A house, car, and a cat later...

We finally bought our Honda Fit. It's silver with the GPS. I was not expecting to get this one, since it's the most expensive. But not only was it the only one available (the Cash 4 Clunkers sapped the local supply and with the '10 models on the way no one was restocking). It was fortunate that Mike changed his mind about GPS (he was paranoid about them) and decided they were cool. We now call our car "The Bat-mite". (Yes, I love our car! :D )

It took us almost 2 months of searching before we found a house and bought it. Our house is about 1600SQFT, with 3 bedrooms, and 2 baths. It was built in '75, so there's definitely a certain 70s vibe going on. (The living room is lower than the rest of the house, for instance.) But the previous owner redid almost all the flooring, so it's not too out-dated. My only real complaint is the wallpaper in the bathrooms. Ugh, ugly. Otherwise it's a really nice house, in a nice neighborhood, that we bought at a nice price. (119K, not including closing and taxes and everything.)

We got to visit my family during the Thanksgiving, which was great. It was wonderful to see everyone again. We brought our two cats with us since we didn't have anyone to watch them while we were away. On the way back we took our third cat, Puar (who'd been with my parents for 4 years while we were in Japan), with us.

I tell you, traveling with 3 cats is not something I want to do any time soon. I need to find someone in this neighborhood who's reliable and willing to watch them when we're gone. I'd pay a teenager to do it, since they can always use the money, if I thought I could trust any of the ones here. (Teenagers are hard to trust, because they aren't use to being responsible for a life.)

And in a startling turn of events I got a job. Yes, you read that right. A real, pays-me-money-and-everything, JOB. I am now a Realtor's Assistant, part time. My Boss's name is Ken and is actually the Realtor who helped us buy our house. (Nice guy!) I get to make my own hours. This is generally a great thing, but for me it's fantastic. It allows me to work around my husband's schedule and take time off during the holidays to visit all my family.

My favorite part of the job is taking pictures of the houses and making virtual tours. It gets me out of the office and helps me learn my way around the city. I've seen some beautiful houses and some houses that make me wonder why ANYONE would buy them. My least favorite part of the job is the stupid letters. I have to send out letters to all the people who are trying to sell their house but do not currently have a realtor. I have any where from 5-20 letters a day I have to mail out. And I have to check everday to make sure none of them have gotten a realtor since yesterday. (We get nasty-grams if we send letters out to people who already have a realtor!) Beside it being mind numbing, it's also a form of spam. I hate thnking I 'm spamming some poor Shmoe's mailbox!

Either way, I really like my job. I'm not great at it, since I still have holes in my training. (So there's some things I don't know how to do, and other things I won't know I should be doing until someone tells me!) But I do enjoy working and feeling useful.

We haven't really found a church home yet. There are a few churches here, and we've been two a few. But I haven't felt really connected to any of the people yet. Though I think Grace Church is a our best bet.

Next up: Christmas vacation at my Husband's house. INTERESTING.

Gettin' Closer

We went to our appointment with Lydia DeLeon-Rush today. I don't know who the "Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corporation" is, but Mrs. Lydia freakin' rocks! She has been so SO helpful with helping us know what to expect when buying a house and connecting us with trustworthy people.

Our credit is good. (Yay!) We should be fine with getting a VA loan. (Also Yay!)

There's a couple of houses we've really liked so far. All of them have a pool. (Which Mike likes for exercise, but I like because Liz's kids can visit us and play in our pool. Maybe Josh'll get over his fear of pools! ^^; )

Our Household goods should get picked up at the end of this month. Terrifying I tell you, terrifying. I hate this part of the move. Trying to decide what goes now and what goes then. Trying to find a place in our bitty house to store the stuff we want to KEEP. *sighs*

Just a passing post...

Ugh, Verizon I loathe you. Our connection has been awful ever since the switch over from Softbank to Verizon. Today we had no connectivity at all. And since they took over our internet craps out between 12-3pm and is completely unreliable after 915pm at night. Very annoying.

Still haven't gotten a bill from them yet either. Mike'll flip if they charge us full price for the crappy internet we've had.

My average weight is 195 and I've gotten down between 194 and 193. It doesn't sound like a lot but I started a week and a half ago. They say it's healthy to lose 1-2 pounds a week but no more. So I'm trying to lose weight, but not a whole lot at once. It's difficult because it takes so long and I'm American dang it, I'm use to instant gratification! :P

We're still considering buying a house. The lady who hosts the House Buying Seminar is coming back to Misawa for two weeks and said she'd be willing to set time aside to talk to use personally if we make an appointment with her. That'd be great, since while I know something about BUYING a house now, I still no nothing about about SELLING a house. (Which is important since we'll likely move in 4 years again. And if Mike has his way, we'll be moving to Europe so...*shrugs*)

Really hopeful about buying a house. I'd like to, if we can, since it'd be good for us financially in the long term.

The weather is finally getting nice again! The sun is out, the grass and trees are green, and the wind is only chilly (not "OMG COLD").

*sighs* Spring is nice... :)

Escudo vs Sidekick: FIGHT!

Yesterday we took the car in to get it checked. It's been making this awful high pitched squeal in first gear. Mostly during very humid and cold days. Mike and I both figured it was a built, but what I couldn't figure out is why our belts went bad so fast. I had just replaced them late '08. Turns out the belt wasn't bad, it was just loose. It only cost us 10$ to tighten it.

Phew.

Apparently the Escudo (known as the Sidekick in the US) is a very well known and reliable 4WD vehicle. Ours is a '93. And it did pretty well until it had to sit outside in the cold Misawa winters with nothing to protect it. I think if we'd had a garage--or even a carport--it would have been in better condition. But alas, the military didn't deem out cars worthy of having things like a carport or garage.

The closest thing Suzuki has now to the Sidekick is the SX4 Crossover. Which is around the same price range as the Sidekick and has similar gas mileage and size. The direct decedent to the Sidekick is the Grand Vitara, though it seems a bit more upscale and possibly larger than the Sidekick with poorer gas mileage. It does look more like the Sidekick than the Crossover though. (But I happen to like Crossover's look a bit better.)

Mike mentioned getting a Sidekick back in the States, but I'm still keen on getting a Honda Fit. Sidekicks were built in the 1990s and while they are great cars, I'm tired of owning cars that are 10+ years old. It's nothing personal, but I just want a car that I don't have to repair because something fell out of the bottom of it or something important broke. I'd also really like a warranty for once... so even if something bad does happen we don't have to pay 100s or 1000s of dollars to fix it.

That's all I have to say about that. :P

A splash of Spiritual JibberJabber in that Pot o' Life

I've been thinking about my "salvation experience" lately. The reason being because, how can you talk to someone about Christ if you do not know him yourself? So it got me thinking about my story. Ah, which is always a bit depressing.

You see, most people have these strong recollections about their salvation experience. They remember going up to an altar, sitting in their bed, a conversation... something. I have nothing of the sort.

I have always had a horrible memory, and this extends to every aspect of my life. I have almost no memories of my life before 12 years old. What memories I do have are very vague, so vague that sometimes I'm not even sure if they happened or I imagined them. Because I was saved, or at least Baptized, at 8 years old I don't remember it. (Though I got some vague memory of my Baptism... though perhaps I only have that because I was nervous/excited about getting "dunked" under water. I can't say for sure.)

Well, this puts me in a bit of a bind. Lots of people like to share their conversion story to others as a way to show "Hey, this Jesus is real and I can prove it with my life!" But I can't do that because I have no "before and after". And of course there's the Pastors up their preaching about that "old man" who use to do all these awful sinful things and I'm thinking "I can't even remember my old man!"

That frustration often turns to doubt because no one else seems to understand where I'm coming from. Almost everyone gets saved in their teens or adult years. My husband, who got saved at 5 yrs old, says he remembers it! How could I have forgotten? Didn't I think it was important?

But I know I must have thought it was important. Because I *do* remember at around 10-12ish (see what I mean?) asking myself "Do I believe in Christ just because my parents do? Is this my faith or theirs?" I struggled with this question for days, because I didn't want to go on pretending to believe in something just to make my parents happy or to "fit in".

I finally concluded that I accepted Christ for myself, not to make my parents or someone else happy. I decided to follow Christ for His sake, not for anyone else's. And, at least I hope, that's what I've been doing ever since.

And I don't think I'm not saved. There are too many indicators in my life that say I've got God's Holy Spirit in me. The easiest ones to spot (and frankly the most boring ones) are a desire to go to church consistently, to read my Bible, to study theology and Biblical history, and pray no matter how awful or good I'm feeling. Could a person without the Holy Spirit be like that for years on end? I don't think so.

But this still leaves me without a "before and after" to tell people. How can I explain the wonderful life-changing sacrifice of Christ to someone without any "before" to give them? This is what I've been asking myself lately.

The closest answer I come up with, it doesn't seem to satisfy really. It seems so... so.. wishy-washy and lacking somehow. But I shall give it now, and we will see over time if it's worth anything:

"There is a God, and He has been with me my whole life. I have laughed and loved, and He shared in my joy. I have stumbled over my words and embarrassed myself, my family, my friends, but He was not embarrassed of me. I have cried so hard I couldn't move and feared so deeply I couldn't breath, yet He was there. He gave me the strength to go on, to move forward. And when I was over-whelmed by life, He was their to comfort me, to re-assure me that He is faithful and will never leave me to fend for myself.

If you are to say "What physical proof do you have that there is a God?" I couldn't tell you. I have never seen God, or touched Him, or heard an audible voice. But there's something inside me, something so strong that even when I am at my most doubtful, my most hard-hearted, I can't ignore it. Even when I want to just give up and pretend like I never knew Him, I can't. I can't deny it, I can't deny His presence. It's an impossibility for me.

And how did I get to know this God? This being who created this universe and all in it? I know Him because of Christ. He who lived, died, and rose again for all the wrong doings all of humanity has ever committed. I simply believed in what he did. By simply believing in the truth of Jesus' action, I went from an enemy of God to His adopted Daughter.

So that is how I know God. I'm His daughter."

See? My testimony is so... boring. It doesn't have the same punch that testimonies from former Abusers, Druggies, Alcoholics, Cutters, Thieves, etc. They can be all like "See the difference in me? I don't do [insert badness] now! This is the difference that Christ makes!" The only "difference" I can talk about is all the things I haven't done, and frankly that's not worth talking about.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for what I have, by no means. I really love having God in my life. I wouldn't trade that for the most fantastic unbelievable but-it-really-happened conversion story. (Lemme tell ya, 17 years with God is better than any awe-inspiring conversion story.)

But still... I just don't know if my conversion story brings "anything to the table" so to speak. Would it cause people to stop and really consider the sacrifice of Christ? The forgiveness and new life He offers? Or would it be just some more weird/ignorant Religious person rambling added to the cacophony of other religious ramblers? I don't know, I don't know.

Not that I'm worried about it so much as a little frustrated.

That's all I've got to say. Take it or leave or throw a Fuzzy Bug at it. :P

A House to Live In

Since, as far as we know, we're moving to Wichita Falls I've gotten into looking at houses ahead of time. Sort of to scope out what's there. I've used Truila.com for internet "house shopping". It works pretty well.

To be honest, if we can get some decent housing through the military I'll take that over buying. But the military has this tendency to stick E5s with spouse but no children in tiny two bedroom homes. Sheppard AFB has the Freedom Estates, the smallest of which is still a 3 bedroom house. As long as I can get a 3 bedroom house of a decent size I'm ok with sticking with military housing.

But that's a Big If. I'll be surprised if there isn't already a huge waiting list for Freedom Estates. I can't imagine anyone choosing to live on base when they can live off base and get a bigger house. Though I might get lucky, since the on base housing since to be going through some major renovations. (I have to tell you, newer military housing is really not all that bad.

Thinking about Art

I use to love to draw. As a kid, I would sit on the couch or on my bed, and draw for hours. I'd leave a trail of paper behind me. It wasn't always fun, but I always felt good about it. When it was hard, I felt challenged and motivated to get past that hurdle, whatever it was. Everything was "How can I draw that?" or "How can I make my drawings better?"

And then... I left home. Some where in those first two years, any artistic inclination left me. There's not one thing in particular that did, just a bunch of stuff. Moving from home and from a family I loved to a strange place, living with a man who was angry all the time and critical, not going to church on a regular basis, and a total lack of friends. I was alone, and some how that loneliness broke me.

I was only 19 then. So very young.

I'm 25 now and doing much better. So is my husband! But getting back into drawing has been very very difficult. But I'm trying. I don't want to remain artless forever. I want to recapture that love of drawing, even when it was hard, and become better.

Someday. Someday. I hope.