All in God's timing

Since we've been trying to sell the house now for, oh, 5 months or so, we've begun to realize that while we might have a timeline in our heads, that doesn't really matter, because it's definitely going to happen in God's timing.

We've gotten a property manager now, and put our house up for rent, since the buying season is pretty much over now that the holidays are basically here. We already have someone interested in renting, which is great news!

Well, last night when I got home, we had 3 messages (no one ever calls us, so I was definitely excited about getting these messages) - 2 were from our realtor, and 1 was from the property manager. Our realtor informed us that we got an offer on the house, and he would be emailing it over to us later. The property manager was giving us advice as to how to handle renting out the house, now that we had a possible renter.

Obviously, if we can sell the house, we want to. But, the potential buyer low-balled us pretty big, so we're going to counter-offer. Here comes the tricky part. We have to counter-offer so as to not scare away the buyer, but we also don't want to scare away the possible renter, either, in case the buyer doesn't want to take our offer.

This comes as quite a shock to us both! We really thought that now since it's basically November, our chances of selling were gone. On the other hand, we thought we wouldn't have any problems selling it back in May or June. While we realize that it still might not sell, it teaches us that we definitely have no control in this situation.

We'll see what happens....

This is when you know you've made it...

I was doing some searching on the internet for work. I was looking to see if we had the right contact information for a company. I was having trouble finding the company, so I typed in the contact name I had. When I hit enter it said, "Did you mean: William Hung." The last name of the person I was looking for was one letter off from Hung.

It took me a second to recognize the name.

Imagine, a little asian guy who couldn't sing or dance, sings "She Bangs" terribly one time on TV, and now comes up in a search engine as a "did you mean."

America...if you can't make it here....

Michigan Getaway

*I just realized after typing the title, that it could be interpreted that I want the state of Michigan to get away from me. Instead, it's supposed to mean that I had a get-away in Michigan. But I'm leaving the title, cause I think it's funny. I really do hate coming up with titles for my posts.*

So, this past weekend, I was able to go up to Michigan for my friend, Kellie's, wedding shower. I'm less than 4 hours away, and I was very happy to be close enough to go.

I had a great time of catching up with my girls, and talking wedding stuff with Kellie. She lives in Indiana now, and I think I might go there for her next shower in a couple of weeks. I really feel I need to take advantage of living so close to my friends, because in LA, we won't be close to anyone!!

Here's me with Kellie,on the left, and her sister Jenny, in the middle. I was in Jenny's wedding in Michigan back in July.
The future bride!

I knew that I knew that guy from somewhere!

Many of my readers know who Jesse and Joanna are. Joanna is the niece of my pastor in Albuquerque, and she just got married to Jesse last month, who is the interim pastor at another church in Albuquerque. Well, the day before the movers came to pack up our stuff in ABQ, we had J & J over for dinner. During the conversation, it came up that Jesse had gone to Summit around (possibly at) the same time that Grant did - the summer of 97. Grant had always said that Jesse looked familiar to him, and when this whole Summit thing came up, he was convinced that they did, in fact, attend the same week of the summer, and that's why he recognized him.

Well, it just so happened that Grant's mom had the video that was made during the week that Grant went to Summit. So of course he had to ask her to send it to us!

Within the first minute of the video we saw him. After watching it some more, we came across this shot... (Jesse's in the blue, Grant's next to him in the white {probably Florida State} t-shirt.)



Now, you'll have to ignore the guy behind them who's trying to hog the spotlight, but there they are, shoulder to shoulder, back in 1997. So Grant did indeed recognize Jesse. How random is that?

I'm on a roll...

Three posts in a row...that has to be a new record for me!

Anyways, I just wanted to say that after living in Albuquerque for over 3 years, I really became accustomed to the drought conditions. Really, I mean, having about 340 days (actually, it's probably more than that) out of the year that are sunny is not too shabby!

It has now been raining in Dayton for at least 13 hours - straight (that I can tell)! Poor little Watley barely wants to go outside. And when he does, it's so pathetic...he kind of scrunches up his body, hangs his head really low, does his business, then sprints back to the house to be let in.

We were having some really beautiful weather here. Grant it, I could only admire the outside through the windows of my office building, but it was still beautiful. I knew it wouldn't last.

I just noticed that I really like to use exclamation marks!!

New Blogs!

I just wanted to take a minute and give a shout out (I love giving those) to a couple of new blogs. Megan (There's Treasure Everywhere) is a new blogger (we've been working on her for a while to get one started), who is almost about to have her first baby - her due date is in less than a week! Megan and her husband, Andy, moved from Albuquerque about a month after Grant and I did, which means that the church (and Albuquerque, for that matter) lost 2 of the coolest couples, EVER! Our prayers are with them as they move into this new phase of their lives.

The next blog is not new at all, but it's new for us. It's our neighbors, Jesse and Catie, along with their 2 cuties Tori and AJ. As soon as we mentioned that we knew someone in Albuquerque that had a Detroit Tigers cornhole set, Jesse immediately knew who it was (Bob!). Jesse and Catie were supposed to be moving to LA when Jesse graduates this coming March, which would've been awesome, because we'd be there a year after they got there. But, Jesse applied to get out of the Air Force, and he got it, which is great news! So now they have the big decision to figure out where Jesse should apply for a job. Our prayers are with y'all, too!

Busy, Busy!

Well, it's been another busy week here in Dayton! Let's see...

Tuesday: I went to work. My parents came into town late that night.

Wednesday: I went to work, but my parents met me for lunch in Yellow Springs. We found a totally cool restaurant (The Sunrise Cafe), with great food. I had the Greek gyro, and it was delicious! Later that night, I had a Tastefully Simple party at my house.

Thursday: I went to work, but had a 2-hour lunch, in which my parents and Grant came to meet me in Yellow Springs. We were able to walk around the town, go in all sorts of cute little shops, and then take a drive in the country to look at fall colors. We got our first snow that day! Grant and I were not very thrilled with that at all, but my mom was loving it. Later that night, we went to the newly opened Cheesecake Factory, to celebrate my dad's birthday, which was October 9.

Friday: I went to work (are you seeing a trend here? No time off work...but I won't go there right now), but was able to get off at 3 in the afternoon. I had been working on making a purse. I won't go into all the details, because it would take way too long, but I'd been dying to make a ribbon purse. I got all my materials in before my parents came (I ordered the green ribbon and fabric for the lining on ebay), and I wanted my mom to help me with the sewing part, since I do NOT sew. Well, to make a long story short, my little sewing machine that I already had (Pinky got A & C one just like mine), didn't want to do the job. So, I went to a store that sold used sewing machines, got a fantastic deal on a 3-year old machine, and prayed that it worked. And it did! I was able to completely finish my purse in one night. It's not the best craftsmanship in the world, but it was my first try, so I can't be too hard on myself. I want HONEST opinions about the purse, though, since I am thinking about making more of these for gifts. I've been trying to upload the other picture I have of it, with a view of the lining, but blogspot is being weird right now. Does anyone else have uploading problems with them?

Saturday: We took my parents to the 2nd Street Market, which was a lot of fun! There were all sorts of booths set up, with food, drinks, and doo-dads galore. When we were done there, we took a drive through the Oregon District, which is an old neighborhood, with very cool, very old, very unique houses. Then, it was off to the airport so that my parents could fly back to Pensacola. I'm so glad they were able to make it up here, and that my mom was able to see some beautiful fall colors, which was the main reason she wanted to come here this time of year.

Another great weekend

Well, like I said, we were planning on going pumpkin picking this weekend with our neighbors. We did, but I have to say, I wasn't that impressed with the patch. Maybe it was because it was the last weekend they were having this thing, but the pumpkin patch was pretty pathetic.
We had fun, anyway, and we each found our own, perfect pumpkin. Mine had a little dimple in it, that I like to call it's belly button.

After the pumpkins, we each went our own way, and Grant and I decided to walk around Yellow Springs (this is where I work, and also where the dairy farm is that we got our pumpkins from).
Yellow Springs is our own little Santa Fe - kinda quirky, with alot of hippies, and other types of "unusual" people. But we loved Santa Fe, and so far, we love Yellow Springs.

Later that night, we had another front yard campfire, where we had Grant's made-from-scratch pumpkin pie (which was fantastic!), and Daiquiri's (one of our neighbors) homemade apple cider.

You just can't make this stuff up

So apparently, the person who was so interested in our house, well, he got arrested. Seriously. I'm thinking his jail time will conflict with putting an offer on the house. Go figure!

The Latest

I had my second ever book club meeting tonight. This time, it was really cool, because the author of the book that we picked to read was in town. The book was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's a historical fiction book about Dracula. I know, it sounds really dark and evil, but it's actually a great book! It's long, though - 642 pages. But if I can get through it, anyone can. Actually, I still have about 40 pages to go, but I plan on finishing it tonight or tomorrow. The book is already in the works to be turned into a movie, which would be really amazing to see it on screen. In the book, they visit at least seven European countries. I know there's more, but that's all I could think of right away. I would seriously work for free on the set of that movie, just to be able to travel to all those countries. It was exciting to meet the author and ask her questions and have her sign my copy of her fantastic piece of work! Really, the research that she put into the book is incredible. It took her 10 years to write it! If you like history, then you will like this book, whether you're interested in Dracula or not.

When I got home, I was telling Grant all about the experience at the bookstore. Then, the phone rang, and we realized it was our realtor. I knew it had to be something, because we JUST talked to him, and we normally only talk to him about once a week, at the most. Well, it was indeed good news! Someone is seriously interested in the house, and will be making us an offer in the next day or so!! We've been waiting for this to happen for so long, I can't even believe it's happening! Now, it doesn't mean it will go through, but this is definitely progress. You can believe there will be some serious praying going on in our little family within the next few days. Specifically, for the price. We've already lowered the price $20,000 than we originally put it up for (which was already reasonably priced). So, we're pretty much non-negotiable in that area, since it's way lower than most of the houses in our neighborhood.

So, if you all could keep us in your prayers, we'd greatly appreciate it!

A Jolly Good Weekend

On Friday night our neighbors, Logan and Leslie, had a few of us from the "hood" over for a weinee roast over their fire pit in the front yard. We must've been having a good time getting to know our neighbors better, because we ended up staying there until about 11 pm. Watley was repeatedly teased for his Florida State sweatshirt, but he definitely needed it on that night. For us, it was pretty cold. If it gets too much colder than that, I don't know what I'm gonna do. But I know it will, so I better just get used to it.

Saturday, Grant and I went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival in Waynesville. Most of our entertainment came from just watching some of the people that were attending it, completely dressed up in their medieval garb. Why people even own medieval garb, I'll never know. But they do, and they were out in full force at the Ren Fest. We saw booths that sold medieval weapons, elf ears (I already have my own God-given elf ears, thank you very much), fairy wings, chain maille bikinis, and so much more! We even watched a real-life joust, and saw a medieval wedding.

Then Sunday, we attended church (we decided on Covenant OPC for those who are wondering), came home, had some gourmet bleu cheese burgers, thanks to Grant, and took a nap. All in all, a fantastic weekend! Next weekend, we're planning to go pumpkin picking, so more to come on that.