Shag Carpet, Radon, & Answered prayers...

God gave me one of those, “I told you so…” moments today. 

So the house Nathan and I live in is pretty stinkin’ awesome.  It is a flip house that his parents bought, flipped the upstairs and are slowly flipping the down stairs as they have time.  We moved in to help them with payments and to get us out of Peoria.  We love it, but we obviously know it’s temporary.  In it’s final form, the house will be a 2-story, 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath masterpiece, sitting on just over an acre with two out buildings, a 2 car garage, amazing sunrise and sunset views out in the beautiful cornfields of IL…and out of our price range. 

So, we’ve been looking…nothing urgent.  Just keeping an eye on things to come and go on the market.  So there’s this house.  In the school district we want, in the general price we want.  We understand that the resale may not be great, but we could rent it when the time comes for a profit and really make this place work.  It’s also VERY outdated.  There are oh…5 different colors of carpet throughout the house; green & blue & black shag in the master, brown & white & pink-ish upstairs, brown throughout the living and dinning room, blue in the kitchen…yes there’s carpet in the kitchen.  It was a very stylish kitchen in the 70s!  But yeah… we would have to work on it. 

**Pictures thanks to PAAR 

There was that glimmer of hope in Nathan and I as we walked around this house…until the basement.  RADON…I hate you, radon.  The owner is one of Nathan’s friend’s grandmother who’s still well.  When she put the house on the market, she found out that the radon levels in her basement were at a 40.  In order to get a conventional loan or even a rural development loan the radon test has to come back at 3.9… and no, I didn’t misplace that decimal point.  We are looking for a difference here of about 36.1 points.  They put in a mitigation system (somewhat costly which includes drilling a hole in the basement), but still only cut the radon in little more than half to a 17. 

So remember, gimmer, stellar carpet…and radon.  So did Nathan and I want to pursue this?  Is this a battle to fight?  This was when a few weeks ago I posted on facebook, “How do you know when God's wanting you to fight for something vs. God saying, "Give it up already, Linz...I'm trying to close the door, so just let me!"’  So I prayed.  I didn’t pray a lot for a reason; because I didn’t want to convince myself that I should fight for it, which is my natural instinct, but I wanted to say, “If this is what you want for Nate, me, and the Ruth I trust you.  If not, I’ll forget about it.”  Granted I didn’t forget about it, but I talked to Nathan one more time, and said, should we just ask if they’d fix it?  The worst they would say is no, and then we’d move on.

So, about 20 emails and a week later, with LOTs of conditions, they agreed they would accept a certain offer if the stars aligned and they made the radon disappear.  So there was no fighting or  God back-talking me, but this morning on the way in to work, it was made very clear to me that God majorly answered.  Not, “can I have this house?” or “What does everything have to be so difficult?” but “I’ve had the baby and you in Nathan in my mind all along.  Don’t ever doubt that I’ve got things under control.”  And I smiled, and of course slightly teared up…b/c that’s what pregnant women do, and then made it to work peacefully. 

This still isn’t a done deal yet.  There’s still LOTS of stipulations and still a large change that this isn’t THE house.  But,  when God reveals things to you like that,  man, it’s just cool.  

IT'S A GIRL!

I’ve known our baby was a girl for quite a while.  Everyone I’m close to has known that I wanted lots of boys…to field a baseball team, to fill the starting D-line for football…and to help their father with the family business.  But, about a month into the pregnancy, the inkling hit. 

I’m really not upset or anything.  I mean really?! We have been so exited for this baby!  And as we have been around Bella, uncle Nathan adores her! I mean, I do too, but I’m getting exited to see him as a daughter’s father.  On many occasions, Bella and Uncle Nathan have sat in a chair, watched tv and played with rattles and cell phones for hours.  They’re easily entertained like that. J

After our appointment, we got McDonald’s and Nathan and I headed to church to eat.  Brittany was cooking tonight so that meant Bella would be there, and I could tell her and Dad the news.  Joel, our pastor and really good friend, came out and chatted with us.  Nathan chuckled and said, “I guess I need to start working on my sensitivity.” And I replied, “And I need to get a little better with compassion.”  He reassured us we’ll be fine, and I’m pretty sure we will be.  Just entertaining.  VERY entertaining. 

This also means that my CREATIVITY GETS TO SHINE!  I refuse the color pink!  REFUSE!  I will do everything in my power to avoid pink at all cost!  I’m sure this will backfire when after I withhold her from pink and she sees it, she’s going to cling to it and demand it! But I will fight it!  Fight it I tell you!

Her name by the way is Ruthie May.  Ruthie means companion or dear friend and May, depending on the website, means the 5^th month of the year, which is my favorite J, but also, it means great.  So she’s a great companion! 

Darling Ruthie,

Though you may hate me later in life for withholding pink from you, or embarrassing you, or destroying your dating life, the love that your father and I have for you is and will always be immeasurable.  I’m scared to death that I’m going to down right suck at this (please don’t say that until your in high school at least), but with the help of our Mighty God and your sweet, sweet father, you will surpass all of our wildest dreams!  I’m so anxious to hold you. So anxious.  Sigh…

Love, mom