Writer at Random

Invasion of the grandchildren!

Our kids are officially back from their extended driving vacation across the U.S., so last night, in a matter of minutes, the size of my household more than tripled!

The noise level? Try a factor of 10!

Have I mentioned the kids are staying with us temporarily while they finalize arrangements to move to Ethiopia in a few weeks? Our son-in-law will eventually be teaching at a Christian college there, and while we're delighted they are responding to God's call in this way, we will miss them like crazy!

To learn more about this exciting new chapter in their lives, visit their blog. I know they'd appreciate your support and prayers.

Clogged dryer vent--always something!

Isn't that the way it goes? Just when I'm in the middle of a time-sensitive project (as in, getting ready for three separate author appearances coming up in the next several days), hubby calls me to come downstairs and help fix the dryer.

Seems the little thingamabob came loose INSIDE the dryer, where it can't be reached it without standing on your head and squeezing into small, tight spaces.

And since hubby is 6'5 and over 200 pounds, guess to whom that job falls.

(Notice the "to whom," Grammar Queen, thank you very much.)

So that's my earth-shattering blog post for today. But, hey, I'm doing good, aren't I? Just look at how often I've blogged in the past two weeks! World's record!!

Workday ... but not the best kind

Today we painted our "new" wall, where those noisy but oh-so-efficient handymen removed a superfluous door.

Honestly, you've never seen a house with so many doors! I like doors, especially when I want to hide away in my office and write undisturbed.

But when a tiny bathroom has a door on three out of four walls, that's too many!

Hubby's project

For two or three months now, my husband has been converting an old play "fort" into a storage shed. The fort came with the house we bought last year, but the grandkids never showed much interest in it. And with the solid framework, it seemed ideal for walling in, adding a roof, and turning into some useful storage space.

Well, finally, after averaging three to five trips a week to Lowe's and/or Home Depot, he finished it!!!!

And just in time for our kids to store a ton of their stuff as they prepare for another overseas mission assignment.

Some of the building credit must go to grandsons who helped shingle the roof, and hubby's brother, who engineered the door. I even helped some--but mostly tried to stay out of the way!

Granddaughter #1's birthday cake

My #1 granddaughter will celebrate her 7th birthday in a few days. So her mom, who's planning a party at the park for a lively bunch of first-graders, called the other day asking if I'd decorate the cake.

See, I haven't done any cake decorating in . . . well, a really, really long time! I still have most of my Wilton supplies, but the frosting bags were so old that when we moved last year, they had to be thrown away.

Anyway, I asked what GD#1 had in mind for her cake and was told . . . FLAMINGOS!!!

So my daughter baked a big chocolate-chip cookie cake and brought it over today after she picked up the kids from school. She even made the frosting for me. So all I had to do was dig deep into my ancient memories of cake decorating skills (such as they were!) and somehow . . . come up with pink flamingos. GD#1 made a few suggestions along the way, and here's how it turned out (GD#1's name removed for privacy's sake):

TA-DAAAAA!

Thank you for not laughing.

A Moving Story: Chapter 10, “Prayers Answered”

As my good friend Ruth Logan Herne of Seekerville would say . . .

Oh. My. Stars!

Has it been over a month since my last installment?

I do have a good excuse. Following the ACFW conference in St. Louis the end of September, I received a contract to write the next book in my “Cross Roads Farm” series for Heartsong Presents. The manuscript deadline is December 1, so I’ve been writing like crazy for the past several weeks! I finished the draft yesterday, so now I’m taking a breather before diving into revisions.

So. Where did we leave off?

It’s probably time to draw this saga to a close, so I’ll try to sum up the last stages of the move in this post. And “Prayers Answered” is exactly what we experienced.

The biggest prayer we needed a quick answer to was selling our house back in Oklahoma, and finally we got the call we’d been waiting for. The offer came in very low, however--even less than we’d paid for the house five years prior. The prospective buyers had all kinds of complaints--the carpet, the kitchen tile, outdated light fixtures, ad infinitum. We had done some updates before listing the house, but apparently not enough to get our asking price in a super-tough buyer’s market.

We finally came to terms without having to take too big a loss. But then, thanks to mortgage company snafus, the closing date we’d agreed upon came and went. By then we’d already completed the “big move”--bringing everything we’d left behind and moving it into our new home, which became available two weeks earlier than expected (another blessing, because now we wouldn’t have to pay storage costs).

Our next huge prayer was that we’d at least close in time to repay the money we’d borrowed from our IRA for the down payment on our new home. Otherwise, we’d be hit with a big income tax bill. But the mortgage company came through just under the wire, and we were able to pay back the loan with only a day to spare!

At the end of June, we moved out of the apartment and fully into our home, and we’ve been enjoying it ever since. Sure, there have been adjustments to make, especially since we downsized a teensy bit. But being here to watch our three youngest grandchildren grow up and to offer help and babysitting as needed makes all the worries and struggles of moving totally worth it.

Yep, I’m confident we are exactly where we are supposed to be!

A Moving Story: Chapter 8, “Messages from a ‘Dove’”

So there we were, enjoying our cozy apartment and spending time with the kids and grandkids, especially that darling new baby girl!

But each day that passed without a phone call from our Realtor with a contract offer was one more day I would ask myself if we’d done the right thing.

And eat chocolate. Ever since the news came out that eating dark chocolate is good for your health, my husband and I have made sure to eat some every day, usually a small piece after lunch and after dinner. For medicinal purposes, of course. (Yeah, right!)

While living in the apartment, we ate a lot of Dove chocolates, the kind in the little foil wrapper with a clever saying inside. Things like “Enjoy the moment,” “Live your dreams,”  and “Smile! It’s contagious!”

Then one day when I was particularly anxious about the fact that our house hadn’t sold, I opened up a Dove chocolate to find this message:

YOU ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.

Okay, some may think I’m weird or crazy or both, but there have been a couple of noteworthy times in the past when I felt certain God was speaking words of encouragement to me in fortune cookie messages. The wording, the timing...just too “coincidental” to be anything but God’s doing. So that day at the apartment I was positive He had sent this message in a Dove chocolate just for me.

For a couple of weeks I lived in this assurance, and it helped. But when circumstances don’t change, discouragement has a way of creeping back in. As we sat down to lunch one day, my doubts and worries were as high as they’d ever been. After finishing my sandwich, I picked up my Dove chocolate and prayed silently, Lord, I could really use some confirmation. If you meant it before, could you maybe give me that same message again?

Trying not to get my hopes up, I unwrapped my chocolate and smoothed out the foil. My heart climbed into my throat when I read:

YOU ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.

Interestingly, I have never seen that particular message before or since--just those two occasions. But I thank God for sending His words of hope exactly when I needed them most!

Coming up next: Chapter 10, “Prayers Answered”

A Moving Story: Chapter 7, “Timing is Everything”

Things have gone crazy again since my last installment. Following the annual American Christian Fiction Writers Conference in September, I came home to a new book deadline and have been pretty much locked in my “writing cave” ever since.

Okay, I think we left off with a contract on a house and a partial move ahead of us. We had already packed several boxes with items we didn’t use that often, but now we had to get serious about deciding what we’d most need in an apartment for three months and what could remain behind.

So the first weekend in April, several friends from church got together and helped us load a Penske rental
truck. With my husband driving the truck and our parakeet, Sprite*, riding shotgun with him, I drove our car with Gracie and Shadow camped out in the backseat. With the help of our son-in-law and a couple of his friends, we moved into our apartment on a Sunday afternoon.

Then...four days later...our new baby granddaughter was born!!! Talk about perfect timing! While “Grandpa” kept the two older kids, I went to the hospital and was so blessed to be right there in the delivery room for the baby’s arrival--what a precious memory!

Then came the waiting and praying for our other “delivery”--a contract on the house we left behind. In order to make the down payment on our new home and be able to cover two mortgages temporarily if necessary, we made arrangements to borrow against our retirement account. The main stipulation was that if we paid back the money within 60 days of withdrawal, it would be as if we never took it out. If not, it would count as income. Not a big deal, but definitely an extra expense we hoped to avoid.

So things were tense as we prayed for our house to sell. I wondered many times if we had done the right thing by going ahead with the move, but then I’d think back to the scripture verse from Proverbs that had come up so frequently: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” 

But with our house taking so long to sell, I couldn’t help worrying. And (besides leaning on the Lord) what’s the best antidote for worry? CHOCOLATE!

Next time: Chapter 8, “Messages from a ‘Dove’”

*Sadly, Sprite became ill in early September and passed away. He was part of our family for nine years, and we really miss the little guy!

A Moving Story: Chapter 7, “Are we really doing this???”

Sorry it’s taking me so long to get this story told. Just when I think I’m caught up enough to sit down and blog again, another “importantly urgent” task crops up.

Okay, back to that house we couldn’t seem to get off our minds.

The moment the owners greeted us at the front door, I knew this house was as special and right as our minds had built it up to be. Pride of ownership shone in every detail. Yes, there were aspects that definitely did NOT fit my “must have” list (in fact, a few areas were on my “absolutely unacceptable” list). But when we weighed the negatives against everything else this house had to offer, most of them didn’t seem nearly as important anymore.

Besides, I felt absolute assurance that this was meant to be our house. (See Chapter 1: “A Moving Premonition.”)

So we asked their price and then went with our Realtor to a coffee shop to hammer out a contract offer.  After only a little back-and-forth with the owners, we came to very acceptable terms for the selling price, but the sticking point would be date of possession. The owners, taken by surprise as they were when the house hadn’t even been on the market for several months, didn’t think they could be moved out by the time we wanted to move in (remember that baby due in early April?).

To make a long story short(er), we agreed to let them rent the house back from us for three months, and in the meantime, we would find a small apartment that we could move into in time to be here for our granddaughter’s birth.

On the final day of our trip, our daughter took us around to see apartments. It truly seemed as if God was giving us favor, because the second place we visited not only allowed pets (an absolute requirement with our two big, lovable mutts!) but had exactly one two-bedroom unit that met our requirements coming available the weekend we needed to move in.

With a wonderful new house under contract, an apartment lease in hand, and less than six weeks to pack for moving, we headed back to Oklahoma and wondered if we’d lost our minds. But we’d passed the point of no return and could only trust in God to walk us through the rest of this moving journey.

Especially since we still had not a single offer to purchase our current home!

Coming up in the next installment: Chapter 7, “Timing is Everything”

A Moving Story: Chapter 6, “Lean not unto your own understanding...”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”  --Proverbs 3:5-6

That’s the verse that kept playing through my mind as we contemplated this move. It also cropped up unexpectedly in our pastor’s sermon, during prayer time and inspirational reading, and at other random times.

My own understanding? Don’t take any risks. Stay put until the market improves. And absolutely do not even think of moving before you have a solid contract on the house you’re leaving behind.

But did I mention that new grandbaby was due the first week of April??? Oh, how I longed to be there in time for that blessed event! And not just to hold our precious baby girl but to be available to help our daughter and son-in-law as needed, especially since they were already busy parents of two school-age children.

So I began to believe God was nudging us to take a huge leap of faith. Still with only intermittent interest in our current home, we planned another house-hunting trip. By now we were able to narrow our search parameters to certain neighborhoods that were most convenient to where our daughter lived. After all, what was the point of moving across the country only to be separated by drive time and traffic congestion?

We also urged our Realtor to find out whatever she could about that house. Online real estate information indicated the house had not sold, so we wanted to know if the owners planned to relist at some point or if they’d changed their minds about selling.

As it turned out, they still planned to move eventually but after a disappointing few months on the market had decided to withdraw the listing for a while. They were more than willing to let us view their home, so our Realtor set up an appointment.

And we hoped to either put our minds to rest that this was not the house for us so we could stop wondering . . .

Or maybe . . . just maybe . . .

Next time, Chapter 7, “Are we really doing this???”