Before the movers came, I put my huge table on craigslist. Huge, as in massive. It was a 58" x 58" pub size table with 8 oversized chairs. I loved the table, but it was big in our house and not knowing if it would even fit in our future home and having a weight limit for the house, it was easier to just sell it. I had a scammer at first, so I lowered the price to get away from being a target, and I got a hit! I texted with a lady and her husband was coming to pick it up. I was a bit nervous because I usually don't have someone come to my house for craigslist, but how was I going to get this table to a walmart parking lot? I had a friend over and had my pepper spray handy. When the husband came, the first thing he said is that he knew our neighbors....the only neighbors I know! He crossfit at a local gym and I think Gabe had even crossfitted with him. So that made an uncomfortable situation feel lots better. And the cherry on top was the wife texted me a picture of the table all set up in her gorgeous living room.
Today was packing day! I was really nervous and didn't know what to expect. I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be. I had dishes in the dishwasher, rooms weren't clean, piles of donate/sell were next to piles of keep stuff. I was dreading morning to come. I had 3 movers arrive and they immediately split up and tackled the house. I was presently surprised to see a lady who came in and did our kitchen. A huge bodybuilder guy worked on the master bedroom, and a quiet awkward man did the spare bedrooms. They are ROCKSTARS! I had my house packed in 5 hours. Everything. Garage too. They had a system and didn't really want or need my help. I did a few things like take the curtains down, but they had everything under control and I felt like I was hovering. The lady who I was talking with as she packed my whole kitchen in under 2 hours (which is amazing because I have about every gadget possible) told me that their job is to do everything and I'm just suppose to sit down and relax. And I did. Beat a few levels of Candy Crush too. But in the midst of so much stress, most of which is self-imposed, a situation that made me feel like I was drowning at first turned into a relaxing walk in the park.
Kitchen boxes |
Later in the evening, I missed a phone call from the housing office in Hawaii. I was at dinner with some friends and started to freak out! After I actually listened to the voicemail start to finish, I learned that I had 24 hours to accept a house they had open for us May 27th. Gabe told me I was to take the first house offered. But this was easy to say yes to because May 27th is the day I was planning on flying out anyways! AND, the house was in our first choice housing choice! It will either be a duplex or a quadplex. I'm not sure yet which one, but we will have a minimum 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom. I'm excited about this particular house because the main floor is open, all the bedrooms are upstairs with the laundry room. It is a newer neighborhood. It's not as close to the beach as our 2nd choice, but they are almost brand new homes!
It's just little things like how the table sold to a "safe" person, a overwhelming situation turning into something I don't have to worry about at all, and getting a house at the perfect time. And I think being on a list for the house, we can have an address for Gibb's paperwork. And if not, Gabe got a friend who is going to let us use his address. It can be easy to overlook the lesson when I look at each situation separately; take for granted how everything works out. But seeing how everything is falling into place perfectly and all at once, it is so clear who is pulling all the strings. Yes, I'll need to be reminded at the next bump in the road. And need to be reminded again when we focus on the adoption again.
PS: I wrote this super late....sorry if it has spelling/grammer (grammatical?) errors (Sam)