I'm Bloggin

It's been almost a year since Mom died and I've been trying to think of some positive way to mark the date. Mom loved family and keeping in touch, so I decided to try this way of communicating with others in our family and beyond. I'm not too sure exactly what the content will be or how often I'll actually get to post, but I hope to make it a regular way to let others know what is going on "back home", as well as expressing all the random thoughts inside my head. Please feel free to post comments; I look forward to reading them.
Right now I am off work for about a month. The janitors are waxing the school floors and I can't get to my office.....(: ) sigh! Jeff is on vacation next week and we are taking the grandkids to St. Louis for a few days to see the zoo, Grant's Farm, the Science Musuem, Magic House, and anything else we can cram into four days! I just didn't want to be at home next week with my memories. The grandkids are really looking forward to it... the 4 year old has never stayed in a hotel before and I think he is more excited about that than anything. We are going to start out at Sarah's new house in Owensboro for the 4th and watch fireworks on the riverfront.
Actually, Jeff and I have been spending every weekend for the last month in Owensboro helping Sarah to settle in to her new house. We have been putting up a privacy fence in her backyard. We are so naive..... we thought we could get it put up in one weekend using a manual posthole digger. It has taken us four weekends using a rented auger and it is still not finished. One of Sarah's friends (the brother of the principal at the school she teaches at) has been helping us. It looks really good and I will try to post some pictures later on; but the main reason we wanted to get it up was so that her dog, Max, would have a safe place to play - primarily to protect the neighborhood children from Max - he is very protective of Sarah and very wary of strangers!
Sarah loves her new house and she is glad to be back in the city of Owensboro instead of so far out in the county, especially with gas prices now. We firmly believe that this house is a blessing from heaven and the reason she was able to get it was through Mom and Dad's intercession for her. There have been just too many things that couldn't have happened any other way. She had been looking for a house for several months with no luck; there just wasn't anything in her price range in a good neighborhood. She was starting to get really discouraged, as she really needed to move. I could tell she was getting really depressed and as I was out walking one day, I was praying about it and I had the strongest feeling of dad's presence telling me that everything was going to be ok. I sent her a note telling her about my experience. Jeff and I went to Owensboro the next weekend to look at some houses with her; but, once again we came up empty handed. When we got back home, I e-mailed Sarah some houses I had found on the internet and she called to say she was calling her agent to set up some appointments. She also mentioned an open house she saw in the paper that was the next day and she said she thought she would just go by to see it, even though she didn't think it was what she wanted. When we went back up the next weekend to look at houses again, it was on the list we were to see. The minute I walked in, I knew it was the house for her, but knowing how advice from a mother can be, I only made the standard comments...but I did mention that I felt a good karma in the house and I could tell that it had been a house that had shared a lot of love and had good memories in it. We didn't know anything about the history of the people who were selling the house and for a brief second I doubted my own instincts and wondered if the reason it was for sale was the owner was in jail for murder or something! It is an older house, built in 1961, but it was immaculate and was extremely well kept and was move in ready. It was the kind of house that Mom and Dad would have had. We looked at some other houses that day - one that even had a large snake caged in the living room - definitely not good karma in that house!!! Well, to shorten the story, Sarah called that week and said she was putting in a bid for the1961 house, but she got the bad news that someone else had placed a bid before her. But this was the first thing that let us know it was meant for her to get this house because the other person's bid fell through and she got the house! When she called to tell us the news I reminded her of how her Grandpa was looking out for her and that everything was going to turn out alright. But a few days later when she called to tell us about signing the final papers I thought I was going to have to eat my words. She was literally crying so hard that I couldn't understand what she was saying. But when she finally got the words out, she was trying to tell me that when she went in to the bank to sign the papers, she almost lost it. It was a little old lady that was selling the house and Sarah said, "Mom, she looked just like Grandma, a little bitty lady with gray hair and a sweet smile; even her handwriting was like Grandma's." She started telling Sarah about how her and her husband had built the house in 1961 and it was the only house they had lived in and had raised their family there. Her husband had died and she was no longer able to keep it up and was moving in an assisted living apartment. She told Sarah that she had had a lot of happy times in the house. And Sarah told the lady that I had felt those memories the first time I had walked in the house!!! And so it was meant to be.... The next weekend we went back up to help her move in and we got to meet the next door neighbors on both sides. They were both extremely nice, on one side an older couple, the lady volunteered as a tutor in the city schools; and on the other side a young couple with a little girl. As we were talking Sarah discovered that one of her very good friends at the board office was the first cousin of the older couple. We made the first of what was to be many trips to Lowe's and Wal-Mart and this is another one of those happenings that made my hair stand on end...as we were rounding the aisle in the hardware dept. at Wal-Mart I almost fainted because there in the aisle was a lady; I could only see her back and she had white hair and she had on the exact dress that mom was buried in; the one that dad had loved so much. I have never saw that dress on anyone else before and mom had wore it at their 50th anniversary over 15 years ago! I know I turned as white as a sheet before the lady turned around and I could see her face. But after she had walked off, I told Sarah that this was just another sign that Grandma and Grandpa were watching over her. And the coindences keep coming...Sarah later found out that her principal (the one that is like a second momma to her) was friends in school with the boy that used to live in her new house and she had often took him home from school and knew the people that lived there. She told Sarah that the boy reminded her of Sarah - he played the piano and was very active in church. Also we found out while building the privacy fence with Sarah's friend,Bill - the principal's brother, that the young couple next door had actually met at the wedding of Bill's son. The guy next door had actually been the best man at the wedding and had met his wife at the wedding.
The connections to this house are strong and I thank God for blessing Sarah with being able to get this house. And I know that Mom and Dad are smiling at the way things have turned out!