A Practice in Patience

This morning I found myself being yelled at by a 5-year-old stuck on a potty with no toilet paper.  Before I could get a word out of my mouth, she yelled again... which then required an explanation of what "patience" is and why you need to "be patient" when yelling for toilet paper.

And then I realized I have been stuck on the toilet since last week yelling for toilet paper... and all because of this house purchase.

When we moved here in April, we planned to stay in this rental house for a year and then buy something.  All summer I had grand visions of spending entire days driving from house to house, critiquing and ohhing and ughhing over all the different aspects of all the different houses.  But it quickly became apparent that all the savings I thought we'd amass wasn't happening and the dream of sifting through pages of listings started to wane.

I am learning though, that God has plans, and I don't need to know them, I just need to go with them.

The Butcher called late one afternoon during the kids' Christmas ("winter" - ugh) break, telling me to toss on some shoes because he was around the corner and we were going to leave the kids alone for 10 minutes and check out a house.  He is impulsive.  Sometimes his ideas are half-thought-out and absolutely off the wall.  But I'm pretty sure I need all that in my life.

So we drive off, past Ella's school, down a hill, up a hill, into a neighborhood, into a cul-de-sac, and down a long and lonely driveway.  At the end, is a squat brown house with a detached garage and an overgrown yard.  "Keep an open mind," he says. 

We open the front door and the entry hall is lined with bookshelves.  I almost swooned... we have been married for 15 years, have moved 7 times (this will be our 8th), and my books have never been unboxed.  Then I noticed the windows with the beautiful moldings... and the character that is just oozing out of the glass doorknob in the room we'd already dubbed "Ella's room."

It also happened to be a rare sunny December day in the northwest, and as we made our way to the kitchen, Mt. St. Helens was framed in the window - large and beautiful and covered in snow. 

I could go on and on... with all the moves we've made and all the places we've lived, I truly just wanted a house with character.  You know, the one you drive by that sits up the way a bit and you can just see the front half of it and you wonder what it looks like inside...  And this house was it.

Then everything just started falling into place... they accepted our ridiculous offer, they accepted our ridiculous close date (2-1/2 months out), they accepted to pay closing costs!

So I have been waiting patiently (truly patiently) since December for this house I have been waiting for my whole life... until Friday when our mortgage guy said everything was set and we should be getting a call to close... and still no call... and so I sit on the toilet waiting for paper...

Will someone just get me some damn toilet paper!?!  (sigh...)