She Said No

Well I asked Kerri... she said no.

The pantry will not contain pants, nor will it be called the foodtry. The laundry however will at times contain pants... but at no time and under no circumstances will my lawnmower be stored in the laundry room.

So, here's the deal. Make no mistake, Let me be perfectly clear. The English language is fundamentally broken and needs to undergo a comprehensive overhaul. I will introduce a sweeping "and largely unintelligible" plan after the Labor day weekend. It wont be easy, but my proposal will be shovel ready and will win the future.

Photos of the new Abode

A new look to the blog today, to commemorate the moving into our new house. I should really sign off and go move our stuff in. Lots of painting, raking and scrubbing to be had in our future. I sure am looking forward to turning the new place into our place. I will miss sitting on the the front porch sipping coffee and talking to passers by at the old house though. We will have to come up with a solution for that here.

A few of you out of towners have asked to see the new house. Here are a few pictures. I don't have any outside shots here, but will post some later.

Standing in the dining room looking into the living area. Out to the left is the sunroom and behind the fireplace is the den... my den, no TV, the den will be a quiet reading and working area. At least that is the idea.

From the previous shot, standing at the fireplace looking towards the dining area. The kitchen is behind the counter and the doorway leads to bath and bedrooms. We have two bathrooms! Woo hoo! 

Another shot of the living area looking towards the front door and more bath and bedrooms. That fan is too low for my forehead, it told me so just the other day.

The kitchen with red counter tops. Through the door is the laundry room and pantry. Why is it called a pantry, you don't store pants in there... do you? Maybe I'll be the first one to do so, I'll ask Kerri if I can tonight. Otherwise, I think we will call it a foodtry, or maybe a cantry. Come to think of it, maybe Kerri will let me keep the lawnmower in the lawndry room! I'll ask her about that this evening too. This photo was taken before the roosters invaded.

Another kitchen shot. Notice the tiny fridge under the counter! That is where we will store coffee beans and popcorn. Sarah's science project showed us that the best place to store popcorn is in the freezer... Now you know.

We can wait to move in and have you all over for dinner and games. I'd better get moving.

Welcome Home

Welcome home to us, not to you. Not yet anyway. We signed our lives away to the mortgage company on Tuesday, and just heard today that the seller, who has moved out of town, signed her side of the documents and we officially own a mortgage which allows us to live in a bank owned home for the next thirty years.

We are ecstatic and hope to move in by this weekend. Give us a few weekends to unpack and get settled and then, if you are on our short list of friends we may just invite you over for dinner.

Don't get offended if you don't get an invitation right away. With school starting up, things are pretty hectic at the Christensen house. (I can say that now. We actually have a house).

To Close or not to Close...

Two months doesn't seem like to incredibly long a time, does it? Well, it turns out that the answer depends entirely on what you are waiting for in those two months.

In June we decided that it was time to upgrade our housing situation from the one bathroom cottage we purchased back in 2006 and look for a second bathroom and a house to go with it. This process has made the last two months seem like a mere ten minutes... underwater, without oxygen.

Oh well, I hope that we have learned a little about patience and waiting on God's time. Waiting is hard, really hard. I think I understand how King Saul could justify not waiting for Samuel to come and offer the burnt offering in 1 Samuel 13. I am not saying that Saul was right or justified, I just understand how aggravating waiting can be. God's timing and our timing are not always the same. In my selfishness, I want things now, God doesn't always bend to my selfishness, though I think that He does indulge me more often than I am willing to admit.

When God makes or asks us to wait, I have found that I am ok with it, as long as I know the reason for the waiting or at least can see some point to it. In waiting for this house, I have not seen God's plan. For some reason, He has not chosen to show us why we have waited. He may never and we may never know, we may not need to. But through the relatively insignificant trails and aggravation of waiting for a home sale to occur, I think I have developed a better understanding of why we serve the Living God. He does not answer to me and life is not always rosy and pleasant, but that is not why we serve Him. No, just as I do not love my children because of what they do for me, I need to understand that God does not love me because of my actions and I should not love Him because of what He can do for me. He is an amazingly merciful God who gave His Son in order to adopt me into His family. That is pretty awe inspiring.

I wonder if we need to alter our prayers, where we thank Him for all that He has done, and maybe we should thank Him that He is. He is not named, "I DOES", he is "I AM". And so, maybe, after it is all said and done, I should stop focusing on what is going on in my life and start focusing on who He is, regardless of what is or is not happening. Waiting is still aggravating, but the only thing that focusing on the waiting did was to sap my time and energy from investing in my kids and wife. In the future, instead of constantly checking the email and waiting for the phone call, I think that I will play a board game with the family, read to my daughter, or maybe even take a spin at Mario Carts on the Wii with my son, and not waste the waiting time.

With all of that said, today, after a series of setbacks and extensions, eleven o'clock this morning was supposed to be our closing time. At the last minute, it was pushed back and once again we find ourselves waiting. just waiting, like Dr. Seuss in the book, "Oh the Places You Will Go". And so, today, maybe tomorrow or possibly the next day, we will close on the sale of our current house and hopefully on the same day, we will be able to complete the purchase of the new one. Maybe, but regardless, I am going to spend my waiting time more effectively.

I am a little curious, after we are done waiting for our house to sell and waiting to purchase the new one. What we will wait for next. Maybe the repair man, the auto mechanic, or maybe even the insurance adjustor! Aughh, now I am just scaring myself. Oh well, waiting is bound to happen, I hope that I can learn to wait better.

A tale of Rot and Rejoicing

John Wesley, the great theologian and poor chooser of a wife, once said, "Love is rot".
While I could not disagree more, rot is a good description of our bathroom floor. We had the inspection of our home and they found that we have termites, a leaky faucet and toilet and a rotten subfloor under our commode.

I am in the process of fixing everything on the list for our house which will close on the fifth of July. We are very excited about that.

Meanwhile, we have found, made an offer on and had the offer accepted on a new abode for the Christensen clan!

We are very excited about the possibility of moving into this new place. The new home is over twice as large as our current house, has two bathrooms, three really large bedrooms, a den, a large sunroom, two fire places, four large pecan trees, a sprinkler system, and a two room shop outback.

It is amazing how emotional the process of buying a house can be. We were really disappointed to lose the first house which was on a half acre of land, but now see that the water bill would have probably killed us. After seeing a number of other homes, we were begining to lose hope of finding the perfect place. Kerri fell in love with a second house, but the owners were too proud of it and wanted way to much for it. Finally we have found a really nice place and we are holding our breath to see what the appraisal and inspections will bring.

Falling back and Regrouping

They say that when searching for a house, you should never fall in love with one until it is yours. How that is done, is beyond me, if I did not fall in love with a house, I would not have made an offer on it.

Such was the case with the house mentioned in my previous post. Today however, after having our initial offer rejected, we countered with the highest offer that we felt comfortable giving, and we were outbid. Bummer.

On hearing the news, even though we have been preparing ourselves for it, we were both rather disappointed.

I have heard the phrase, "God has something better for you." a dozen times today and while I am sure that He does, I am not sure that expecting that the "better" that God has im mind will be material is a very good or safe world view. If it is a material "better" then, I cannot wait to see the acreage that is waiting to come on the real-estate market for us here in Carlsbad.

No, I don't know if "better" is always bigger, more, newer or even physically similar or tangible. "Better" is often beyond our comprehension or out of our current line of sight. God's "better" is more comprehensive than the circumstances that we can see. It may address another area of our life or a hidden vice that we have chosen to ignore. Better may be another month or year in our current situation, waiting for circumstances to change, improve, play out, or even crumble to the ground before He is ready to move us forward. Forward to something else that may be a new home or may make us better people through a challenge that will improve our understanding of Him, or draw us closer to Him. Maybe, "Better" is all in the angle you are looking at it. What I see as better for my prospective and what God see from outside of time must be so different.

I really wanted that house, and honestly, a few times this evening, I have questioned why God did not orchestrate us into that address. But He did not, or has not, and may not. As a father, I have seen how "better" for my kids is not always what they see as "better". I must say though that it is much easier to be the father than it is to be the kid. Over the years, I have developed a theology in my head, that assures me that my Savior has my best in mind. Maybe here today, I am seeing another example of when my "better" and God's better are not the same. Sometimes I wonder if God is amused or exasperated by our definition of better? I know in my head that His "better" is the best for me. It has always worked out that way and it always will. I suppose that I need to transfer that knowledge eighteen inches south of my head, to my heart.

In the mean time, we will continue to reside at our current address, in the little house that serves as a base for our big life. At least until it sells! Stop by and see us.

Small Town, Big House?

When we moved to Carlsbad in 2005, we purchased an amazing little three bedroom one bathroom house. We have enjoyed the house immensely, have sipped many cups of coffee on the small porch I built. I rebuilt my motorcycle in the garage and all three kids learned to ride their bikes without training wheels while in this house. While in this house, Kerri earned her Masters degree, I was granted Tenure, Nathan was inducted into National Junior Honors Society, Sarah was chosen for All City Choir and Ruthie has become an accomplished pianist. To make a long paragraph short, we have really enjoyed the last few years in our little green house.

Recently however, Sarah and Ruth have discovered the beauty of long showers and primping and have begun to linger long in front of the bathroom mirror. Throw our niece and nephew into the mix and all that can be said is that we need more bathrooms.

For the last few weeks we have been painting and repairing our little home, which, by the way inspired the name of this blog. Today, after looking at various houses for sale around Carlsbad, we settled on one that both Kerri and I immediately fell in love with. It sits on 1/2 an acre, has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Add in a two car garage, huge laundry room, two living areas, two sheds on the huge back yard, nine large pecan trees and an additional workshop in the backyard, and we were sold.

And so, today, we met with our friend and realtor, Dickie Means and in one fell swoop, we both put our house up for sale and put an offer in on the house in the picture below. There are a few potential snags, which we would appreciate your prayer on. First, in order to buy the new house, our current one needs to sell. Pray for an offer soon on our house. Secondly, the house below is out of our price range. It is also overpriced for the neighborhood and so we have underbid. Pray that the current owners will accept our offer or counter with something close to it.

In the meantime, if you are into praying for miracles, pray that the seven of us currently living in our 1000 sq ft home, will be able to keep this small house clean enough for potential buyers to view. That will be an accomplishment equal to the building the Panama Canal, though hopefully without the Malaria.

With that said, I am off to Maul*Mart to buy plastic silverware, paper plates and other items that will help us in that task. Join with us as we pray for God's will in our next adventure.

The front view of the house, notice all of the shade trees in the front and backyard

The back yard, from about half way back.