the good life

o my goodness!  where do i start?!  i have been overwhelmed by God's goodness and His love for us.  He truly knows the desires of our hearts, and as we align ourselves with his will, He blesses His people.  We prayed for quite some time for a young adult pastor job for john, a house, and a baby, but above all, we wanted God's will and His timing for it all.  The waiting game was really, really hard...continually trusting day after day that God was hearing our prayers but was waiting for the right time to answer them.  i caught myself a number of times doubting that God cared enough to answer.  i am thankful for a husband who challenges and encourages my faith to grow deeper and stronger. 

on monday, while john was at the closing, i was directing the movers where to put stuff in the house.  within 30 minutes of being at the house, one of our next door neighbors came over to introduce himself and gave me a couple of flowers.  so sweet!!  he actually came back again that night and brought a fruit basket.  jill tarr (who we were living with) came over and cleaned our 2 bathrooms, living room, and part of the kitchen from top to bottom.  she was a life-saver (i'm not a big fan of cleaning).   our other next door neighbor came over after her kids got home from school (they go to our church), and she gave us the spare key the old owners let them have (they'll probably be getting it back :-).  she also gave us the blooming glen mennonite family recipe cookbook, which apparently is a tradition in blooming glen to give your new neighbors when they move in.  so cute.  john spent the evening ripping out the nasty, old contact paper out of our kitchen cabinets.  we spent the night here because we had our bedroom room furniture all set up (which is now our guest bedroom furniture). 

waking up tuesday morning felt like waking up on christmas morning...i was so excited to see what i could uncover (unpack).  i started removing the wallpaper in the living room in between doing loads of laundry.  jay, one of the guys on the senior leadership team at calvary, stopped by and gave us some cookies.  so sweet!  one of john's coworkers and her husband came over that afternoon to help.  debbie helped me finish cleaning out the cabinets in the kitchen, and we unpacked as many kitchen boxes that we could find.  it was like a treasure hunt unpacking boxes of wedding presents (mostly serving pieces) that we didn't have room for in our condo.  i hadn't seen most of that stuff in almost 5 years!  rick's job was to break down empty boxes and packing paper and put it all in the attic.  john pulled down wallpaper in 2 rooms, which actually came down very easily.  another one of john's coworkers brought us dinner, as well as another friend.  like we've said before...the people here are incredible. 

my goal for wednesday was to find a home for everything in the kitchen.  i was successful, and let me tell you, it feels sooooo good to have my kitchen organized.  it actually makes me want to cook maybe.  :-)  i also organized all the boxes in the dining room into categories so that i have a relative idea of where stuff is located.

thursday, we woke up to snow.  it was awesome!  it stuck to the ground for a couple of hours.  it resembled louisiana snow.  it comes down, it sticks, it melts a few hours later.  we went to the grocery store to get appetizers for the thanksgiving meal that we were sharing with the Sparling family, and people were walking around in lightweight jackets while i looked like a freak in my huge down winter coat.  anyway, thanksgiving dinner was great, and the Sparling family was super welcoming and friendly.  the fuller rotel dip went over very well!  so did the cowboy caviar dip...thanks GB! we came home, and in about 30 minutes, john had all the wallpaper in the master bedroom pulled down.  i love the way he randomly gets inspired to do something and just knocks it out. 

today has been relaxing so far.  we got our cable and internet installed.  i had lunch with sarah parmer.  i, then, went 3 doors down to the ryan's house (they go to our church also!) to borrow their steamer to try that out on removing wallpaper. so, i think i'm gonna go try it out right now!!!