Home is Where the Heart Is???

When I made the decision to retire from my teaching job March of 2012, I traded the joy of inspiring the dreams of my students for realizing a few dreams of my own.  My dream of the perfect retirement took me to live in Indiana with my husband who had been there already for six months and to upgrade a 1960's house by taking down more wallpaper than I care to even think about in retrospect.  Just as I finished making that house a home, I was blessed to teach again during the fall of 2012, until the closing of the academy.  My heart was in that home because my husband and my furry babies were there.  However, when it came to moving back to the home that we had had built with our own stamp of personal choices on it, I was not heartbroken to trade in the shallow closets, original oak flooring (much of it covered by carpet), and formica countertops for walk ins, Brazilian Cherry and granite.  In spite of the upgrades, would it have been home without my husband there?  Not really, so when he was sent to the next assignment, although I balked in the beginning, I packed our left over furniture--some inherited and some purchased from an estate--chose only the clothes suitable to our destination, and drove across country.  Somewhere between Montana and the west coast,  my best friend and husband leased a home mutually agreed upon (based solely on a website view and description) in our preferred neighborhood/town.

When we arrived, we were met with these views:

Main street moving through the town center

Adjacent street dressed in fall colors

Neighborhood Starbucks--Lucky Me!

I was reminded at once of the movie Pleasantville, and, at the same time, of my friend's husband's recent post concerning intentional communities (linked for your reading pleasure http://tcpermaculture.com/site/2013/09/24/my-plan-for-an-intentional-community/).  Reading John's view of an intentional community made me want to rush out and get in on the ground floor of this concept, so I hope that he will not be offended by me connecting his academically researched plan for a community to our little town designed to include a store, among other deliberately chosen features, to meet every daily need of the members of the community allowing them to rarely have to leave town center if they so choose.  We have a dry cleaner, library, Yogurtini, Jiffy Lube,  bus "depot," hotel, post office, Mexican restaurant, 3 sushi establishments, a pub--to name a few examples--and my neighbor informed me that we are getting a grocery store within a short time.  The streets are tree lined with the elementary school and childcare facility located alongside the homes, apartments and condos.  Dogs are welcome additions and are companions to their owners who frequently walk, ride bikes or jog on the sidewalked streets.  Our town is designed so that the houses back up to their own alley where the garbage is discreetly picked up, parks are dispersed throughout the community, and landscape at the front of each house is manicured for the most part by the city workers rather than home owners.  Gray, beige, yellow, clay and blue are repeated colors of houses on any given street where inhabitants look down on their side yards from second floor windows or casually from the front porches of their deep, one-storied homes called ramblers.

The house we call home is a two-story with an open living, dining and kitchen area warmed by a fireplace while three bedrooms with two baths hover above.  A garage and grassy side yard with hot tub completes our "little world." (For the sake of inquiring family members, pictures are included,)  This house has wood floors that creak with every footfall and no bathroom on the first floor, but we embrace it as our home because it pulses with the love and energy of four hearts--Roy's, Huck's, Finn's, and mine!

Our Northwest home

Living Area with my dad's recliner, couch and chair from Indiana and Canvas 1 repainted to match each home

Entryway with Mrs. Finnerty's secretary

Dining area and corner kitchen

Guest room with my Uncle Bob's cedar bedroom set and my great grandmother's quilt

Master bedroom with Canvas 2 painted to match its new home

Kings of the Side Yard

WELCOME TO OUR HOME!

"There Shall Be Showers of Blessings.  This is the Promise of God!"

So why am I always so surprised by all of the blessings that come down?  Take Saturday, for instance. . . Roy and I had the entire day planned for an "us day."  We got up and went to our favorite restaurant for breakfast--IHOP!  We had decided to take advantage of the Blue Star Museum recognition of military families, so we headed to Indianapolis.  The evening before, the weatherman from RTV 6 had been live at the City Center and had shared that at 10:30 on Saturday morning, a walking tour would commence in front of the Chocolate Shop and traverse the monuments with a knowledgeable guide sharing facts and trivia.  So, Roy and I pulled into Market Street around 10:22 (I'm driving).  Finding that we could not park on the circle, we looked for a parking place.  Found one with a meter!  Nope, Roy checked it out and it would cost $1.50 per hour!  LOL  We continued to a parking lot, but nope!  It was $4.00 an hour.  By this time, it is 10:35, and I'm getting a bit frustrated!  I'm thinking, "I've saved all of this money by researching the museum sites, and Roy will not even pay $1.50 to park!!!"  We both are getting a bit tense and terse.  We drive back to the original parking meter place, pull in and blessing #1 arrives.  A nice lady pecks on our window and sweetly informs us that she has paid for an hour parking and that she is leaving after only a few minutes of shopping and that we are welcome to her parking place with minutes to go!  Sweet!  We park, visit the monument in the center, go to the observation deck, and descend to  take pictures of the various sights.  We meander over to the walking tour, the guide is speaking for a moment or two, and the tour is finishing up!  The awesome man, a volunteer mind you, upon hearing that we had wanted to join the group at the onset repeated many of the stories and interesting facts about Indianapolis (we learned so much), and directed us to the Columbia Club!  Did you know that during Presidential campaigns, the constituents would come to the candidate rather than the reverse?  The Columbia Club was "the place" or hub where the Republican candidate met with his voters.  Every Republican President since the election of Harrison? has visited the Columbia Club.  Wow!  Beautiful and stately inside. 

As we left the area, some kind teenagers were standing on Market Street giving bottles of water away to travelers!  Not just any water, but Dasani!  LOL  Blessing #2!  We were parched and thirsty!  This day is just getting better and better as we move to the museums on Washington Street.  This time, Roy (driving) pulls immediately into the underground parking lot where the entrance of each of the Blue Star attractions could be accessed from the parking structure itself.  If you are unaware of what I am referring to concerning the Blue Star, there are hundreds (?) of museums across the country that participate in a program providing free entrance to military families.  Google Blue Star, and you will be able to view the stipulations tied to the program.  Back to my husband, the penny pincher, who, as I said, pulled into the underground parking without a blink of the eye and no questions asked.  He surely had read my unspoken thoughts about the parking meter incident!!  We entered the Indiana State Museum, the Eiteljorn, and then the Hall of Champions at the NCAA building.  Can you guess what blessing #3 could be?  Bha-ha-ha-ha-ha!  God decided to make Roy's day!  Thanks to the Eiteljorn on this day, at least, our parking time card was validated not just to take off a percentage of the fee but to give us FREE parking!  Now, I had read everything there was to read online in planning this trip, and everything I had read only indicated parking to be kept to a lower dollar amount due to validation from the museums!  I love when God plans my life!

And the blessings continued to come down!  We had been given a gift certification for Outback, so as we traveled to the restaurant in Greenwood, suburb south of Indy, my dear, sweet husband called the restaurant to see first if they were open and second if they gave a military discount!  If you are a reader who has traveled with us when we transported youth groups every year to our denomination's National Youth conference all over the USA, you know that if Roy can not save money, he will find another place to eat!!!  No military discount is to be had!  I resigned myself to choose another place to eat, but no!  we pull into Outback!  We are seated, order, and as we are eating our blooming onion, the proprietor ( Lee Blackwell) comes by, greets us and very nicely informs us that our blooming onion is complimentary (my husband is in uniform, so we just think he is being so nice).  Well, well, well. . .he is a Christian, so we continue to talk of ministry and military service and then he moves on to other guests.  A little later, he returns with a huge piece of Outback's new Keylime Pie!  It is another gift!  If you are counting, then this is blessing #4 or maybe #5 if we are separating all of the food groups.  In one hand is the Keylime pie, and in the other hand is an envelope which he  places on the table while saying, "when you return from Egypt, I want you to come back and eat with us here--on the house!"  You can tell that we have spent a significant time talking because he knows what seems (I only say seems because guess what!  the military can change its mind) to be my husband's next adventure in this new ministry and, by this time, we know about his family, wonderful things about Outback and how they work with troops as well as Operation Homefront.  God bless Lee and Outback!  So, you must be asking yourself is this it?  All of the blessings?  Wait for it!  #6, the last one, has to do with gas prices.  In our area, gas on this day was $3.39 and up.  To make a longer story short,  Thanks to God and Kroger, we acquired gas not only for 10 cents off per gallon, but the full price was 6 cents cheaper than any gas that we were able to purchase in our area!  Now, I enjoy the blessings of the Lord daily, both spiritual and otherwise, but the number of great things coming our way in one day was over the top even for this Child of the King!  "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow. . . .Amen."