Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Our Journey of Change - Ask and You shall Receive


We have been in our “new” home for 11 days and there have been some challenges and some wonderful blessings.  First, the challenges – as in purchasing any home, (especially older homes), there will always be some maintenance and improvements.  First biggie problem was we did not have hot water until 5 days after we moved into our home.  It’s alright to boil water for dishes and take cold sponge baths, but when temperatures outside are below freezing one does not necessarily take a “cold” shower.  Jim was able to take a shower in our trailer a couple of days after we moved before he “closed” up the trailer to get it ready for when we move the trailer.  It was too icy around the trailer for me to return with him to shower so you can imagine I was quite ready for the shower when the hot water tank was finally fixed (and Jim was ready to throw me in the shower as well!  Ha).  The next challenge was last Thursday, our furnace stopped working.  The repair man finally came that same evening and fixed the problem. 

A couple problems we are still waiting for the seller to fix:  we have our propane gas stove, but when the sellers refurbished the home they pulled out the old propane line and failed to put in a new one – smart… so we are waiting for them to return and fix the problem (on their “dime”).  In the mean time I am cooking with a single electric burner someone let us borrow, a crock-pot, and a microwave.  There are some electrical outlets that do not work as well including our dining room fixture.  This makes for some romantic candle light dinners… hum, maybe we shouldn’t fix that one!  Ha! 

There are a few other problems or maintenance situations but they will be taken care of as we can afford.  Even with all these problems we still love our home.  Compared to living in a travel trailer for 18 months our 1977 – 14 x 66 mobile home is a mansion! 

Now the Blessings!  Before we moved the sellers left us a fairly new refrigerator and the church we are attending gave us a propane gas oven they were not using.  It too looks like it is in good condition, but I cannot say right now if it works since we still need a propane line. 

This past week we were blessed with funds to purchase beautiful used furniture for our living room as well as the biggie prayer request from my hubby – brand new washer and dryer that is being delivered today!  I have two weeks’ worth of laundry to do so I am excited about doing laundry in our own home and not at a laundry mat! 

Another blessing is windows – yes, I said windows.  When one is home-bound much of the time due to chronic illnesses being shut up in a home with very little windows can become depressing.  This home has more windows than I have ever had and we lived in an 1800 + sq ft home when living in Phoenix.  We have a total of ten windows (plus one door window) in our home!  In our home in Phoenix we had only six windows plus two sliding glass doors.  Since we have window blinds we decided to just purchase window swags for each window.  I love letting in the sunshine every day.  It brightens up my day. 

The two best reasons why I love living in our “new” home are:  1) it is closer to our new church home so we can finally establish fellowship and friendships; 2) we can finally have people over for fellowship and even have them over for dinner, especially family.  The other day my soon to be 88 year old mother said she can finally take the extra leaf out of her dining room table and hand over the family meals to me.   So when my sister, her hubby and six of her family members come up next week for a celebration of our mom’s 88th birthday, I can have them over for dinner along with my family at my dining table – the best part – mom won’t have to do a thing! 

“The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.”  Psalm 145:9 (NKJV)

Yes, our God is an awesome God!

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3 comments:

Kelli said...

Oh my goodness! When one thing is broke it seems like everything else breaks too! We have an older home too and this spring we have to do all new stuff to it! Thanks for your encouraging words...it makes me feel more positive about my house!!:) Stay warm!

From the Heart said...

Sounds like you have found a gold mine. Blessings to you and your family.

ozjane said...

Michelle it is so good to hear this news, even with the little tests
When I was flooded on the 4th ...a couple of nights later I got into a lukewarm shower. I giggled and looked upward and said.....testing testing.....thankfully the plumber re lit the pilot light in the morning. So it was only one night..but I can identify.
Photos when you have time would be great. I do not understand mobile homes very well as they are not seen that much here.