Here’s the deal: We moved to Nashville in August 2016 to an Airbnb we thought we’d be in for 3 months. Between August and Easter 2017 we searched for houses on-line and in person, even making offers on some, and were out-bid 3 or 4 times. One house we spent 1.5 hours with an HGTV designer remodeling the whole thing mentally for a potential show, and as we left the house our agent got a call that the sellers accepted an offer while we were standing in it! To say the least, it was getting discouraging!

I made the decision not to look at houses on-line anymore until mid-summer, waiting until after things were wrapped up in Denver. But Ryan told me in January, “Mommy, we are going to move into our new house in May,” and I was reminded of his words here and there.

Part of me longed to start LIVING our lives and not keep putting everything on hold for uncontrollable circumstances. This was a big step for me because vagabonding was my idea. Truthfully, I needed time to run away and grieve deep grief, but didn’t want to do it in our old life.

I’m grateful for this season of being in close quarters without our former creature comforts. It’s helped us reset as a family and discover again what matters isn’t stuff or your zip code, but the people you get to do life with and the gratefulness for each day. I like my people and am grateful for them, but my people and I are ready to send out roots and open our hearts and home again.

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Part of choosing Nashville was for the city’s creative inspiration. I’ve challenged myself in a few ways, already, but one is by taking a writing course. It’s pretty intense and as I was plugging away on an assignment, I decided to take a “smoke break,” aka, scroll homesnapdotcom to look at newly listed homes in our search area. Well, there it was…a house in the neighborhood we loved, just over a mile from the kids’ school, and it was cute and had trees for swings and playing! I texted my realtor to see if it was sold. She said there would be an open house on Saturday and they’d receive offers until Monday at 7pm.

On Saturday we headed to the Open House where boatloads of others were doing the same thing. It was cute. SO. CUTE. We loved it. Mucho. Ryan liked it. Em liked it. I knew there would be a bidding war due to the cuteness and location…and I was tired. Tired of losing bidding wars. Tired of liking houses other people liked, too. We took the rest of Saturday and Easter to think about it and pray. We talked to our realtor and put in our offer on Monday and went to bed, trusting if it was our house and where God wanted our family, it would work out.

You guys!! They received our offer.

Now, it’s a little anti-climatic because we closed on a Thursday, and then they rented it back for two more days. Then, well, Jason went to Ethiopia the morning after we got the keys, so we decided to wait until he returned for the truck to come with our stuff. During that week-long window, we had the floors refinished, and added wood in the kitchen.

And since I like to surprise Jason with house projects while he is out of town, I had a day before the floor guys showed up…so…I walked next door, introduced myself to the neighbor, asked if I could borrow a sledgehammer, hammer, and crowbar, and got to work.

Sledgehammers are super awesome! I highly recommend them for all of your smashing needs! It comes in handy for grief therapy, to boot!

So, if you are a “before” and “after” fan like I am, come back for updates, because after almost 3 years of “houselessness” I’ve got the renovation and nesting bug and am excited to jump into some DIY’s to make this house a home.