The final countdown - Part 2

Warning: super long post ahead with a few pictures.

It was so fun to remember in my last post all that God did to get us into this house!  He faithfully took care of every detail.  Today, though, I want to share what He did after we moved in.  I sat down and wrote (okay typed) out a list of everything (at least as much as I could possibly remember) that God provided for us while we were here using our friends and family.  This list is in no particular order.  Just the order of remembering :)

* We painted our house twice in the 12 years here.  The first time a good friend, Aimee Charlton, and I did it the week that Mark was away at camp.  I remember that we had gotten all the way around our house and realized it was ombré colored before ombré was cool.  The paint store had mixed up the wrong paint the second time we went in.  It wasn't noticeable until we had painted the whole front of the house!  Thankfully they remixed it for free and we completed the house in a normal fashion. I had trouble finding pictures of the blue house but here's a shot when we had a badminton net set up in our front yard.

 

The second time, we painted it with our brother-in-law, Mike. He and Mark's sister, Julie, came down for a weekend of fun and painting.  I have loved the color we painted it and can't wait to paint our new house similarly (although I'm pretty sure we'll hire professionals for that job!) This was taken before we finished the bottom...

* The year that Jack was born we had a couple bring us dinner out to our house. While they were here they noticed (cause it was hard not to) how completely awful and dangerous our front deck was.  They went back to their small group, talked it over with them, and decided to bless us. The men of the small group came out to our house, tore off the existing deck, and rebuilt us a nice new Trex deck.  They battled heat and bees and blessed us with a wonderful, safe front deck.

An adorable picture of Kale's fashion at probably 3 or 4 as well as a shot of our nasty front deck at the time.

* When we first moved in we knew that all the decks needed replacing.  They were old and sagging and rotted.  One of the the first few summers here, my family, including my uncle, came down from Denver, and a family friend who lives here and works construction, helped us rebuild our side and back decks.  Mark's dad also came and did lots of work beforehand.  

* For several years I was afraid to paint the inside of my house.  I'm not a fabulous decorator (although now Pinterest is inspiring me) and was too chicken to take the plunge.  That's why God sends me adventurous friends. Our children's pastor and dear friend, Jen Kline, kind of kick started me and helped me paint my kitchen a bright blue. It was scary but looking back, I've never regretted it and have loved the bold look of my kitchen.

 Isn't the rocking horse wallpaper lovely?

 My bright blue kitchen.

 * And speaking of bold colored walls, my good friend Jo Lee came over one day, with all of her kids and helped me paint my bedroom.  My bedroom is green and orange. :) Sounds crazy but I love it. 

* The small group that we were a part of for years came to our house one year and painted our living room Toffee Crunch as a gift for pastor appreciation.  What a gift to have help painting our high walls! And what a motivator to continue around in the other rooms! I forgot how much stuff we crammed into our house.

* One year we updated our laundry room/mud room. I had painted the walls and my good friend, Tiffany Bleger, came over, pregnant if I remember correctly, and helped me lay laminate tiles.  We'd never done anything like that before and we had a blast figuring it out.  

* When it came time to replace our roof, we had the honor of hiring a good friend from church to come and do the work. I never thought I'd love a roof until he did ours.

* The same small group that painted our living room also came over and helped demolish and remodel our guest bathroom. Mark and I aren't carpenters, electricians or plumbers but we know people who are!  And they helped us tremendously with our green and black bathroom.  For someone who was afraid to paint for so many years, I picked some bold color choices for my house and have loved them!

* When we first lived here, my sister, Kelly, lived with us for several months.  One of her parting gifts was a motion light on our garage.  She hated how dark it was out there.  After living with us she knew that Mark wasn't probably going to install it for a long time :) so she asked our good friend, Mike Krupa, to come and do it for us.  He did and it still works today! 

* Along those same lines, my folks bought us an automatic garage door opener one year for Mark's birthday.  We just had to have it installed.  We're not so good at that.  One time we left on vacation and while we were gone, some of Mark's handy friends snuck over and installed it for us.  What fun to come home to one less project to do and one awesome automatic door! 

* Our backyard was basically a barren dirt wasteland for a few years.  We had hopes of a beautiful grassy lawn but couldn't afford the project. One summer a man at church came and told Mark that he had just laid sod at his house and had bought too much.  Would we like the leftovers? Of course! So we took the leftovers, and with the help of my parents, we roto tilled a little portion of our backyard and laid this beautiful, free grass.  Over the years, as we've watered it and mowed it when it got tall enough to seed, our little patch of lawn has grown into a bigger patch of lawn that goes along the back side of the house.  It's multiplied! 

* We have two sets of 2 trees (2 in front and 2 in back) that we've planted.  Mark's parents helped us plant one set and my parents helped us plant the other.

* We've had 2 big bonfires since we've been here. One to burn down a nasty shed on the property and one to burn trash.  Both times our firefighter friend, Mike Krupa, came out and helped us. Mark and I aren't real comfortable with that much fire ;) 

* 3 years ago we did a major remodel on our house.  We replaced the windows and doors, got new carpet, redid the kitchen floor, remodeled our master bathroom, put a sliding glass door in and had a new deck built.  Whew!  Big job that we weren't gonna do ourselves.  Again we were able to hire a builder from our church to come and complete this job for us.  Not only did he do all we asked but he also did a few random little projects to help us out as well.

Kate holding Jack on our old carpet.

* Mark's folks have been amazing when it's come to lots of little projects.  His dad has come and fixed the wood underneath all our sinks. His mom has come and cleaned our house and hung up all our pictures. They also helped us build the kids a playhouse (which sadly we had to tear down last week because the new owners didn't want it and we don't have a place for it at our new house). There's countless other little things that both his parents and mine have put into motion and helped us with over the years. Both of them are planning on coming down at different times to help us with our move. Marks folks come tomorrow to help us prepare for the move and mine will come when we get back from Mark's graduation in CA to help unpack.  We seriously are blessed by our parents! 

* We've had folks help install our water heater, tear down the nasty chicken coop in our side yard, haul stuff to the dump, clean our windows inside and out, move furniture, give us furniture, do electrical work, make curtains, install lights and generally help us Palmers have a home we were proud to live in and enjoy!

Just for fun :) Jack's first Easter.

I am amazed when I look around the house that God built :) Truly our family and our church family have been His hands and feet throughout the years. The trouble with naming stuff is the fear of forgetting someone or something that was done here.  I will add if I remember more ;) 

Our house wasn't perfect when we moved in -it still isn't- but when I look back and remember the people who helped us change almost very single thing in this house, I'm blown away by God's provision. Often we think His provision looks like bigger finances.  That's not true.  His greatest resource is people.  People willing and wanting to give of their time and talent.  And we have been overwhelmed by those people.  We can honestly say that every one of them have had a hand in this new season of our life as we look to moving. We wouldn't be able to sell our house and afford to move without the improvements that have been done here. 

Again I'm in awe! 

The final countdown - Part 1

As we are spending the last Tuesday, the last Wednesday, the last Thursday, etc...here at Valley Place, I can't help but get a little nostalgic over all that has happened in this home.  So much has happened here!  The majority of our marriage, all 3 children joining us, 3 dogs, 1 cat, countless family and friends visits...blessing upon blessing, provision upon provision.  And I have to remember it and I have to share it because it floors me!

We moved into this house in November of 2001.  Before that, Mark and I lived in an apartment, that we affectionately called the Barbie house because of the smallness, above a house in town. From there we moved to a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment up in Edgemont Ranch in the mountains.  

Mark had owned a house in town when we first got married but we couldn't afford the mortgage on our 2 little paychecks so we rented it out for the first year of our marriage.  That was all cute and fun until tax season came around and we realized how much money we had to pay on our "income" property that basically only sustained itself.  It was at this point that we decided to sell the house and reinvest the equity into something we could live in ourselves. And so began the process. 

I could share lots of God stories about how that house even sold after years of bachelor life and countless men living there and a realtor who said we were crazy to ask what we were asking for it. The inspection report was quite a thick document!  But we had prayed and asked God what a fair selling price was and we were able to sell it for exactly that. Hallelujah! 

We didn't turn right around and buy anything but we definitely started seriously praying and seriously looking. We prayed for several things specifically because we knew God is in the business of increasing our faith.  I prayed for a house that was:

1) less that $140,000 (if you know Durango, that in and of itself is a miraculous number...even 12 years ago!) 2) less than 30 minutes from the church (at this point Mark and I were at church at least 2 late nights a week) 

3) more than 1 bathroom and more than 1 bedroom and

4) had somewhat of a yard (wasn't looking for acres, I just knew Mark wanted a dog and we needed space)

Unbeknownst to me, Mark was praying specifically for a garage. 

Our realtor at the time, the same one who had sold Mark's house, took us to a few different homes to show us what was available.  None of them really made an impression.  They weren't exactly what we were praying for.  She got a little annoyed with us at one point and said that there was nothing in Durango like what we wanted and we needed to change our expectations.  I totally understood where she was coming from. Durango is a TOUGH housing market if you don't have a lot to spend and you narrow down your options significantly.  But we told her we were sure that God was going to provide.  We just had to wait and see. 

She never returned our calls after that. She basically quit but never told us. Alrighty. 

Some friends of ours told us about another realtor in town who had helped them. She was located on 2nd avenue. 

One day I was walking down 2nd and remembered her office was around there somewhere. I found it and decided to go in and meet her (something I normally would never do without an appointment). 

She was actually free for about 15 minutes and agreed to talk with me about what we were looking for. Imagine that?! :)

I gave her my prayer request specifics and she put them into her computer system. Her computer shot back out 5 options for us in the Durango area. 5!  She told me to drive by them with Mark and see if we wanted to look inside any of them.  If we found anything, call her, and she'd set it up for us. This was before you could browse homes online. 

So we spent some time driving around. One of the houses was repossessed, listed twice and in horrible condition.  One was out in Hesperus which was a good 40 minutes from church. One was a single wide trailer that was on a dusty patch of dirt with broken windows and sagging fence.  Honestly the more we looked at this list of houses, the more we lost hope of being able to find our new home.  It was depressing.  No wonder our other realtor quit! 

Reluctantly we drove out to Valley Place to see the final house.  It was a 25 minute drive from the church.  As we came upon this place for the first time we were kind of in awe.  Not because it was a gorgeous mansion but because we couldn't believe this was on the same list as the rest. It was way nicer than we had hoped! We drove by several times checking to make sure we had the right address. Yep. We did. 

As soon as we got home, we called the realtor and scheduled a walk through. There were plenty of things wrong with the place. Sagging decks that needed replacing, old windows and doors, nasty carpet, ugly wallpaper etc... But ya know what?  It was listed at $145,000, had 3 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, was on 3 acres of land, was 25 minutes from church AND it had an over-sized garage.  

He answered every single prayer. 

We put an offer on the house. We offered $136,000.  She countered with $139,000 and we had found ourselves homeowners (for under $140,000).   Incidentally, the realtor told us that the woman who owned the house had refused an offer the month before for $139,000. Only God! 

We moved in November of '01 with the help of all our youth leaders and I'm sure some youth. 

There's plenty more stories. I will wait and share them in another post.  That way your eyes won't bleed from the length :)

Thankful Thursday because I seriously owe you....

I'm thankful for you sticking with me! And very thankful to God for working everything out!

So my week went by quickly. I've been trying to at least post once a week so to not leave you completely hanging (although I've successfully left you hanging...a ton) and then I realize it's been a week AND a day. Man! Just when I thought I was able to start catching up. And just so you know, there are dirty dishes filling up my sink, 4 loads of laundry to fold, toys to be picked up, a floor to be swept and a dresser to move before my parents and sister, Meghan, arrive but because I love you all so much I'm not doing any of that (for the moment) so I can post pictures. Frankly so I can post ANYTHING! You can thank me later....

So here's what I'm doing. You are going to get the full before and after effect of the bathroom as well as a few bonus pictures. As well as an update on our engineer/refinance/stupid-trench process. It's amazing news. Really an only my God kind of story.

I'll start there. After last week's frustrating news about having to dig a trench around our house as well as building a wall I was done. I wish I could say I was super strong and never wavering in my trust in God but that would be lying and I hate lying. The truth is I was mad, then sad, then confused, then questioning the whole situation, then praying, then realizing that God is in control, always has been, and He knew this would happen. Just cause I didn't know doesn't make it unfix-able. Make sense? So then I had peace. God was going to make all things work together for my good (no matter the outcome!). And He did.

Through a friend we met another engineer and on Monday he came out to our little abode to do his inspection. In the end he told us that we need to build 6 or 8 supports in key areas under the house out of concrete blocks (no cement necessary) and take pictures. That's it. Seriously. That's it. I asked him why his requirements were so different. He basically said he didn't think it was necessary. Hallelujah!

So hopefully sometime this weekend Mark and I will be under the house stacking cinder blocks and taking pictures. And hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks we will be done with refinancing!!! After 4 long months....Can I get an amen? Amen!

And here's the pictures of the newly finished bathroom (like we just finished last night kind of newly finished...) I won't waste your time, or mine, labeling the before and after. It's quite! obvious. And yes we did live in that bathroom for 9 years. Please don't ask me how. You do what you have to do ya know?








We went down to one sink (and couldn't care less -- I love the drawer space!) and removed the tub so we have just a walk-in shower. Love it! Feels like a grown up shower now!

Here's a picture out our back sliding glass door. I wanted to show you what the back railing looks like. Pete made it out of wire cables so we could keep the view. Love it!
Also here's a bit of what Kale has been up to (totally not school related - this is pure hobby). My brother and sis-in-law are divers and they have tons of diving magazines. I asked them if we could have their old ones and they happily gave us a ton! So Kale spent a couple days thumbing through them and cutting out shark pictures. Then he carefully glued them to blue and green paper (ya know the color of water) and then, with my help, we stuck them on his wall over his bed. He's in shark heaven! I know they're hard to see but you can at least see the great white's huge mouth on the top right. How he doesn't have nightmares I don't know but Jack does look at the wall and say "scary!"
And finally - for now - we went to a friend's house for lunch yesterday and when we got home we found this ton of fun set up in our front yard! Mark about peed his pants. Not even kidding. You think I just made a typo but I didn't. The kids were excited yes, but Mark....well he's wanted a trampoline since he was little. He was actually bummed that it was dark when he got home from work. But never fear. That's what headlamps and coats are for. Jumping on the tramp at night! Brrrr!
A super sweet family, whose kids are grown, blessed us with this wonderful treasure. How amazing is that?! Another reason to be thankful. Thankful for friends and their generosity. My kids have never had so much fun outside and for that I am beyond thankful. Now they have a place to jump off some energy!

Ok the laundry is calling - loudly - and I think I am close to overloading you. I mean a week with nothing to a super long post just won't do! So how about a kinda long post?

Never the Same/Only My God

This post is Only My God and I Was Never the Same. There's no other way to post it. It was both miraculous and life-changing.

It was meeting, and then marrying, my best friend.

If it sounds cheesy, well too bad. It's true. Only my God could've sent me this man and I was definitely never the same after meeting and marrying him. It's just that good. Seriously! Here's the story: I came to college in Durango in 1994. I got saved in '96 {story here} and in '98 started going to church with my good friend Corrie. We went to New Life Chapel {now known as the River Church}. Mark worked there as the youth pastor. He had started not too long before I started going there.

I saw him occasionally. He would go up in front of the church and plug something the youth group was doing. My most vivid memory of him in front of church was when he was trying to get the congregation to donate money for a church van so the kids could go on trips. He was up there every other week! I remember thinking "He's cute. I'll be he's old {like 33 or something..haha} and is married. Too bad." Then I'd just go on with stuff. Not really paying much attention.

During the summer of '98 I lived with my good friend Sharron. She went to New Life too. In June her friend Joel came to town. She and Joel worked at a camp up near Silverton the summer before. Turns out, they both worked at that camp with Mark. Joel wanted to hang out with Mark and Sharron and Sharron didn't want to be the only girl so what else could a good roommate do but hang out with them?

Our first time out together was the 4th of July. We went swimming at Navajo Lake. What a way to get to know each other. In all your splendor! A swimsuit! Ewwww! But we went and had fun and got over how white we were.... We watched fireworks that night and talked. I was shocked to find out that Mark was only two years older than me and was not married already. Hmmmmm.....

Then we were pretty much inseparable. We hung out every weekend while Joel was in town. We went to the Bar D even! I remember thinking, I could totally marry this guy. How crazy was that? The weekend of August 9th I was in Denver for a highschool friend's wedding. I was sitting on the back deck with various family members and I told them about Mark. What I remember telling them was that I had met a guy that I could totally marry {they are pretty sure I said I was going to marry him but I don't remember it that way...}. Then they asked if we'd gone out. I said no. They laughed. How in the world could I know that I could marry someone without even going on one date?

I don't know. I just could I guess.

I booked it home to Durango after the wedding. I wanted to be back for church on Sunday so I could see Mark. It turned out to be the right choice. We sat together at church [Joel and Sharon were both gone that Sunday] and immediately afterward he asked me to lunch. And the rest is pretty much history.

3 months into our relationship I remember us having a discussion while at dinner at the Red Snapper {delish!} about getting married. I remember thinking this is insane! We've only been going out 3 months! But at the same time I knew that it was God. I knew that this was the one He had for me. And I was at peace with it.

We dated for over a year before we got engaged so don't think we just went for it immediately. We just both knew that we didn't want to continue dating if we didn't think that we could marry each other. What's the point in dating if marriage was out of the question?! We were dating with a purpose.Looking back I can see how God orchestrated so many things. We had many mutual friends - for a couple years in fact - yet never met. God was working on both of us to prepare us to meet each other. I know that if we had met sooner we probably wouldn't have really noticed each other. He's everything I had been praying for and more. Before I met Mark I had made a list. Don't think I'm shallow. I didn't put on there hair/eye color or height. I put on there things I knew I couldn't live without. Things like: a Christian {a real Christian - not only to me but to everybody else} a sense of humor, kind, affectionate, sincere and honest, intelligent...these things mattered to me. And so I prayed about them. I knew there was a person out there that would fit those things that were important to me. God knew. And God cared. He brought me Mark.He's all those things and so many more things that I never knew I needed or wanted. He's uber patient, loving, considerate, polite, gentle, willing to grow and change with me, adventurous, and so much fun! He's challenged me in so many ways and I am definitely not the same since being with him. He's made me better. By far.

God totally knew what He was doing! I love it when He does that!

PS!

I forgot one more very cool thing about the house we're in.

It has a detached garage. A fairly big garage {I've turned around our cars inside it during the winter when I've needed a good start to get out of our driveway - pretty big}. I wasn't praying for a garage as you may have read. But Mark was. I didn't know he was. So when we got the house he was ecstatic because, not only did it have every other thing we were praying for, it had a large garage. And boy have we needed it! Baby stuff takes up so much room...

Only My God!

Only My God

Another situation where I can only answer, only my God! Before, I shared how we sold our old house. This time I want to share how we got the one we're in now.

During the time that our old house was on the market we began looking for something to buy when it sold. I began to pray specifically for things I wanted in our new house. I figured that I could ask my big God for specifics and He could work out the details. I prayed for 4 things specifically.

I prayed for more than one bedroom and more than one bathroom. We'd lived in one bed/bath places and we needed/wanted something a little bigger. I prayed for a yard. I wasn't asking for acres but I wanted a little yard. A place we could hang out and enjoy the outside. I prayed for it to be less than 25 minutes from church. We are at the church so much that I didn't want to spend all of our free time driving all over La Plata county just to get home. And finally, I prayed for it to be $140,000 or less. This is a miracle in itself. The closer you are to town the more expensive houses are and obviously the cheaper they are, the worse shape they are in. Case in point - our old house. None-the-less, I prayed specifically. I knew God had a house for us somewhere we just had to be persistent and patient and we'd find it.

We told our realtor all the things we were looking for and I think inside she laughed. She took us to see a few places around the area and they were nice but they didn't have the 4 specifics. Most were close to town, 2 bed/2bath, a teeny tiny yard but way over our price range. We kept saying no. We knew God had a place. Eventually she got very frustrated and not long after the sale of our house, we never heard from her again. We couldn't get a hold of her and she never returned calls. She had told us that we weren't going to find what we were looking for so we needed to adjust our expectations. When we didn't, I think she gave up.

Okay, so we're still looking for this miracle house but now we don't have help. Then a friend of ours told us about another realtor in town that they liked. I got her name and planned to call her.

Then one afternoon I was walking from an appointment downtown and walked right by this woman's office. I decided to go in and introduce myself. This is miraculous because I don't usually drop by and see anyone. I almost always call to make sure I'm not interrupting anything. This was huge for me. It turns out that she was there and had a few minutes to talk. I sat down with her and told her my 4 specifics. She patiently typed them in to her computer and found 5 listings in La PLata county. Five! Only five!!! She printed them off and handed them to me. She said we could go and look at these places and if we found one we were interested in looking at then we could call her and she'd set it up.

I took my list and Mark and I began to drive around looking for our new house. One house was listed twice on accident and it was a nasty mess. No way. Another house was actually a lot further than 25 minutes so we didn't even go there. Another place was a repossessed single wide trailer that had broken out windows, dirt for the "landscape", and a broken chain link fence. I wanted to cry. So far, 4 out 5 places were not at all what I prayed for.

We almost gave up in frustration but decided to go ahead and check the final listing. We didn't have high hopes based on our experience but plugged on. I remember driving up to this house and doing a double take. I rechecked the address both on the house and my paper. I'm not saying it was a mansion but honestly it looked like it could've had a beam of sunshine from heaven with a sign saying ~this is it~ hanging above it. We immediately called our new realtor and had a look see. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3 acres of land, and was just at our 25 minute limit. It was listed at $145,000 so we put in a bid of $136,000. She countered with $139,000 and the house was ours. For less than $140,000! After we bought the house we heard that just one month before we came on the scene, the previous owner was offered $139,000 and she said no way. One short month later she was willing to let it go for a price we could afford. Amazing!Only My God!

Kate's 2nd dance class -- Only My God

This week was another adventure in dance class land. Kate woke up early Friday morning {super tired because we were up late the night before with our small group} and was cranky. She was sad, cranky, whiny etc. I was dreading going to class.

Just before we left I prayed {I've been trying hard to pray specifically and often for anything I could possibly need - it's always fun to see what God will do} that God would help Kate enjoy class. That her attitude would improve and she would genuinely love, and not dread, being there.

I was very skeptical as we drove to town. Kate complained that it was too hot, too cold, music was too loud, too quiet, Jack was crying etc... I didn't think we had a snowballs chance of her liking this week's class.

Then we pulled into the parking lot. Almost instantly she perked up and said "I'm awake and I have a better attitude."

And she did! She had a great time in class and stayed the whole time. Liked her teacher and the other girls. Danced her little heart out and was excited. Thank you Jesus! Only my God can take an over-tired 3 yr old and give her joy for a dance class. It was awesome.

This video is the only thing I got from class this week. It's their "goodbye" dance. They start on the other end of the room and the teacher sits on the side closest to the door. She calls each girl by name and they come to her. They are allowed to do any kind of dancing they want. Kate chose to run....Pretty cute though :)

Only My God

I've had a few ideas for different blogs rolling around in my head for the past couple days. I'm always wanting new things to write about, new ways to remember things, new ideas from God. Today this one came to my head.

I want my children, my family and my friends to see that there are things that have happened, and will happen, in my life that I can truly say "Only My God". Times when God answered unspoken prayers. Times when God answered huge prayers, little prayers, crazy prayers and even prayers we never even prayed yet. Some He answered how we had prayed, others He answered unexpectedly. Some may think it's just coincidence, or nice people, or some other reasoning but I can say that in all of these times, when I think "How in world did that happen?", I can answer confidently --- Only My God.

I've got a lot I want to share and I'll share them as I remember so they probably won't be in any particular order so bare with me! This one is awesome.

When Mark and I got married we lived in a cute little apartment in the upstairs of this old, old house {I blogged about it a while ago actually}. It was a cute place but tiny. We lived there for almost a year then moved into a one bedroom apartment in Edgemont Ranch - a very nice community about 10 minutes from town and in the mountains. We were there for a year.

At the time Mark owned a house in town that we couldn't afford to live in. The mortgage was almost everything we were making so we rented out that house to college guys (we were insane I know). When tax time came we had to pay a lot of money for that house since they considered it income (even though we made absolutely no money on it what-so-ever). We decided it was time to sell that house and buy one we could afford to live in. So, we found a realtor and began the process.

This little 800 sq. foot house was on two lots in town. A corner lot even! Across the street from the river and a park. It was really cute but in desperate need of repair. Repairs we could not afford. Believe me, if there had been a way for us to live in this place and fix it up, we would have. But we just didn't have the income.

Our realtor came and inspected it. I'm pretty sure she thought we were going to have a hard time selling it. It had been a bachelor house for sooooooo long that you can only imagine what it looked like inside. The carpets were terrible, the rooms teeny tiny, the lawn unkept, the kitchen was old, the fence worn down etc... It was in bad shape. And we didn't have resources to fix it up. {ok it's really not that bad....}

Mark and I prayed about a listing price and then prayed some more about a price we would accept - basically the lowest we could go. See, we wanted to find another place to buy so we wanted a little money left over. Back in the day, almost 8 years ago, the prices of houses in Durango were high but nothing like they are today. So our asking price was something like $165,000 and our lowest price was $155,000. We owed $130,000 on the house. Anyway, our realtor said we'd go for it, thought it would be okay. We put it on the market and waited. And waited.We had one couple look at it, in fact their realtor was a woman from our church. That realtor apparently told our realtor, after going through the house, that there was no way we were ever going to get what we were asking for. The house was just in too bad of shape. It made us a little sad but we just prayed for God to work it out. I can't remember how long we ended up waiting but it was a couple months. Nothing like today where people are waiting for months and months and sometimes years to sell their house. But it was a long time to us.

Finally another woman came along to look at the house. She was interested and we had an inspection done. If you were to have seen the inspection report you would've thought there is no way in the world this lady is ever going to buy this house. It was over an inch thick. Seriously it looked bleak. There were plumbing issues, uneven floors, leaky basement, roof problems etc...

BUT, she wanted to move forward with it. We bid back and forth and finally settled on a price. Yup, you guessed it. It wasn't the $165,000 but we knew that that wasn't going to happen and it was ok. We were able to sell this run-down but cute house for $155,000. We got basically what we wanted from it. As is. She didn't make us fix anything or complain once. She just bought it. Oh my gosh we rejoiced!
{that's the happy dance...}

It was a relief, a gift, a blessing, a miracle! We were able to walk away with $25,000 from a house we thought may never sell without lots of costly repairs. Enough for a down payment on the house we are in now {that's another awesome Only My God but I'll save that for another day}. We even took a couple thousand from the sale of the house and went to Paris for 2 weeks. An unbelievable, memorable trip with great, great friends. A once in a lifetime vacation.

Who can sell a rundown house for a price that we were told we were never going to get and with only two people ever looking at it?

Only My God!