Today’s post is a brief* overview of my life the past two weeks.
As if being six months pregnant, homeschooling, and headlong into various projects at my parish {oh, and the small task of running Catholic Sistas} wasn’t enough, we {possibly foolishly} decided to start looking for a new home. Totally unprompted by our own doing…some friends found an AWESOME house directly across the street from the church. We had admittedly looked through the neighborhood unsuccessfully in the past, but this time we saw a home two houses down from our friends. We looked it up, liked what we saw but couldn’t reach a realtor, listing or otherwise who could show the home to us.
It wasn’t advertised, but it was under contract. Bummer. But maybe not. Friends living that close to us would know too much about our daily lives…and vice versa. ::I say this lovingly because I’m sure it would actually turn out ok::
As it turned out, this did not deter us in our search. After giving it some thought, I recalled that my oldest’s fourth grade teacher had retired from teaching to pursue real estate six years ago. We contacted her and told her of our plans to look at a few homes, see what the reality was for the possible sale of our home and consider our options. Were it not for her enthusiasm, we would have no doubt become very discouraged early on. Her energy and her continual push for us to pursue what we really wanted – living near our parish – kept us focused.
So did St. Joseph. His novena started around the time that we seriously considered both selling our home as well as buying another.
And so the dominoes started to fall. My sleepy pregnancy phase changed overnight…full throttle nesting coupled with I-don’t-have-a-nursery-to-decorate syndrome led to my endless quest to tackle our 2800+ square foot home.
The sheer insanity and horror of it all drove me to determined tears. I decided to not look at the big picture, which is scarily the opposite of how I normally operate, and opted instead to focus on one room, one box at a time.
We prayed fervently to St. Joseph to help guide us and to humble our hearts and accept God’s will for us over our own {obviously selfish, give-us-that-house} desires. Each day, St. Joe {as we affectionally started to call him – our buddy, our pal} would answer whatever petitions we had in various ways.
My husband’s schedule at work exploded. It was a positive problem to have, but it left me with a houseful of kiddos, packing and cleaning and bribing and admittedly allowing them to watch too much t.v. under the guise of “it’s Spring Break!” for many long hours each day. We were also stuck at home due to our painter and various folks who needed to come through our home. It made for a long nine days of cattle prodding the kidlets from one room to the next while the work got done around the home. Once my husband got home, he took off his sales hat and put on his home prep hat, moving and hauling boxes to the garage and generally clearing my path for the next day.
The excitement has grown, and the challenges and sufferings have been great, but through it all, I tried to keep in mind all those who suffer more greatly than we were…and do. Packing a home while pregnant has not been easy, but God has sent us many signs that this is the direction for our family. Two weeks ago, selling our home wasn’t a blip on the radar. Tomorrow our home will be listed and, with the help of both St. Joseph and God as well as St. Patrick who also helped us on his feast day {aren’t saints cool like that??}, we have been able to hire a painter turned handyman, who took care of everything from painting nearly the entire home, including kitchen cabinets!, to laying tile, hanging light fixtures, replacing a door jamb, paint the exterior of our home, numerous repairs and generally allowing me to add to his “to-do” list at my whim. The kids loved Anibal and were sad to see him leave. His business name, In God We Trust, solidified that he was exactly who was supposed to help us. And he did.
So…I ask you on this the 23rd of March to keep our family in prayer. For the continual guidance from God and that we humbly {or at least try!} submit to His will.
And I want to give a special thank you to all my wonderful contributors who have helped keep this bad boy afloat while I drowned in boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap and a straight jacket…erm…I mean, my absence online to crack the whip on posts.
xoxo
*brief must mean longwinded post after a long day of working on the house. 😉