VSA Day 24: Valley of the Sun, Here We Come!

Yes, we are on our way! We accepted an offer on our house. Actually, nothing came from our second showing this last Monday, so we countered the first offer. And, the buyer accepted our counter offer. Yesterday we signed the offer acceptance, and tomorrow is the inspection. I cannot believe it has happened so quickly, and not too shy of painlessly. Forgive my personal ramblings below. You may skip over them if you are so inclined.

Four years ago when Jon got his job in Edina, MN we talked about moving closer (the commute time was anywhere from 40-70 minutes each way), but that's all it amounted to: talking. Last year at this time we talked about moving closer again because he was assigned to work three days in the Edina office and two days in the Oakdale office (Oakdale commuting time was roughly 50-90+ minutes each way). However, we didn't go through with it because I was so stubborn. Yep, you read that right: I am a stubborn mule. I was too afraid of trying to sell the house on our own. I thought for sure that it would be an awful experience for me because I thought I'd have to follow the children around and pick up after them all the time to keep the house clean and show ready.

I was terrified to sell this house when Jon got his job in Arizona.

Terrified.

Petrified.

Freaked Out.

I had no idea how I was going to do it.

Imagine: I was too scared to put the house on the market while Jon was here to help, and the last 25 days the house has been on the market without Jon here to help for the majority of that time.

What I've learned is that the power of prayer is much stronger than I am, decluttering and packing away 75% of what we owned has been a weight off my shoulders and helped so much in keeping the house clean and orderly, our friends here are priceless and I will miss them terribly.

Throughout this entire experience, I have been asked several times by so many friends and family members how I am holding up. Each time I felt guilty for saying that I was doing fine. Literally, I was doing fine.

In my imagination I had visions of myself screaming and yelling, pulling my hair out, and giving myself a "time out," sitting in the van to escape the chaos for a few short minutes.

The reality?

I have been patient, soft spoken (not even yelling as much as before Jon left), more connected with the children, better able to keep the house clean and orderly, better able to stick to the daily schedule -- even getting the entire family in bed earlier than before, and to top it off ... I have felt safe despite the fact that I wouldn't feel safe whenever Jon travelled with his old job years ago.

I say that I felt guilty for feeling this way because I guess I thought there has been an expectation for me to actually be in the state of my imaginary self, and I am not. And that may, or may not infer that things are better without Jon here. Which is not the case. We all miss him terribly, but we all know that he needs to be where he is, doing what he is doing. And the time will come (in the very short future) when we will be reunited thanks to all the many prayers that have been offered in our behalf. We truly wouldn't have been able to go on this adventure without our friends and family members ... we are so blessed to have you in our lives.

Thank you.