Yep, that is us. The ones who started this whole journey. Of moving into my grandmother's house (that I had known as HER house for the last 29 years). And hoping to make it our own. And although it was much smaller on the inside, with much smaller bedrooms to boot, it had a great outdoors. And great potential to add on. And it was next door to my parents. And so we felt we could certainly deal with the smallness of the inside. And the UN-updated aspect of the house. Who doesn't love wood paneling and shag carpeting. And the blue nightmare of a bathroom. We could one day fix it all. We could deal. We would deal.
Yep, that is us. Who had to bargain with my uncles, who wanted MORE then the house was worth. It was us who caused a huge rift in the family bc we wanted fair market price for the house, and they started fighting with my father. How dare we ask for a "deal". Although, it was hardly a deal. Everyone seemed to forget about the state of INSIDE the house. The house straight from the 70's. Yep, we caused all that fighting...and ultimately caused our family to split. And uncles to never want to talk to my dad again.. And in the end, they agreed to sell us the house for our asked price, but we HAD to sell our house in 6 months. And if we didn't, my dad had to buy them out of their profit of the house. So they could be done with the whole thing. And be done with our family.
Yep, that is us. Who continued on with the plan, even though our hearts were sad. And we put tons of money into fixing up our house, to make it sellable. We redid the whole kitchen (for 4500 dollars thanks to a friend helping us). And we LOVED our new kitchen. We paid someone to paint the whole house for another 2000 dollars, which we should have done when we moved in quite a few years ago. But we didn't then. And we did now. All to sell it. And we loved it. But it was for the good of the other house.
Yep, that is us. The ones who showed our house for almost 6 long, nightmarish months. Who had to keep the house clean and looking perfect, the impossible task with 5 young children. And had to run out of the house with 5 kids, many times with only a few hours notice. All to try to sell the house. And we were miserable. And getting more depressed about it all. And begging and pleading with God to make the house sell so that we could just move on.
Yep, that is us. Who just gave up one day in July. That couldn't deal with showing the house anymore. Couldn't deal with the stress or the disappointment. And our 6 months was up. And my dad HAD to buy the house. And all our begging and pleading with God to sell this house was not heard. We had no choice. We couldn't leave my dad to pay for the new mortgage. We couldn't get our own mortgage, with having one already. We had to move. And so with heavy hearts, we packed up and just left. Left our home and moved into my grandmother's house. Which didn't feel so little when there were 2 people in it, but felt positively tiny with us 7 in it. Right from the start, we missed our other house. But we had signed that agreement. We had caused our family to fight and have hatred in their hearts. We had to make it right. Somehow. Maybe this would make everything right?
Yep, that is us. The ones that really liked the outside of our "new house". But just didn't feel at home. At all. No matter how hard we tried. Our home was at the other house. And this was my grandmother's house. And the inside was positively claustrophobic at times. But the house had potential to add on. And so much land. And being next door to my parents. We had to deal. We had to make it right.
Yep, that is us. Who tried putting out ads to rent our other house, so that we wouldn't just lose it. And we found no one. And we still begged and pleaded with God. Why was He making this so hard for us? Why did our house not sell? Why could our house not even be rented out? And why couldn't we make this house feel like OUR home?
Yep, that is us. Who just went on. And tried to forget about the other house. While trying to find a home in our new house. We tried moving rooms around to make more space. But the space was just not there. And we found out we were pregnant. And we had a heck of a time with that pregnancy. It felt like nothing was going our way. Why had things turned upside on us. And how much longer would it take to make our new house feel like home. And with winter approaching, our glorious outdoors was not being used. And in the TINIEST HOUSE EVER, we spent most of our days.
Yep, that is us. Who still thought about and missed our house terribly. But tried to forget about it. But failed. But still tried. And we had our first Christmas here. And it still felt like we were strangers. It still wasn't our home. And even the kids started asking if we could move back soon. But we had messed up everything. We were trying to make things right for the family. My dad was happy with us living there. We could deal. Hopefully?
Yep, that is us. Who found out we were having a 4th boy. We who were sure we were having a 3rd girl. With the world's tiniest bedrooms, 3 would be a tight fit. But 3 in the girl's room and 3 in the boy's room would work out. But it wouldn't be 3 and 3. It would be 4 boys in one tiny room. And 4 energetic boys running around the world's tiniest house. And as hard as I tried to stay optimistic, I SUNK fast. Into a depression and sadness I couldn't shake. I wanted my old life back. Why did we let ourselves get bullied into this agreement with my uncles, all for the convenience of them getting their money asap. All while dealing with the unconvenience of just leaving our house. And having to be fully dependent on my dad now for everything. And being stuck in a house that we had found to be way too tiny. We didn't know the house wouldn't fit us. Until we were there. With our 5 kids. And 5 kids worth of stuff. And one more to be added soon. And the potential to add on was nothing but a potential. First we had to fix up the things falling apart in the house first and foremost. The bathroom that was falling apart. My grandmother had bought the house in the 70's and had made few changes since. And we now had to deal with the disrepair. And how much extra money does a family with one working parent and to be 6 always growing, ALWAYS hungry children have? Not much. We have enough for the bills and necessitites and a little extra for the extras, emphasis on a "little extra". And then maybe many years from now, we would be able to find a bunch of extra money to add on?? Like when the kids stopped growing so much. And stopped eating so much. Maybe?? And as nice as it was, living next door to my parents, we didn't see them any more then we had living at our other house 5 minutes away. I had to find a way to deal. But I couldn't. And I took it out UNFAIRLY on Doug. But there was no one else to blame but ourselves.
Yep, that is us. Who had DARK days. And sad days. And felt hopeless. And saw no light at the end of the tunnel. We were stuck. We had to be stuck. We were making things right for everyone. Everyone but us.
Yep, that is us. Who finally decided to make things "right" for us. And a DARK cloud suddenly lifted. The cloud of the last year. And we now saw it as a huge blessing now that our other house didn't sell. God had seen the big picture. We had not. And we were afraid to tell my dad. But we had bigger financial reasons why this suddenly made more sense on our side as well. If we didn't figure out something, we would lose that house forever. And owe BIG MONEY bc of losing that house forever. And my dad would understand that more then understand why we couldn't cram 8 people into the world's tiniest house.
Yep, that is us. The ones who are moving...AGAIN. Back into our old house. Back to our wood floors. Back to our renovated kitchen. Back to our big bathroom, with our big bathtub. The bathroom NOT falling apart. Back to our HUGE bedrooms. The ginormous bedroom of ours, easily big enough for 4 boys. The other big bedroom, certainly a great size for our 2 girls. Yep, that is us. Moving back to our house with our porch. Back to our big living room and adjoining playroom. Back to OUR house. The house we first bought. The house we first loved. The house that felt like home as soon as we bought it!
Yep, that is us. The ones whose money will be tighter again once we move back. But our hearts will be happy. My heart is singing with joy, just thinking about living back at OUR house soon enough. We have all heard the saying: You don't realize what you have until its gone. Well its most certainly TRUE! Ever since the day we moved into this house, I just wanted to relive one more day back at our old house. So I could truly appreciate what we had had. And what we had given up. For 6 long months, I thought it was just a lost dream. Never thinking it could really happen. But now, we haven't given it up. We got lost along the way, trying to make others happy. But now we are back on track, focusing on the happiness of OUR family first. And with our happiness, we will be able to share happiness with others.
Yep, that is us. The ones who thought we knew it all. The ones who begged and pleaded with God to sell our house. And then asked God too many times why he was making our life so incredibly difficult. The ones that had questioned what we had done so wrong in life to deserve such hardship. But God knew it all. And he knew this was all temporary. And that our house would be our house again. And that ultimately, my sister would want to buy my grandmother's house for her family of 3. My sister who will NOT have 6 kids. My sister who wants 2 kids TOPS. My sister who has much more money then us, with the ability to fix things up. My sister who hates the house she currenly lives on-a house they bought from her husband's aunt going into foreclosure, a house they had to rush and buy, to "make things right" for everyone. But like us, everyone, but themselves. My sister who originally was going to buy my grandmother's house, until the whole aunt in foreclosure thing happened. Last year might not have made any sense, but its starting to make sense now. The world is making itself right once again. Yep, that is us. The ones that are so appreciative. Once again, we have learned Who is truly in control. It's not us! Thank you God for taking care of us, even when we suspected You might have abondoned us. Yep, that is us. The ones that have learned another life lesson. And the ones that are truly grateful. Thank you.
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