I posted an album on Facebook of the before and after photos of our house. I was so overwhelmingly encouraged by the response. My favorite comment was:

I don’t know about a Television show, but a blog series maybe? Over the next 2 weeks that I have left here in this house I want to highlight some of the work we’ve done in the past 7 years. Let’s start with… The Living Room What It Was Before:What We Did: We gutted this entire room. Took out the carpet, stripped the windows, ripped out the tile, tore down the walls. Then we insulated, put up new sheet rock, mudded, refinished the floors, painted, added the trim and crown molding. We also retiled the fireplace using black slate which matches the flooring in the kitchen . It all sounds very Extreme Home Makeover, when in real life this process took 7 years! We did a little at a time and didn’t finish until it was for sale. Reality shows are nice, but reality checks are even better.
What it is now:

What I’ll Miss: There are a lot of things I love about this room, but I guess one thing that stands out is the fireplace. It’s gas and we’ve never used it, and for the longest time it had no tile and it needed to be painted. It was the ugliest focal point to ever grace an even uglier room, but it held our artwork, stockings, and family photos with pride. I don’t know if we will have a fireplace in our next home, but I hope we do.

We have 20 days left until our closing date and we will probably be out of here a tad sooner if things go as planned. It’s impossible to fit in one last time dining at each of our favorite restaurants, or photograph every little thing we want to remember, or go on one final outing with each and everyone of our friends, but I want to do as much as possible. Other than our obligations for moving and my job, we are trying to soak up every bit of life in Texas as we know it.

The past 10 days have been quite the waiting game. The buyers had an inspection done, then they had a contractor come out to review some specific things, and in the mean time we had other people looking at the house and more hopeful people interested in the house, but no one that could put in an offer because we are under contract. Then tonight we got the repairs list and began to battle. The whole exchange is a lot like gambling you don’t want to loose everything from being too greedy, but you also don’t want to be too hasty and miss out on something greater.

Preparing our house to go on the market and giving it a complete makeover was one of the most labor intensive, mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting things I’ve ever gone through. The holidays came and went and it wasn’t until the very end that I even recognized that it was December and people are still celebrating Christmas despite the fact that we are moving. The finances are so tight we didn’t even buy presents for each other or anybody else. Bah-Humbug! I had feelings of doubt and despair and I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. I was just praying for a breakthrough, and it came about a week ago.

It started on Wednesday when the realtor came to give us papers to sign and put a sign in the yard. We may not have been completely ready, but we went for it, and it was such a relief knowing we just transitioned from preparing to selling. That same day I got a call from my boss telling me she wanted me to come up to the office that day. My heart was pounding, She heard that we are moving and is letting me go. I can’t leave yet, we need this job until we move, I thought. When I arrived to meet her she immediately led me outside and acted very discreet about our rendezvous. She handed me an envelope and said it was off the record. She told me they are not supposed to give bonuses to free lance employees (and never have in the 5 years that I’ve been there), but she wanted to anyway. My heart leapt. Not only was I excited about the bonus, but I was just relieved to still have a job. Later that day SJ had left me a little surprise of her own in the toilet. I was in disbelief at the idea that she climbed up on the pot all by herself and took care of business when I wasn’t even thinking about working on that with her at all! I quickly went to wipe her and long story short, she potty trained herself in one day and has been wearing panties, which for all you mom’s out there or anyone that maybe read about what I went through with Z, you know what a breakthrough this is.

Although I had been a bit of a Scrooge this year and wasn’t looking forward to any festivities in the end we had an amazing Christmas

and while we were away visiting with family, various people would come to look at the house. In all of this I am just thanking God and grateful for the peace that I felt so distant from in this past season. I know there are more hurtles ahead in this journey to Kentucky, but for now I am just resting in this place that I’m at.

I was feeling normal. All was well again. I could listen to Christmas music without resentment. I could stop working and worrying, and just enjoy time with my kids.

I was staying up late because of playing competitive card games with friends and not because we were trying to finish grouting the bathroom.

Then Tuesday came along. The realtor called and I put him on speaker phone for J to listen in. He asked if we were ready to sell the house. Then he announced that we had an offer. J and I looked at each other. Then he shared that it was for our asking price and we gripped hands and I bit my lip to keep from squealing. After hanging up the phone we jumped around and J scooped me up in his arms and just kept on jumping. It was like winning the super bowl.

So yesterday the realtor came by again for us to sign more papers, less than a week from when we signed the first ones to put it up for sale. We still have to go through inspection, appraisal, and funding (although the buyers are already approved and putting a good amount down, so that shouldn’t be a problem). Anything could happen, but I am confident in the sale and if it all goes through we will be moving in about a month.

Now I can look back at this time in my life and know that the word the Lord gave me was absolutely true,

sometimes it’s the pressure that leads you to breakthrough.

I was compared to Ebeneezer Scrooge in terms of holiday cheer this year. Christmas has just been off the radar for me. I’d been trapped in my own little world where getting the house ready to sell was all that mattered and it did NOT involve any Christmas music or holiday shopping or baking. In the end though we were able to get our house on the market just in the st. nick of time to be able to relax and enjoy all the festivities. Here are 10 of my favorite Christmas moments this year.

3. We had the opportunity to see one of our very best friends perform Bing Crosby’s role in White Christmas. He tore the house down and at the end the cast came out for the iconic scene where they sing White Christmas and it started “snowing” all throughout this historic theater. It was really soap, but it was sooo cool. Two thumbs up.

4. Our annual Christmas card is one of my favorite parts of the Holidays. This year we brought our junky family couch outside and took pictures. We never mailed the cards, but they’ve made their way around.

5. Christmas with the in laws was a much needed relief from all of the work we’ve been doing. We sang carols, read the Christmas story, opened presents, then got up and got moving with video games like kinects and wii.

I think my favorite part though was the cake balls. Mmmm.

6. Christmas day we had a SIMPLE, I mean super simple Christmas, but it was so special. Since we had been doing so much work on the house we didn’t put up a tree this year, but I did go to the attic and pull out this little tree that just so happens to be our first Christmas tree as a married couple.

7. The last Christmas in our house was also special because I got some Christmas dishes out that were a wedding gift and the each had a logo on them that said Gibson Housewares, which I had never noticed, but our house is on Gibson street. I love little details like this.

8. We didn’t exchange gifts this year, but we were blessed to receive some presents for the kids. Since I had no idea where all of our gift wrapping supplies are packed, I used what I had on hand. This included blue painters tape, masking tape, and a sharpie marker. The kids didn’t care and I just loved watching them get excited about everything little thing from play dough to socks. This was the only present I needed.

9. Since Christmas was on a Sunday we went to church where I accompanied J singing Christmas carols and worship songs as part of a small family service. What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ?

J praying with some missionaries

10. We brought in the New Year with J’s family, and then left to go be a part of the all night worship that was happening at our church. We were tired, but why not do it while we are still young.

So maybe I was a little bit of a grinch at the beginning of the season, but in the end I was like Tiny Tim, or something like that. God Bless us everyone.

Well, I am embarrassed to say that it’s been another week of work and the house is still not on the market. That means that for the past month both J and I have been putting in over 60 hours a week into this renovation and we are just now finishing up. J stayed up 36 hours straight working on the house one day and my record is 24. We’ve taken off work and we have had friends volunteer, so how is it even possible that we are not done? I can go through every little project and explain how tedious it is and how long it takes to do things like prep and paint each of our 20 antique windows, but lets just say it’s been a lot more than any of us bargained for.

Today is our farewell luncheon at the church, although thinking about celebrating this transition is actually the furthest thing from my mind right now, especially since it will be a while before we actually go anywhere. I feel an immense amount of pressure, but I know we will get through this. I heard a podcast by Danny Silk of Bethel the other day called “The Master of Breakthrough” and since I had just said I wanted to go from breakdown to breakthrough I knew it would be pertinent to my situation. In this sermon he talks about when you picture water breaking through a hose, a water balloon, a dam, or whatever it is there has to be pressure behind it first.

We have been using a lot of power tools around here lately and one of the things is an air compressor. It’s really noisy, and I don’t know exactly how it works, but I do know that it supplies air pressure to a nail gun that allows the nail to breakthrough the surface you are working on. We’ve also had to use a pressure washer, same concept, but using pressure to use water as a powerful tool. When I apply this concept to my life I can see pressure as a good thing. It feels so difficult, but maybe God is using this as a tool in my life.

And since I really don’t know much about tools (although I’ve learned some in the past month) let me give one last metaphor using something I do know about and that is childbirth. You have life inside of you that is growing and forming and it feels like it can take forever. Sometimes you are excited, other times you are nervous, or just plain nauseous. This is how I feel these days. Then the time comes and you are in labor and you know the end is near, but the pain seems unbearable. And it’s the moment that you feel the most intense amount of physical pressure that is the moment that the baby is about to “breakthrough”. Sorry if that mental picture is a little too graphic, but it is a beautiful moment in any parents life to hold that child for the first time and know that all that you went through was completely worth it.

I’ve had two babies and I can tell you that the whole process including the pregnancy was a cake walk compared to what I am going through right now. However, I am trying to stay positive, at least for this blog, if you were my best friend you would get to see the really ugly side of things. It won’t be much longer though and this picture will show up in the real estate listings.

Today makes three weeks of constant attention to our home renovation. The original date of December 1st was unrealistic, but I really believed that plan B would take off and we would be done by December 10th, but here I am in an unfinished house that is not ready to sell. Our new projected date of completion is this Tuesday December 13 because we have scheduled for a realtor to come out that day and hopefully put it on the market. I hate to be the whiny gripey type but the words “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to… You would cry too if it happened to you” come to mind.