Our adjoining house, which has been rented out for four years, is finally being vacated. I am watching as they load possessions into a pick-up truck. This is an important step for us in selling. We can finally get in there, clean, paint and fix. I’m glad and yet aware of the huge amount of work that will now be on the schedule…
B is for Boxes
Some very fine boxes. I want them.
Boxes have become a coveted part of my life. I seem to notice them like never before, wherever I go. I pay attention to their construction, how sturdy they are, and whether there is room to write on them. (I get the best boxes from Thrive Market, and I can’t adequately tell you how wonderful they are, thick, sturdy, full of useful packing). Because we’re selling, and moving, all our earthly goods need to be safely in a box until an undetermined time when they can be placed in the next home. Who knows when that will be?
I have an aversion to paying for boxes to do my packing. It is silly when so many boxes are put in the trash, crushed and bundled together with strapping and hauled off to be re-used in some way, or maybe not used at all. So I beg and borrow boxes from friends who have businesses, (and from Thrive Market). I am grateful for my box friends. I get deliveries like this one.
Presents, at my door.
There is a box the right size for almost anything I want to pack. I have learned to keep my boxes down to a weight I can lift, since it may be necessary for me to lift them way more times than I would like. I like little boxes for heavy things like books, and large boxes for lighter things like pillows. The only boxes I might consider buying are ones for large, framed pictures and for dishes. Even then, I could make boxes for them out of other boxes. For all of these boxes, I have the feeling that labeling is going to be very important.
For now, my boxed possessions are piling up in a small breezeway between my house and the rental house, but they will have to be moved when it’s time to photograph the house. They will have to go into a storage facility. I’m not looking forward to that. I’ve seen the program “Storage Wars” and since we’ve had a storage room mistakenly auctioned off in the past, I have some bad flashbacks about storage.
Should we use storage locally? Should we rent a container from PODS or Pack Rat and have them move us? We have options that are not yet sorted out completely, and we are open to advice.
We are wanting to sell our property, our oneacrewoods, the two conjoined houses that we, my parents, my children, and numerous friends and family have lived in for the last 24 years. It’s seen some very good years of our lives and we have “feelings” for it. It is lovely, it is home, and it’s going on the market.
And why would we be leaving this lovely place when the whole world seems to be moving to Florida?
A is for Asking price (as distinct from “getting” price.)
I have just read that most homeowners ask too much for their house when they set out to sell. It’s out of love, of course. We don’t want to do that because we would LOVE a quick sale. We know that the prospective buye may or may not love our house and is certainly not interested in paying as much as possible to live in it. So, we have the matter of determining an asking price. It should be one that is reasonable for the market, taking into consideration the age of the house, the neighborhood and numerous other factors. And it should probably be one that we are willing to lower. I don’t like that selling a house is kind of like bargaining at a flea market.
We had a realtor look at our house. He wanted to help us find a good asking price. The place most realtors start is to look for what they call “comparables” – houses as much like yours as possible in the same area. Since most residential properties are not two full houses on one parcel of land, there really aren’t any comparables in our neighborhood. Our way of thinking is to take the price of one nearby sale and double it, right? I guess that’s not the way it works though. We had a hard time accepting the price this realtor suggested.
After waiting, downcast, for several months, we met another realtor who was a little more encouraging. We have what is becoming more common these days, a multi-generational property. I didn’t realize it, but more and more people are living with a couple generations together in the same house or an attached apartment of some kind. Our houses are much more than a mother-in-law room over the garage, and the acre of yard full of huge live oaks in the quiet, central part of a block is something everyone admires. Everyone who comes to our house wants to live here.
Our realtor is with Better Homes and Gardens Realty. I’m thinking that if BH&G thinks they can sell our house for what we’d like to sell it for, we’re going to let them try. I’ve seen their magazine and they seem to know a lot about houses, just sayin’ …
I am in the April A to Z Blogging Challenge. If you found this by clicking the link in the A list, then you know I made a mistake in my link. Here is the correct one to my site. So sorry! https://shirleyjdietz.com/2018/04/01/a-to-z-selling-our-house/
We spent an uneasy couple of hours in our “safe room” before it became apparent that the winds were not as loud. Some of us even slept, but the people most uncomfortable moved to the bedrooms. We were curious enough at this point to venture into the kitchen and get a report from the radio there. We still had power, but no cable or internet to follow the progress of the storm. The report put the eye of the storm to our east and moving away from us. We were very thankful, very relieved, but aware that the storm was still raging around the house.
Monday, September 11, 2017
The demise of the kapok tree. RIP my friend.
Monday morning I got up early, hoping to survey the Oneacrewoods as soon as there was light. The first thing visible shocked me like I haven’t been shocked in a long time. Our landmark kapok tree was lying horizontal on the ground. It had ripped down through our large grapefruit trees, and had also taken limbs from the surrounding oaks. Some of it’s larger top branches were caught up in the oaks, dangling precariously. It had missed a minivan belonging to one of our friends by a few feet, crashed through a board fence and landed across the neighboring driveway. The torn root ball was up in the air, exposing a huge hole filled with mud. It might be a little silly to be emotionally attached to a tree, but I’m a silly woman when it comes to nature. It was a special tree.
The rest of the yard was covered with water, and branches of all sizes, but there were no other trees down and no damage to the house. Neighbors were starting to walk around. Several came down to look at our carnage. On our way out to the street to see if the vehicles parked there were still there (they were) we heard that the curfew, that was to go until 3 pm, had already been lifted. Even though it was blustery and raining off and on, Kathy and I decided to walk across to their mobile home park and see if their house had blown away.
Emergency patrols were already in the park, marking damaged buildings with orange spray paint. They warned us that it might not be safe to be there with so much loose metal lying on the ground, and the wind still gusting. We made it to Kathy and Mark’s mobile and found it looking untouched. The canal behind it had come to the top of the bank but not high enough to flood their house. The damage in the park was hard to figure out – homes with the roofs ripped off were right next to ones that were untouched. The two residents that had stayed in the park in spite of the evacuation order said that there was a tornado which might have been responsible.
At Golf Lakes MHP
Around 11 am chain saws were being heard everywhere around us. Our neighbor who had weathered the storm elsewhere arrived and came over to help us clear as much of the driveway as possible. He and his girlfriend pitched in and started cutting branches and making piles of debris. We loaded it onto our truck later and began to haul it out to the road. There are six residents bordering our drive and all of us had downed trees and branches. The piles out by the road grew larger by the hour.
Multiple truckloads on day 1 of aftermath. Easy to throw stuff on, actually harder to pull it off out at the road.
We worked all day until we couldn’t do it anymore. I loaded brush and hauled for the neighbors to pay them back for clearing the drive. We slogged through the flooded yards getting muddy, sweaty, tired and hungry. For the first time ever, we had the neighbors over for hot dogs. It took a hurricane to make it happen but I’m glad it did.
Day one of the aftermath ended with much accomplished but so much more to do that I felt physically, emotionally and mentally oppressed. The knowledge that everyone needed to attend to their own damage left little hope for finding help. I had only one person I could think of that might be able to work with me on my mess. I had texted him earlier in the day and hadn’t received an answer. I figured he was somewhere working for someone who needed him more than I did. When you believe as I do, that God knows and helps you through things in one way or another, you wait for help, or for strength until it comes. That’s the way we left it on Monday.
We lost our cable and internet before I could publish this post, and it has not returned to us until today – five days later. I’m not complaining as many people experienced far worse during the storm than we did.
Sunday, September 10, 2017, around 8 pm
Irma made landfall this afternoon around 3:30 near Naples, Florida. It is now about an hour and a half south of us in Ft. Myers. Since landfall it has weakened to Category 2 with 110 mph sustained winds and we are getting gusts between 50 and 60 miles per hour. It’s path may go east of us, possibly to Arcadia. They were hit by Hurricane Charlie too and I will feel bad if they get it again. The only positive thing would be that they have already lost most of their big trees and shaky buildings. Hopefully we will keep most of ours. However, our worst time with this powerful storm is still ahead.
We were able to cook spaghetti for supper and made a salad. We still have electricity, although over 180,000 in the county are without it. We are making use of the time together with lots of conversation and bonding through our shared experience. There is ice cream in our near future if all goes according to plan.
An odd thing is happening that I don’t remember having heard of before. People are reporting that the ocean and the rivers go away, leaving boats high and dry and the bottom exposed for as far as can be seen. In some places it returns slowly, in others I’ve heard that the storm surge rose 7 feet in 90 minutes. That is extreme.
At 3 pm a curfew was instated and since the winds are over 45 mph there are no services – law enforcement or medical. Yesterday one of our major hospitals was evacuated. It seems that someone thought that next to the riverfront would be a good place to put a hospital. What were they thinking?
The shelters are full. There are tornado warnings.
We are getting ready to go to our safe rooms as the hurricane is traveling faster now. Trees are being uprooted, reportedly, in Sarasota. Will stop now and get everyone together. I don’t expect to sleep tonight.
I know I look crazed, but understand that I’m sleeping in a shower during a hurricane.
Small rooms (closets and bathrooms) with lots of walls and no windows are safest but it’s a bit weird to have friends over to sit there, just sayin’.
The sun rising in the east over our deluxe accomodations on the day of our hike… (I’ve stayed in worse, for sure.)
Time has gone by minute by minute, and our vacation is almost over – something to be looked back upon. As usual, it never seems right to be leaving part of my family anywhere, anytime. Julie and the dog had not yet left when we drove away from the motel.
Yesterday was by far the highlight day of our trip. Julie had to leave Tess the dog at the motel with Dennis the husband while we did our day hikes. Dogs are not allowed on most of the trails in the park. Husbands are allowed, but only if they want to go. Dennis is still not up to hiking and has had an uncertain time with his blood pressure and medicine side effects.
This hike out and back was only about 2.5 miles but the falls was definitely at a higher elevation, lots of climbing. We didn’t see any llama pack strings.
We chose to go to Grotto Falls first, knowing that it would only get busier as the day progressed. It is a shorter hike and close to Gatlinburg so many people are taking it. We did the 1.3 mile uphill climb, taking pictures along the way. The woods was beautiful, as was the river. The falls itself is known for the path that goes under the waterfall. Being there, with that wall of rushing water between me and the world was quite cool, literally. Natural air conditioning courtesy of the turbulence of air and water and shade. It’s a unique and beautiful experience. People of all ages were standing around on the rocks, nervously watching their children trying to get close to the water, taking pictures, drinking in the aura of the place.
Does not make for a smooth trail, but very pretty to look at.
We took our own pictures, went a short way up the trail on the other side of the river and then headed back the way we had come. Mount LeConte was more than six miles away up the trail and not on our list for the day.
The Roaring Fork Nature Trail is a one way motor loop up to Grotto Falls and was a great way to see the forest and several more creeks. Going back down through the woods was fun but the best part was at the end, nearly into Gatlinsburg, when the line of cars we were in slowed and stopped. People were out on the road taking pictures of something, which turned out to be a bear. A few seconds later another bear, on the other side of the road, came nearly up to our car. I think it was a mama and cub that got separated. The mama looked a bit confused and didn’t want to cross with all of us in the way. I hope they got reunited. WE SAW A BEAR! Unexpected bonus. I’m glad we were in the car.
Our bear, on her way to check us out.
Our second hike was a loop starting with the Little River Trail, to the Cucumber Gap Trail and ending with the Jakes Creek Trail. We parked and headed upward along one of the most beautiful rivers I’ve had the privilege to see. It was full of rocks, some as big as a small house, and the rapids and pools were everywhere a wonder. This trail was a road in an earlier age when wealthy families from the cities came up to cool off in their summer lodges. The Park Service has since bought the properties and is taking the old buildings down, leaving only the chimneys and fireplaces that look like monuments along the road.
The Cucumber Gap Trail was smaller and more typical of Smoky Mountain hiking trails. It was on this stretch that we noticed the weather was changing. It was getting darker. Then it was thundering and lightning. And then, of course, it was raining. At first the canopy kept us from getting too wet, but the trail was heading upward still. The canopy was thinning out and providing less shelter. I thought of all the places I wouldn’t want to be in a lightning storm. Sure enough, on top of a mountain with my feet in a puddle was one of them.
These trails are for people when they’re dry, and for water when it’s raining. They become little rivers with slick, muddy bottoms. At times we could walk on the bank above or below the trail (in the poison ivy) and other times there was no option but to get our boots soaked. I was so thankful for my new trekking pole. It was a lifesaver. We stopped taking pictures and wrapped our phones in plastic. You are being spared seeing us looking like drowned rats.
This was a near six mile hike and we decided to say that at least three of those miles were in the rain. We actually enjoyed it, realizing that it was an experience we might easily have missed, since we never would have started out in the rain. The wetness, the uncertainty of the storm, the added difficulty of the trail was just enough of a “rush” to make it memorable. I loved it. Towards the end, as we were searching for the parking lot and our car, we were getting a bit hypothermic. The temperature was down to 67 degrees and we had been wet for quite a while. Now I have a “hiking in the rain story” with each of my daughters. Thankfully this time it wasn’t 32 degrees, and we weren’t camping.
They actually grind grain and make bread for the restaurant here. Very interesting historical place and the food (and service) was GREAT.
The day ended well with hot showers, dry clothes, and a top notch dining experience at the Old Mill Restaurant in Pigeon Forge. What can I say? It has been a great trip, hotel expense courtesy of BlueGreen vacations. I’m writing in the Knoxville Airport, where our flight on Allegiant has been delayed 3 hours. That’s about the only inconvenience we’ve had to endure. And no, we didn’t buy a timeshare, just sayin’…
I will remind readers that this hike took place in 2004. I am revisiting it in order to have in mind the good and the not so good as I prepare to finish more sections of the fascinating AT this year.
Day 5
There was wind. It was chilly. We stayed in the tent till almost 9 wondering whether it would rain again. There wasn’t much to do except start walking and find out. I knew I didn’t want to climb the infamous Albert Mountain, so was planning on the bypass trail. Esther’s knee was hurting, even before the weight of her pack was added. We knew we would be crossing several forest service roads and felt that if a ride out came our way, we would take it.
As you sit safe at home reading this, you can’t really grasp what it’s like to feel hurt, uncertain and fairly helpless and then come upon a scene like this. God bless men with trucks.
We started at 11 am and had a good two hours of nice flat and down stretches. The sun came out, there were flowers everywhere and fresh bear scat on the trail (just to keep things real). While eating lunch at Betty Creek, we heard a truck in the distance,beeping as it backed up. However, it must have been on another trail, and farther than we could run to to catch it. On we went to Mooney Gap with Lorraine and Kenton leading the way, as we were now quite a bit slower.
As we approached the next road, there were Lorraine and Kenton talking with a whole crew of men from the Nantahala Hiking Club. They had been working on the trail (putting in an elevator at Albert Mountain, they said. Giving CPR to a blackbird, they said.) and were about to head back to Franklin. They were concerned about Esther and happy to pack us into the back of one of their trucks and take us back to town.
It was a little surreal, two hours later, to be back at the Microtel taking a shower instead of on the trail in jeopardy of hurting ourselves. I thanked the Lord for taking care of us. We will live to see another day, maybe even hike again. We took Kenton’s car which she left at the motel and drove to Wayah Crest to retrieve my Aztek. Found a Thai restaurant! Back at the motel, went to bed on a real mattress!
Day 6
Things I learned:
In early May take gloves and warm jacket and hat
Take a good rain suit and cover for my pack
Go lighter still – it can be done
Take treats and morning coffee – you need them and they don’t weigh that much
Hiking can be pleasant and the scenery beautiful but the most amazing thing is finding yourself dependent upon God, and pretty much out of control of your own welfare. I felt the experience was as much an exercise of faith, discipline and persistence as it was for our muscles. That has become a big reason why I love hiking in remote places.
Esther and I had a great day checking out Franklin, visiting the outfitter’s store and a book place. We ate lunch at a creekside cafe with robins singing over our heads and the brook singing underneath our balcony – very Appalachian. We found a great park to lounge around in and read our books. Succumbing to the mundane, we had pizza for supper and relaxed watching a thrilling episode of Extreme Home Makeover on TV.
Day 7
I had breakfast (that’s me, always), Esther didn’t (usual for her) and then we got ourselves packed up and into the Aztek for the rendezvous with Lorraine and Kenton. We parked where the trail crossed the main highway at Winding Stair Gap. Esther’s knee wouldn’t let her go very far up the trail but I intended to meet the girls, identifying flowers along the way with my new book. I only got a short way up the trail to discover Lorraine and Kenton sitting, eating morning snack and thinking they were still a couple miles from the meeting point.
They were in good shape but also content with cutting the hike a little shorter than originally planned. We whisked them back to the motel for a quick shower (for which we were not charged, even though it was past checkout time, yay!) We had a celebratory meal at the renowned “Fat Buddy’s Barbecue”. It was a place worth another visit and even Esther (vegetarian) found some good stuff there. Lorraine didn’t mind heading home right away so we left about 3 pm and had a safe trip home to Florida. There are many other details I could have written but, basically, that’s the story (morning glory).
Does this story make you want to go hiking, or not? Are you curious about any element of the story?
Four hikers set out in the rain. Bonding misery takes place.
Esther, goofing around at a dry, warm lunch stop (just trying to keep mom alive).
Day 3
Did I mention that the temp dropped? 38 degrees F.! Most everyone has hats, gloves, sweaters and warm stuff on and I am thinking sadly of the clothing I decided to leave home. Jerry and Shelley, Gingerbear and Mercury , the newlyweds and others who shared the shelter with us, all got themselves fed and headed out. We draped our wet things on our packs and, wearing all our dry things, headed for Bly Gap. We reached it around lunch time and had just taken a few bites when it started to rain, again. We put our wet clothes back on in order to save our dry ones, and quickly got going for the next shelter.
The next four hours had three long climbs, in wind that nearly blew us over, and very little environmental shelter. It was easier to stay warm if I kept moving but when the only choice was to move up, I was hardly going fast enough to be considered in motion. Esther was ahead of me singing “the hills are alive with the sound of… blah, blah”. I was thinking it was good the hills were alive, since I was almost dead. But her singing kept me going. I think she was afraid I would sit down and succumb to hypothermia.
We got to Muskrat Creek Shelter about 4 pm. I played Elijah (from the Bible story) and made some wet wood burn – truly a miracle which amazed everyone. Electing to go without mice this time, Esther set up the tent for us. We crawled into our sacks feeling almost too cold to sleep.
She, whose fingers still worked, set up the tent with this wonderful attitude.
Day 4
Ice on the picnic table! I am so glad we slept in the tent last night. It was warmer and less drafty than the shelter, but that is still not saying it was warm. I slept in fetal position all night. My fingers were so cold I could hardly get the damp tent folded up and packed. Esther made breakfast. At least it was a clear and sunny morning.
On the trail by 9 am. By 10 am we were stopping to take off layers of clothes – how quickly things changed. Lunch at Deep Gap and we were finally warm! It was so beautiful there.
Hiking long ridges is absolutely the BEST!
This was our longest day, hiking 12 miles, but it was mostly flat or downhill with only gradual climbs. Esther started to feel some twinges in her knee on the downhill stretches and we had to consider what we would do if it got worse for her.
We made Carter Gap at 6:30 and we had the shelter all to ourselves! Esther and I scouted out the nearby spring and, never one to forego cleanliness, Esther decided to wash her hair (not easy in a freezing mountain spring, coming out of a hole in the ground, brrr).
My legs and feet were sore and I felt generally awful. We had been warned that there were bear around with no fear of humans, and that a pack had been torn apart, so I hung a bear rope all by myself and prepared to string our food packs up. Esther set up the tent again. We ate supper and talked with Dave from Australia who wandered in. To sleep around 9 pm.
I have tried for days now to find my journal of the first AT hike – I’m coming up with nothing, although I know I’ve seen it somewhere. But I have the record of the second hike from 2004.
Finding people to hike with can be a bit of a problem. Someone has to be able to get time off and really want to do this. That narrows down the prospective pool of hikers. I found three women online who were interested in planning with me and we corresponded for a couple months before our hike. One of them hurt her ankle right before the hike and couldn’t go.
Day 1
Our packs look a little overwhelming, but we need it all, probably.
A good start from my daughter’s house in Tampa. Just enough clouds to make easy driving. We met Lorraine for the first time in person. She was nice and talked easily so we got to know each other pretty well. I forgot all my vitamins and pills at Esther’s so we stopped at a grocery store to replace it all (plus a cake server, don’t ask…). Other than that we only stopped once for breakfast in Gainesville, and once for gas in Tifton, getting into Franklin N.C. about 4:30 pm. Another of our hiking buddies, Elyse, and her husband were waiting at the motel. The last member, Kenton, came a few minutes later.
We decided to do the car drop at our end point, Wayah Gap. What a beautiful drive up in the mountains! We had a real dinner (maybe our last for a while) and then went back to the motel to go through our gear one final time. Our packs still look too heavy.
Hopefully not our last meal, but perhaps our last GOOD meal for a while.
Day 2
I am up first and out to the lobby to journal. There are big storm clouds out there and 70% chance of rain. Are we being stupid?
I barely survived the ride to Dick’s Creek crammed in Elyse’s small Blazer (actually I was stuck to the ceiling). Dick’s Creek. Who is Dick? I want to know. We took parting pictures and got on the trail by 10 am.
Kenton, Lorraine, Elyse, me and Esther. This is a hike, not a fashion show.
We had only a few sprinkles for the first two hours, which was kind of cool and pleasant. Then it started to pour, which was nothing but cold and unpleasant. We put garbage bags over our packs and that worked fairly well. But our ponchos only kept part of our bodies dry. By the time we reached Plum Orchard Gap we were soaked head to foot, either with rain or sweat, it didn’t much matter which.
We crowded into a trail shelter with 10 other wet, smelly people at about 1 pm. This left a lot of afternoon and evening to sit and do… yes, what? Dry off? Hardly. The temperature started dropping so we huddled in our sleeping bags after supper and listened to mice for the next eight hours. May I never have to repeat a night like this. Saw my first “bear bag” cables.
Esther in her deluxe upper shelf (where most of the mice were). This was before five other hikers joined her. My cold, wet finger on the lens, sorry.
I am blessed with an eclectic family, people that are willing to share their lives and experiences with each other. As a result, I have had an entertaining afternoon at River Ranch, Florida. It’s not really a town. It’s a community of people bonded by their attraction to off road vehicles and the camping lifestyle. Think classy redneck, lots of flags, dust, dirt, mud, throw in a few guns and lots of food, trailers and serious off road vehicles. That’s River Ranch.
In my family are men who do work with machines – clearing land, building structures, hauling stuff – and that is how they came upon River Ranch. Having done a lot of work there for others, my nephew now has his own campsite and comes up from the city to relax and have fun with his family. Early in the development of River Ranch people picked their campsites and claimed them much like the old-fashioned land rushes. My cousin had his site fenced off and outfitted with a well, outdoor showers and an upscale outhouse. The camp section is crisscrossed with sandy lanes and trails and covers a lot of territory. There are a few permanent residents but many are weekend regulars in RV’s and trailers that they park under shelters they have built.
For this outing our families had a sandwich making assembly line, packed a cooler of drinks and loaded up our vehicles. A few weeks ago a wildfire went through much of the camp area and destroyed a lot of property. We started our trek through this burn area. All the roads and paths are dirt and sand, and since there has not been much rain it is very dusty. That is why many of us had dust masks and head coverings. Our next stop was the “play pen” where our twelve year old guide showed us how to get down and dirty. We toured my nephew’s campsite and then headed out into 8 square miles of Florida wilderness. We had our picnic in an area called “the oaks” for a very obvious reason. We traveled on to the water hole and then back to our starting point. Come with me on a picture rendition of our 5 hour journey!
These were the multi-person vehicles that we used, along with several single person ATV’s. The small blue one was built by my nephew’s son – it didn’t go with us.Our caravan starts out through the pine burn area.Trey, our very own “Evil Kneival”, led the way all afternoon. They call this “sugar sand”. It is possible to get stuck in it, yes.Sadly, fire travels swiftly through dry palmetto and underbrush. Many buildings and vehicles were destroyed but since it was during the week, few people were present.We enter the “play pen” with Trey demonstrating how to play. Mud reigns. Some of these puddles are deeper than others.He’s often on two wheels. His dad says he has never gone over, amazing. Funny thing, none of the rest of us did this.The stunt man parks his four wheeler on a tree at “the oaks”. Picnic time.A tasty lunch, a little tree climbing and swinging from ropes while we rested up for the rest of the trip. There were lots of families with kids out here and they all looked to be having fun. A little dirt doesn’t hurt anyone.Trey, not quite sure of what to do with this bump in the road???Actually, now we’re sure. We are going around this part of the trail.Our guide opens the gate at the campsite. Shower stalls and the outhouse are prime features, along with a nice fire pit.
Many thanks to our host and hostess for an interesting afternoon “off the road” in Florida!
I was in danger of becoming discouraged yesterday. My job for the last two days has been to give an outside look to the house listings being sent to my daughter from the realtor. There are so many variables to keep in mind and each variable has a priority assigned to it. Price, distance to work, adequate space, animal friendliness, resale value… I could go with this list, but you get the idea. I went south of the city the first day and north of it today.
The first place today was a no show. I could not find a house or a driveway at the supposed address after driving for 30 minutes to reach it. The second place was somewhat less disappointing but certainly not a place Dr. J would have liked to live. I was stoked for the third place to be really awesome. How could it not be? It was time for some good news. After many turns, roads getting smaller and smaller, this is the sign that marked the last gravel lane.
Some people have welcome signs, then there are others…
With that message in mind, I started thinking about what I’d read that morning before setting out, a specific message in scripture that is pretty commanding. “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” And along with that were words from Jesus promising to love me and send the Holy Spirit to guide me. I’m not saying the Holy Spirit was looking over multiple listing for the perfect house for Julie. But it does seem to be a promise from someone who is faithful and loves me, that I will have guidance when I ask for it, if I love him, trust him and am obedient. The question is not whether God is guiding me in this small thing. The question is what is he guiding me toward or away from. In this instance, if God were a realtor he would be saying “location, location, location…”
As Julia and I look over listings on the internet, I see our focus changing a little. Maybe we are listening to guidance. It’s interesting to watch for signs, of all kinds.
I saw another sign the other day. I pulled in to fuel up the truck for my day’s adventures and got stalled at the gas pump looking for the credit card slot. There wasn’t one. There was a sign which surprised me enough that I had to post a pic on Facebook.
I paid the cashier and told him I didn’t remember the last time I saw a “pump first” sign. He very calmly told me I had been traveling in the wrong neighborhoods. Sometimes I do get the sense that the climate here is a little quieter, less oriented to crime and its prevention. That would be nice, just saying…
I Just Have to Say... 