The Rest of the Story...

As promised...

I guess I need to back up a bit. Not because I forgot anything, but because this part of the story comes before we went to the motel.
On one of our last days staying at my parents, it was pretty late in the evening and I got a phone call from my eagle friend, Wendy. The conversation went something like this:

Wendy: Hey, K., How are you?

Me: Blessed!

Wendy: Have you guys found a house yet?

Me: Not yet... we've been out looking every night and have two that we're waiting to hear back about.

Wendy: Well I have someone here... Taylor's nurse. Her name is Kay... She and her husband flip houses. You know what that is?

Me: Yeah! I just discovered that show a week or so before we moved out. It's really awesome how that do that!

Wendy: Well they don't do anything on the scale of the TV show, but I asked her if they had any houses that they were working on, and she said they actually were finishing one up soon. So I asked her "Within a month?" and she said yes. It's a 3 bedroom, two up and one down, bathroom on both floors. Would you be interested?

Me: Oh my gosh! YES!! Where is it?

Wendy: It's on the corner of ******** Ave. & **** St. A yellow house with shutters and a decent sized back yard.

Me: In *******?

Wendy: Yeah.

Wendy: we were just sitting here talking and I was telling her about you guys and your situation, and that you needed to be there to start taking care of your parents more, and how much you've been a blessing to me, and about Jessie and Drew and what good kids they are.
She said they would be willing to rent that house instead of selling it.

Me: Do you know how much?

(I hear her asking Kay in the background)
Wendy: She said $___

Me: You've got to be kidding! That is right where we need it to be! We've run into a situation where we found out that we won't have quite as much as we were planning on and would have to come down some and that is exactly what we needed to come down to. That is so like my Father!! God is so awesome!

Me: Do you know if we would be able to keep our dogs?

Wendy: I really don't know anything about it other than what I've told you. But she's here, you want to ask her?

Me: Sure!

Kay: Hi, K.! It sounds like we have a house you need?

Me: It sure does! I'm so excited! I do have a few questions for you though...

Kay: Sure! what's that?

Me (tentatively): Do you allow pets?

Kay: Well... I hadn't thought about it.. what kind do you have?

Me: We've got two dogs. One is a little lapdog... a Yorkie. The other is a small German Shepherd mix who will primarily be an outside dog.

Kay: I'm not sure... it probably won't be a problem, but I'll talk to my husband before I say definitely. We haven't laid carpet yet. We put all new laminated wood floors in the new bathroom, the kitchen, and the dining room and we were going to carpet the living room and the bedroom because they have the older hard wood floors, but they're kinda scratched up and not in the best shape. But I suppose we could just not put the carpet down... I'll see what he says. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Me: Whew! That is a relief! They are family to us and it's so hard to find a place where we can keep them. I do have one other question.... what about waterbeds? Are the floors solid enough for them? I have fibromyalgia and the bed we have is so horrible. I wake up in a lot of pain most mornings.

Kay: As long as it's on the main floor, I don't see why not!

Me: It would be. That is great! It looks like God just worked this out perfectly!

Kay: Sure does! Well, we've got a graduation party to do this weekend, but let me give you my phone number and get yours, and I will get back with you about the dogs and by then I should know more about when it will be finished. I've got to run, so here's Wendy back. Nice talking to you!

Me: Thank you so much, Kay! I cain't wait to hear back from you!! Bye!

I talked to Wendy again for a few minutes while she was backing out to let Kay out of the driveway, then we got off the phone and I about had a shoutin' spell! ROFL Just in time, God (Who is never late, no matter what it looks like) came through for us with a house!
The next day (only because it was already after dark and I wouln't be able to see anything), we drove over by the house and looked in the windows. We really couln't see much, but enough to know that it was a cute little house in a decent looking neighborhood!


So now fast forward to after the two weeks at my parents and the two weeks at the motel. God has impeccable timing! He worked it all out so that we got our stimulus check on the very day that we needed the deposit and first month's rent, and it all coincided with the new vacation cycle at hubby's work (for some weird reason, June 1st is when they can start planning their vacations for the year instead of at the beginning of January when everything else starts over).
So we got the key, signed the year lease... and met one of the new neighbors in the process because she was the witness on the lease. Her name is Carrie, and she is a real sweetheart, about my age, with two daughters and a hubby/boyfriend. So we started moving everything in. Furniture first, and got it in place, then started bringing in the other necessaries a little bit at a time. We still have 3 storage units, but each of them is now missing stuff... most of the furniture, some full boxes, and others just individual things that I have pulled out of the boxes. I'm NOT bringing everything into this house that I had in the other one. Once the landlords get their stuff out of the garage and give us the key, I am going to start bringing things over here and putting price tags on them! I am ging to have a real garage sale for the first time! And to make it easy on me, I just might put a quarter sticker on everything smaller than a breadbox! But at least I am finally going to be getting rid of my packrat stuff! LOL

And now you know.... the rest of the story!

I'm Back!!

Mornin', Ya'll!!
I've been back a week or so now, but I'm only getting the occasional quiet time alone to gather my thoughts so I can write in here. And I'm not sure how long I'll even stay awake, because it's after 2 AM and I'm sleepy.
But anyways... where do I even begin?? I know, I know... at the beginning. But I've slept since then... how am I supposed to remember it all?? LOL
Ok.. let me think.......
After we moved all our stuff into storage, we still couln't find any place to rent. So we had to stay at my parents' house for a little bit. I hated it. Absolutely and completely. Don't get me wrong... I love my parents. But one house was never meant for two families, especially when there are two women who have run their own households for too long and are set in their ways. I hated it that my dogs had to stay in her nasty basement and that she complained daily about the 'dog smell' ...that was all in her head (because somebody was constantly taking them out or else they were gone with us). I hated it that she blatantly played favorites with my dogs. She loves Buddy and would always baby-talk him and talk about what a nice sweet dog he is, then turn around and say really mean things about Maddie, like that she cain't stand her and wouln't care if she was in the middle of the ocean with a rock tied around her neck. I hated it that I couln't discipline my kids without getting one or the other of them (my parents) upset. I hated it that she had her nose in every single aspect of our business. Like just because we were staying in her house, she had a right to know our every thought. I hate "you should..." "ya'll better..." "Now K., when he gets his check, you better make him..." "you better not be spending your money on that, you need to save it for...". Anyways, so after a week or so, I was starting to adjust(if you can call it that), and then right out of the blue, her pastor throws us out! My parents rent their house from their church, which is why he even had that authority, but still... I mean, we weren't causing any trouble, we weren't destroying the place... if we even left something laying in the wrong place we got told about it by mom or scowled at by dad! But he up and makes us leave. And not like he quietly came over to the house and asked us to leave... no, he waits til they got in church for prayer meeting and atarts praying and loudly 'telling God' "They've got to go!!!" I'm still trying to figure out where the love of Christ is in that! So, whatever... he let us stay one more week til the kids were out of school.
Every night, when Dave got home from work, we'd leave. And every time we'd leave to go anywhere, we had to take Maddie or both dogs with us, even if we were going to the store. Most nights we were going out driving around looking for 'For Rent' signs in yards, or going to look at the ones in the paper or that someone told us about. Every time we'd see another door, it would slam in our faces. It was almost like we were being forced to stay at my parents', but then that door slammed in our faces too. When we'd look at a place, it either cost too much rent, or it was too small, or it had a second floor and the bedrooms were all on it, or if everything was ok about it, someone else would get it right out from under our noses.
So, since we had to leave there and nothing opened up for us, we went to a motel to stay for the next two weeks.
It's not cheap to stay in a motel, so I went to the phonebook to call around and see where would be the least expensive. That was the 'Stay Inn' in Marion. What a mistake!! We went there, knowing that it was all we could afford since my parents were actually fronting us the money, but when the guy showed us the room we would have to live in for two weeks, it was all I could take. I broke down and cried. For a long time. The place was moldy and mildewed, nasty, tiny, had cigarette burns all over the microwave and tiny fridge, poorly patched walls, unpatched fist holes in the walls, and just felt dirty, even though all I was doing was standing in the middle of the room. So we started back to my parents' house and decided to go check at the place where we had spent the first night before resigning ourselves to staying at mom & dad's. Al Smith's Place. Come to find out, it cost the same for the weekly rate, it was twice the size or more, clean, freshly painted, had a big corner shower, a kitchenette sink by the door, a microwave and half refrigerator without the cigarette burns... the total opposite of the other one! So it had been about an hour and a half, and Dad and Dave went back to the Stay Inn to get our money back because we weren't going to be staying there. At first they weren't going to give it back. They said they had to wait til the next day if they wanted to discuss it further. Then when we went back the next day, they were only going to give back half. After going through a major hassle and mom writing a letter threatening going to the police and writing to the editor of the Marion Star newpaper, and contacting the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General, and I don't remember who all else, they decided to give back the part that went on the credit card, but not the cash. No way! I can be as stubborn as mom when it comes to money... so I stayed right there arguing with her til she agreed to give back all but $9. And I would have gotten that $9 too, but by then we were pushing too close to the time we needed to pick up the moving truck, so Dave made me quit arguing and leave.
Anyways, so we ended up at this really adorable place that had a cottage garden feel to it.

Here it is looking through the gazebo...


then a pic of the left half (it was basically shaped like this --> |_| with the gazebo at the top)


Here's the gazebo... isn't it just beautiful??


And then here is our room. We were on the end... but even though there is a door there, it's only for looks. Our door was in the back.


And now that I've gotten you caught up to what happened for the first month, I'm going to quit here and post about how we 'found' our house and up til now in the next post. I won't guarantee that it will be tomorrow or anything, but I do promise that I won't post anything else til I get the whole story told. Fair enough? And if I remember things that need to be posted in this first half of the story, I'll either update it or else add it to the end of the second half.