cozy saturday morning

i'm curled up on the couch, enjoying my extra-strong (how'd that happen?) coffee, listening to the call of a rather persistent bird in the weeping cherry of my front yard. each call consists of five short, concise whistles, descending in pitch quickly. he knows what he wants to say, and so he speaks with confidence.

and i'm daydreaming about my garden, which i hope i will be able to plant this spring in my new ginormous backyard. i'm thinking raspberries and blueberries, plus tomatoes and zucchini for my first year. i know i could use all of them, especially in abundance. though, i'm not sure how we'll go about tilling and preparing the soil. and i'd want a little picket fence around the garden plot, with a little gate. oh well, details, details. that's why it's called "daydreaming".

on the reality side of things, i figured out yesterday that i was the bottleneck in the closing process, waiting on W-2s and the like. so we scrambled to get it all together, minus a couple of paystubs we're waiting on from matt's employer. if all the paperwork is in monday, it should be tight, but we'll stand a chance at closing on thursday. i'm just praying that we're the end of the bottleneck (and that his employer doesn't add to the trouble).

yesterday, i finished addressing our "new address" cards for friends and family. i started these the day before we made our first offer (though, i didn't print the address until just this last week). i knew that if i waited, it might never get done, what with all the boxes.

and today, i believe i will be making a big batch of thank you cards, so that as people help us clean, paint, move, etc, we can thank them in good time. later today, matt and i have to organize the music room, which has been used for storage since we were married, and i need to get our piano on craigslist, to make room for a family heirloom i'm receiving when we move in... want a piano?

january, in review

i began the month-in-review post a few years back, but fell out of the habit when blogging got put on the back burner. i'm starting again, to record bits and pieces of life that might not always become the center of a blog post in itself, or may otherwise be forgotten.

so here we go, january in review, in no particular order:

• started the month with some house shopping.
  
• found our dream home, made two offers, the second of which was accepted.
  
• discussed paint colors. rediscussed paint colors. re-rediscussed paint colors. finally decided on most of the paint colors.
  
• discovered that snowflakes sometimes actually look like the stereotypical snowflake! i'm so amazed by God's attention to detail and creativity.
  
• celebrated my 26th birthday. dinner with friends at CPK, and a belated Christmas dinner with my grandparents at mom's.
  
• taught in big church for the first time - a part of our "purpose leaders" team teaching on the vision of the church (vision day 2009).
  
• did some awesome (if i may say so) design work in preparation for vision day 2009. man, i love design.
  
• helped plan a smokin' super bowl tailgate party at church, as a part of my "outreach" role.
  
• started planning furniture for kids' wing at new campus.
  
• started and scratched at least 4 different design schemes for kids' wing paint/decor. am working on draft... 5 now?
  
• had tea in port gamble with mom, grama, allie and lani to celebrate my birthday.
  
• house inspection - went smoothly and less traumatic than expected.
  
• house appraisal - also smoothly, and less traumatic than expected.
  
• did some awesome offering/mission stuff with the kids, pooling together $100 in just 4 weeks for a water buffalo for a philipino farmer.
  

hmm, i feel like something's been forgotten, but who knows. what a busy month!! next month, even busier.

the art of self-leadership

in the past few days, i've been ruminating on the art of self-leadership. "before we lead others, we must lead ourselves." a part of self-leadership is developing the disciplines that are lacking in my life, and the first two i'm tackling together: rising early, and exercise.

i used to be great at rising early. even on weekends, i'd set an alarm, even if it was technically "sleeping in" and when my alarm went off, no matter the day, i'd get up, and do my routine: brush teeth, make coffee and breakfast, eat/drink/read my bible. lately, i've let this slip - not every day, but now i snooze more, start later, and then get less than edifying time in the Word. i want to have the self-discipline to rise early every day, to greet the day with a right heart after a relaxed routine. so, i'm beginning by rising at the same time every day, even on weekends and days off. currently this means 6:45am - but that's just to get into the habit. as i grow in this discipline, i'll be bumping the time back in 5 minute increments until i'm rising around 6am, in theory.

i wish i was ever as "great" at exercise as i was at rising early, but it's never been something i could get into consistently. this is part of why i'm tackling it with rising early. i know that if i don't exercise in the morning, it won't happen at all. so for now, i'll get up at 6:45, and add a little exercise into my routine. this will throw off my work day by a half hour for a few weeks, but once i get used to that pattern, and begin bumping my rising time backward, i should be able to stick to the pattern quite nicely.

that's what's on my mind today. that, and furniture placement in my new house. how is it that we're paring down, moving into a bigger home, and i *still* don't have enough room for my furniture??

and i almost forgot! {a house update}

our agent called this morning to tell me that the appraiser - who had received our original order for an appraisal, but couldn't find any record for it, and therefore had not done it yet - apologized deeply for the delay, put us on rush-priority, didn't find any work he'd require to be done before closing (amazing!), and appraised our house higher than what we're paying for it (don't know how high yet, but any kind of "higher" is better!)

the only bad news, when he arrived, the exterior door to the garage had been kicked in, and someone (punk teens, we think) had gained access to the house. the heat had been cranked, and the house was about 70 degrees (impressive, since the wallboard heaters are among the least efficient of heat sources...) so, our agent rushed over to make the place look lived in. apparently a new door is at the top of our list.

living colossians 3:23

for the last several weeks, our memory verse at kids church has been colossians 3:23-

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men..."

(though translated differently for their understanding). i have relied on this verse for my own regular attitude adjustments in the past (particularly in my previous career), but only now am i beginning to wonder what might happen if i applied this verse to each detail and task in my life.

would my husband feel more loved and served, because i see Jesus in him each time he asks a favor?
would my house be neater, because i would be expecting the Lord's company, and thus unexpected visitors might feel more welcomed?
would i excel more-so in ministry, because i would be willing to do just about anything it takes? (let's be honest - i'm not quite there. there are always a few things that take some self-coercing.)
would even the most menial tasks take on new meaning, because the Lord is my (good) Overseer?

i guess you could call this my resolution this year. this is my verse for the year. i will cling to it, repeat it to myself as often as possible, and when i would rather lounge around than sweep the floor, or when i begin to grumble that no one appreciates "all the work i put into this place", i will remember that i am not working for man, but for the Lord.

non-update house update

not a lot happening in the house world right now. this terrible holding pattern while we wait for closing has me growing more impatient every day. and people keep asking if i'm excited? um, that doesn't help!

so, i'm tired of looking at stacks of cardboard boxes. and that is exactly the only thing happening over here.

purging

the initial phases of packing have a lot less packing and a lot more purging going on in the thaete household. we've made at least 2 donation trips to Value Village since the new year, and we made 2 in december, as we began feeling the urge to purge. this is, of course, the first time we've kept donation receipts for tax purposes. yay deductions.

this morning's trip included 10 grocery bags of clothes - both his and mine, but mostly mine. how good it felt to get rid of all that stuff. and now, we tackle the craft room. {we? who am i kidding. i. now i tackle the craft room.}

i should be purging/packing...

but i really just want to sit and watch HGTV and think of things to do to our new house.

(does anybody have some HGTV i can watch? we don't have cable.)

a house for my birthday,,,

today i discovered that the best version of "happy birthday" ends with the words "they accepted your offer, happy birthday to you!"

at 5pm, i had given up hope of hearing anything... but kris called at 5:03pm to sing me happy birthday - and ended with those words. i burst into tears (and may have shrieked), and then it took me quite a while to get a hold of myself.

it had been an emotional week. we discovered the house last week, on a house-hunting outing with kris and megan. it was better than the house we'd picked out previously, which we were simply waiting for to come back on the market after foreclosure. but this house... oh, this house. all of the problems the other house posed, which we decided we'd make work or fix - only 720 sq. ft., only 2 bedrooms, no garage, purple carpet, overpowering dog "scent", and purple-painted kitchen cabinets - were answered in this new house. 1025 sq. ft. 3 bedrooms. a perfectly-sized garage. and no purple. not to mention, the nicely-sized bath and ginormous back yard. we knew we were in for a ride, though - the house is bank-owned.

so, we made the offer monday - after seeing it three times, doing a preliminary (and partial) inspection with my dad, and falling deeply in love, only to hear tuesday morning that our offer had been rejected because of our FHA financing and FHA's supposedly stringent appraisal requirements (never mind that we said we'd do any required work).

we thought we'd lost out. my heart was broken, i cried a lot, and generally didn't accomplish much that day. but then our mortgage consultant posed plan B: what if we resubmitted as a conventional loan with a slightly higher interest rate. this program came with other perks as well, so we went for it. wednesday morning, the new offer was in, and we were told to expect a two day wait.

we were optimistic, of course. after all, how cool would it be to "get" a house on my birthday? but by 5pm, we'd given up hope... and now you know the rest of the story.

the best part - we see God's hand in the fact that there was a second offer on the house, comparable to ours, by a co-op of developers who buy good deals and, i assume, rent them out (or flip). and yet, the selling bank picked us.