so it's been so lovely to have that serene feeling and not as concerning of having the boys outside.
On top of a new home, we also are starting the path of homeschooling. It's only been the second day, so it is still new but it's been so freeing. We are enjoying it and so grateful that we have this ability to do it. With changing school districts, it just felt like the perfect opportunity to try it out with only one more semester left in the school year.
I truly feel like it has been so falling in place the way it is supposed to, God is so good with His timing. I just haven't felt so content and happy every day as I have since we moved in here. I'm driving so much now and going to do errands or the library. More than I have back at the old place. There is just something familiar with this area that reminds me of my childhood a bit, although we are quite far from my old stomping grounds. I just don't know how to explain it except that I'm happy and content for the first time in a very very long time. I just feel like a good mix tape of my favorite songs that bring a smile to my face. It's just wonderful :)