March 2011
Our house story.
About 3 years ago I was hosting a small church meeting in my home. Our Relief Society President, Tracie arrived first and we were sitting in the living room visiting before the others arrived. She is married to a wonderful guy who has some physical challenges with his hips and knees. She mentioned that she was beginning the process of making some changes on her home so she could put it on the market to sell, but was hoping to take a couple of years to do so. The house they live in is a split level and the stairs are causing some pain and difficulty for her husband. Our house is a ranch-style layout without a single stair and was actually built for an elderly couple where the wife was in a wheel chair. So I replied, "Well, our house will be on the market in 3 years." What a far fetched idea! THREE whole years. So many things can happen in that amount of time. And how many of us really keep to our goals? Tracie replied to my comment with a "humm". And that was all that was ever said. For three years.
Around two years later, I was asked to serve with Tracie in her Presidency as one of the counselors. In the course of a year, we had a lot more meetings at our house. On our very last meeting together, Tracie and I had gone to see a handicapped teenage girl from our church. We were sitting in my car in front of her house as I was dropping her off at the end of the visit and Tracie told me they wanted to buy our house. This was in the late fall. Tracie knew that we had a time deadline: June. The Air Force would be requiring us to move and we would need to sell. Tracie felt that they must have their house sold before they could buy ours. So we put together a bit of a game plan, or at least we communicated dates and courses of actions enough to understand where we each were coming from and be on the same page.
Of course nothing ever works the way you want it to and the odds felt so very out of our favor, but both sets of couples were doing an awful lot of praying that somehow it would all work out. We ended up putting our house on the market the first of February. We got 22 inches of snow the next day and then snow storm after snow storm over the course of several weeks. I high balled our price (on purpose) and then cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. There was one showing where they called last minute to come an hour and a half early, so I put 6 loads of clean laundry in my van and drove off. Another showing where they just showed up early and we hadn't left yet, so we sat in the van in our garage while they looked around. Ugg. My favorite was when Derek left some sourdough starter fermenting in the Kitchen Aid mixer. (Nasty smell!) I threw some flour in it and tossed it in the oven. It finished cooking while the prospective buyers were walking through. Needless to say, the house smelled amazing. They came back for a second look around and narrowed it down to our house and one other.
At the end of 8 weeks of blood, sweat and tears trying to show our house, Tracie put her house on the market. EIGHT days and THREE showings later, it sold. I physically felt the burden fall off my shoulders when she sent me the text. Derek and I just about cried. Instead we thanked the Lord. Somehow, a miracle occurred and our wonderful Breezewood home was soon going to belong to our dear friends!
Reflecting back on those eight weeks of house showings, there have only been perhaps two other times equally as stressful in my life. The following three and a half weeks were stressful too, but they were a bittersweet stress. The people who bought Tracie's house asked for a very short closing period, which didn't give us a whole lot of time, but with the help of the Air Force movers, and our realtor, it all worked out. (ps: we were smart and put Tracie's name on our contract with our realtor. Since we "found" her prior to putting the house on the market we could do this. Because we ended up selling to Tracie, we asked our realtor to handle the paperwork and she walked away with a 1% commission.)
Because we were moving some 6 week earlier than expected, we had two housing problems. Where was Derek going to live while he finished out residency in Missouri? And were was i going to live with the kids? In the end, Tracie and her husband put Derek up rent free in Lexie's old bedroom for the 6 weeks. They asked him to cook dinner once in a while just as a special treat, which he LOVED. My mom flew out and helped me take the kids out to Utah. i moved into my sister's basement across from the Jordan River Temple for 7 weeks. It was very difficult being apart for such a long period of time, but it was also a blessing in disguise. Over the course of the first 5 weeks that Derek was in Missouri and I was in Utah, Derek was studying and preparing for boards. He needed this solitary time to just eat, sleep, and breath PATHOLOGY.
We have friends who still have not sold their homes. I know our house was meant for Tracie and her husband. Just as it was meant for us for the time we were there. I really believe that God places us where we need to be . I don't know why He gives us or allows us the trials of something like not being able to sell a house. I do know there is much to be learned from these difficulties. Somehow in the end, it all works out though and we must acquire the patience and love to enjoy the journey.
