When you know.

I was driving to California, and every second I got closer, it felt like I was driving home.

I am not quite sure how to explain it.

Even months ago when my husband and I were looking for houses.

We had to make a quick stop at Walmart, and as we were leaving, we felt like we should be driving back to our house.

The house we didn't have yet.

When we got the house, I hadn't even seen it yet.

The offer was accepted, and it was our 4th offer on our 4th house.

As soon as we had honed in on a neighborhood, Peter was relentless.

We weren't going to live anyplace else.

I checked real estate websites for months. Every day.

I saw houses come, I saw houses go.

But I felt peace.

We lost out on house one. I felt peace.

We lost out on house two. The WISTERIA house.

I felt peace. It wasn't perfect.

We lost out on house three. I started to be concerned, because time was getting short, but, still. . .it didn't turn to stress.

We put in a bid on house 4, it wasn't perfect, but it was in the neighborhood.

I was worried about the color, the size of the kitchen, the fact that there was no pantry, the layout, the fact that it didn't have a back yard, but. . .

I still felt fine about it.

We got it.

I felt peace.

Not excitement yet. But peace.

I drove 6 hours to go to the home inspection. This was going to be my only chance to see the house before we moved into it in a little over a month.

I pulled up.

It was a better color than I thought (It looks kinda pink in the pictures)

It had a better layout than I thought.

The tiles and carpet were all really nice! (House #3 had Forrest green carpet. . . so glad we lost out on THAT one)

The kitchen was big. . enough.

(The no pantry is still hurting, but I think I might convert a closet)

We have a lot of painting to do, but there were no crazy paint colors! (VERY common these days)

With each room, my excitement grew, and I knew. This. Was. Home.

If you have ever gone from owning homes, to renting one. You know.

How nice it is to finally call another space home.

I am so grateful.

It is perfect. For us.

It is big enough, for us.

It is close enough to the stores, for us.

It is wonderful to us.

I cannot wait another second to go HOME.

I am not sure how I can call a house that I have never lived in, in a town I have never lived, home. But I can.

And I am sure.

And it feels amazing.

I wasn't sure this day would come.

But it did.

Me and Her

A year ago , we had been in Arizona for a little over a month. Well, exactly a month. In that short amount of time, we had found out that the guy that we had bought "our future" from had lied about our investment and we had no choice but to enter into a large legal battle with him to get our investment (or a small part of it) back.

We had moved away from family, friends, and made a big sacrifice to be "on our own" and "doing our own thing." We had calculated and prayed before we signed on all the lines but, it wasn't enough. Sometimes you just can't control what OTHER people are doing. Like, forging documents.

I was pregnant. Newly pregnant and frustrated. Frustrated that I was pregnant. I mean, the timing was not great. The economy was going into a major recession. Our "new business" was floundering. We were in a law suit with the man who mis-lead us and it looked like we were going to have to completely re-invent the wheel. Peter was going to have to find work and it was unclear if we would ever recover our losses. Not the greatest time to be pregnant . . for emotional reasons. Losing all of your financial stability is a lot to take on as a general stress level when you are newly pregnant.

I struggled daily with our new position. For the most part, our hopes were high. We hoped things would work out. We felt like we were here for a "reason", even though that "reason" was completely unclear. It was a Sunday night, and I was laying on my couch reading blogs. I was reading Cjane. Which is a blog that I came across after asking a few people about their favorite blogs to read. It quickly became a favorite, but that night, a year ago today, I was reading her blog in complete and total shock. An extreme accident had happened. I clicked over to the accident victim's blog, her sister, Nie Nie. I read, and I read, and I read. I had never read her blog before. But I sat and read for probably 3 or more hours (it was after the kids had gone to bed) and suddenly, I realized that my problems were very, very, very small.

Over the next year, I followed Stephanie's progress, as many of you did and I watched in awe as she recovered, came back to life and even started blogging again! When Peter and I would come up to hurdles in our law suit, or in finding work, being a completely sleep deprived mother of a new born who was packing up her boxes for her 9th move in 9 years or in having the same guy STOP making his settlement payments to us, I would think of her and I would try to remember that there were others out there who suffered more than we did.

Today, Nie Nie showed the WORLD just how brave she really is, and it is far, far, far more brave than I ever have been, or maybe ever would be. You can see why HERE.

I am sure she will never read this blog, but I just would like to thank her personally. Thank you for being so strong. Thank you for being a wonderful example of hope. Thank you for enduring happily, or as happily as you can. Thank you for showing us all what it means to be strong. Thank you. I hope to be more like you.

Lindsey

Uplifting as Always

Of course many of you watched General Conference this weekend. It was uplifting as always. The talks were insightful and inspiring and uplifting. If you didn't watch it, you should! Even if you aren't a member of my church because really, it was for the whole world to watch.

My favorite quote was from President Monson who said,

"Your future is as bright as your faith"

Let's face it, we all need inspiring words during this tumultuous time, and I think those are it! I am ready to get a piece of wood and get some vinyl lettering tomorrow! Heck, I might even just get those vinyl letters and stick them straight on the wall. :)

What I DIDN'T EXPECT, was for my daughter to ask the "age old question" during Elder Oaks talk. . . Who would have thought that an Apostles' talk would inspire the question, "What is s*x?" Great. . . good thing we can pause live TV.