The Country Girl Ain't so Kuntry...

I think there's going to be a big transition as we move from city out to "the country". It is outside the city limits and we'll have a well, so that makes it the country, doesn't it? Nevertheless, last night I got a glimpse that Miranda might not be quite ready for moving out of town. (New York is where I'd rather stay. I get allergic smelling hay. I just adore a penthouse view. Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.)

Late in the evening, we drove out to Gibson Springs, one of our favorite Conservation Areas. We didn't take the bikes with us, just some water and bug spray. After about 5 minutes of walking down the trail (a wide trail, recently mowed and cleaned up) I noticed a suspicious shape lying across the trail. I knew it wasn't weeds or sticks as it had a little slither to it's shape. Miranda didn't notice it, however. I think she was enamored with my charm or something. I quickly grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop walking. She looked at me with a question on her face...kind of like "Who do you think you are?" until I said "Snake". Yep, her demeanor changed pretty quickly. Right in front of us, about 6 feet away, was a copperhead. Not a real big one, only about 20-24 inches long. It was a good thing Miranda was hanging onto my left arm, the good one, because I think she would have yanked my right shoulder out of socket with the death grip she had on me.

Mustering up all my ninja hiking skills, I coerced the snake to move along and after Miranda started breathing again, we continued on our merry way. Not quite the same pace as before, mind you, but we enjoyed the rest of the hike nonetheless. Had I not visited the Deskin Ponderosa out in Oologah, I might wonder if Miranda really grew up in the country...maybe it's just worn off a bit or something.

"Green acres is the place for me. Farm livin' is the life for me. Land spreadin' out so far and wide. Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside...as long as I can convince the creepy crawlies from showing up when Miranda's out and about!

The Big Purge

Thursday, July 21st.
The Purge has begun...So far, our week can be described in a few verbs: Clean, save, pack, box, sort, chuck, toss, sell. We're getting ready to have a yard sale to move some of our "cherished" possessions into the homes of other people. We hope, anyway. We have thrown out quite a bit of things that have lost their usefulness. "Jason, how many more years do you think you need to keep these cassette tapes?" "Miranda, do you really need all these VHS movies?" In addition to all the throw-aways, we're recycling quite a bit of our excess stuff for a sale tomorrow. Does anyone really need two vacuum cleaners? How about two waffle makers? And what's the cut-off date for books to be considered out of date versus classic literature? I'm pretty sure my Chemistry text from college doesn't qualify as collectible.

Jason's nerd moment of the week: Miranda was out of town for a school related conference which left Jason at home alone unsupervised. Nevertheless, he was somewhat productive. The highlight of his alone time was calling the Headquarters of the Dept. of Conservation and discovering that "Yes, they would like to have his collection of Missouri Conservationist magazines." Yippee, he didn't have the heart to throw them all in the recycle bin. So, Jason's collection (some of his own plus some he has acquired from others over the years) has been donated to the State of Missouri. The magazines, ranging from 1979 (not a typo) to present will go to the Dept of Conservation archives to fill in the gaps for any issues they are missing or needing for additional copies.

More importantly, Miranda had another Dr. appointment today. Everything with her and the baby are going well. We got to hear the heartbeat again. And once again, it was hard to hear due to Miranda's laughing.

Anyway, if you ever feel that your home is getting over-stuffed, feel free to purge a little. It's so refreshing!!

The End Of The Road Is Just The Beginning...part 2

(from Jason)
Same song, 2nd verse. We have been surprisingly busy in the last week or so. I'll try to get the events in the right order here, but I'm not making any promises.

Knowing that our family was expanding, Miranda and I revisited our housing needs. Our first decision was to place Miranda's "southern" home back on the market to sell. It's been rented since Feb., but we are definitely not landlord material. Our second idea was to start the process of putting our "house-house", the one we live in, up for sale. Miranda's house has set for so long, we wanted to get a jump start on drumming up some interest in our other house. Well, we got more than a jump start, we kind of got a big kick start from God!

Short and sweet version--Within a week, we've received an offer to purchase our Neosho home, made an offer to purchase a home out in the country, and took care of all the loan paperwork for the bank. We'll finalize everything in the middle of August and hope to get move just in time for school to start. The funny thing is that we're actually buying a smaller house. But, it's got a little bit bigger yard, like 21 1/2 acres bigger, at the end of a dead end road. So that's a pretty good trade.

More details if you care--As we had been thinking of moving, we began searching through all the local real estate websites looking for just the right place. On the morning of the 4th, we drove to look at a place just outside of town. It was love at first site. A gorgeous piece of shady Ozark woods. The house seemed well kept and in good shape. It was early in the morning and we were there without an appointment, so we didn't look around long. 

As we left, I noticed the name on the mailbox. It seemed familiar. Once we got home, I emailed a lady that works in our school district, she actually works half-time in Miranda's building, to see if she might be related or know anything about the property that was for sale. She replied fairly quickly, given it was the 4th of July. The place belonged to her son and daughter-in-law. She encouraged us to let her know if we had any questions about it.

Later in the week, we spoke with a few people at church about the place. Quite a few of our friends knew that family and one guy knew some of the history about that place. We waited until this week to contact the realtor to set up a visit. We went out Wednesday to look the place over and then went back out Thursday with Miranda's four-wheeler to check out some of the property.

It's very close to what we were hoping to find. The house is pretty small so we are going to be working on using our inside voices and keeping off each others' toes. The family who owns the place had been praying for the right kind of family to come along...well they got us, so I'm sure if that's what they were hoping for. We made an offer and then a second offer on Friday and signed a bunch of paperwork today.

As for our "house-house", I placed an ad on Craigslist and also listed it in our local newspaper. The ad in the paper first ran last Friday, the 8th. By Saturday morning, we received two calls on the house. One lady, Mrs. H.  had already drove past the house and wanted to know when she might be able to look at it. I scheduled a meeting for Monday afternoon. The meeting went well. As Mrs. H. was leaving, she mentioned that she needed to go home and pray for direction about this decision. I was impressed with that and stated that we, too, had been praying for wisdom in knowing how best to handle things.

On the sidewalk, I answered a few more questions and mentioned which abstract/title company I would want to use in completing any sale. Mrs. H. stated that she went to church with the guy who ran that  company and thought it was the best place to go. I replied that I knew the guy from when he and his family went to my church a few years ago. When I stated that we went to the Nazarene church here in town, the sweet lady replied, "Well, you probably know my neighbor". Yes, I did, her neighbor has taken care of all the flower arrangements and decorations at church for many years. Miranda and I had gave her many of our left-over wedding flowers to use at our church. So, we chit-chatted a little bit longer in the 100* heat and she stated that she would call me back before Tues. evening to let me know her decision. It didn't take her that long to decide as she called me back Monday evening with an offer to buy our house.

Miranda and I prayed about our decision and talked it over before I called Mrs. H.  back Tuesday morning. I stated that we would like to accept her offer. She asked when we might be able to meet. When I told her our time was pretty flexible right now since we're not in school, she asked if we knew her daughter who happens to work in our school district. Well, she also just happens to work in the same elementary school as Miranda!!!! Mrs. H. was so tickled to know that her daughter already knew who we were.

Everything this week went surprisingly quick and there were so many personal connections with both the lady wanting to buy our house and the family whose place we're wanting to buy. All three of us, as well as the realtor, really enjoyed sharing our stories and talking about how God answered our prayers in just the right way.

So, finding a new place at the end of the road signifies a brand new journey for us...we'll keep you posted on where it leads.

The End Of The Road Is Just The Beginning...part 1

Hello Friends and Family! (Jason writing here)
We have some exciting news to share about what God is doing in our lives. The last week has been a whirlwind of excitement...more about that later, though.

Let's step back to May for a moment. In mid May, we first expected Miranda was expecting. To confirm our suspicions, we went to the Dr. on June 6th. Yep, she was pregnant!! Miranda was overcome with joy to find out she got to give a little blood (quite a bit actually) for all of the tests that needed to be run!! Well, I think they were tears of joy, maybe tears of dread. Nevertheless, we were given a due date of Jan. 8th and at the next Dr. appointment, we got great results from all the tests. Currently, Miranda is at 13 weeks and things are going very good for her.

On the 30th, I got to spend part of the day in surgery. It wasn't due to any of my gracious moves or skilled home repairs...It was actually a planned surgery to take care of the ongoing problems with my right shoulder. The surgery went great, there were no problems with my rotator cuff, the Dr. just had to do a little grinding/sanding work in my joint. No worries, they let me go to sleep for it!! In the end, there was about 8mm of bone removed to allow my shoulder to function the way it should. I also got a really cool souvenir with 8 staples holding the incision together. I'm going to tell the kids at school that I got in some sort of fight so they better not try to mess with me this year!!! This past week, on the 14th, I got the staples out and am cleared for driving, exercising, and "lazy bike rides" around town.

Miranda and I developed a really good rehabilitation routine as we were in the middle of re-doing Joanna's room when I had surgery. We had already scraped, chipped, and stripped off all the old wall paper; scraped the popcorn off the ceiling; and prepped the room for getting textured by our good friend Rick from church. Miranda let me take a few days off after surgery, but prodded me back to work once the room had the texture sprayed. The priming and painting was accomplished by a 9 yr. old, a pregnant lady, and a old dude with a bum arm...not necessarily the most efficient team! The end results looked really good, though, in spite of the lackluster work crew.

Brief recap--Pregnant, surgery, painting. That would be enough to fill our summer. Stay tuned for the rest of our exciting news.