I got a NEW CAR!

Well, since we can’t seem to sell our house…

I got a new car! 🙂

That seems logical, right?!

Our plan was to sell the house, move into the new house, get Bradley moved into college and then I could get a new vehicle. Yeah, we see how all that worked out. I think God finds our “plans” humorous. We think we are the ones in control. Ha! Then, he reminds us that HE is the one in control. You see, I have an issue with control…I think I can handle things and I can make things happen. Then I usually have to learn the hard way that that’s not how things work. Funny, this past Sunday at church guess what the sermon was about?

You guessed it…control.

OK, God, I get it! Now that I know you’re the one in control, can you PLEASE sell our house?!?! 😉

My beloved Armada was about 6 years old and she needed some work. New tires and some other minor repairs. And, since 90% of the time it was just me in that great big 8 passenger vehicle we decided it was time down size in vehicle and to save a little (or a lot!) of money in gas.

A few weeks ago, we woke up, got ready and hit the road in search of a “new”er smaller SUV for me. Now, I knew what I wanted and my first choice was not a Nissan Murano, so Joe found the exact vehicle online. It was in Myrtle Beach, funny enough. We drove the almost 2.5 hours to the dealership. We pulled onto the lot and there it was…a 2017 white Volvo XC60 with all the bells and whistles that I wanted. I loved it!! One problem though, it smelled like cigarette smoke–badly! And, if you know my husband at all, that is NOT going to fly. HA! To be honest, I didn’t want that, either. Now, if you smoke in your car, that’s obviously your prerogative, but we don’t smoke so we don’t like the smell, at all! We test drove the car (twice), but we just couldn’t get over the smell and the car itself was smaller on the inside than what we were expecting. So, I looked around the lot a little and spotted the brand new 2018’s…now we we’re talking! 🙂 We test drove the one we liked, it obviously had the new car smell so that was great and it seemed roomier on the inside. We both loved it! But, we didn’t love the price…not even a little. We refused to pay Armada prices for an XC60! I do absolutely love Volvo XC60’s and one day, I hope to have one, but not in this season of life. And, that’s absolutely ok!

So, needles to say, we left the car lot disappointed. To be honest, we pretty much felt like nothing was going our way as we drove by the house in MB that we have a contract on. I guess you could say we were feeling sorry for ourselves…poor pitiful us. 😉 I will never forget Joe’s response though when we got back in my old car because it was super sweet. He put his hand on my lap and looked at me and told me he was sorry. He knew that was the car I wanted and he always tries his best to give me what I want. I am spoiled and I know it! 🙂 Of course, I told him it was ok! I’m not THAT bad! Geez!! But, I did win the husband lottery…most days.

After driving around for a few minutes and getting ready to make the 2.5 hour drive back home in the same Nissan Armada, Joe asked if I’d like to go look at the Muranos. We had narrowed our search to the XC60 or the Murano, but I had decided I only wanted the XC60. After giving it some thought, and pouting a bit, I’m sure, I decided it won’t hurt to look. We pulled up to the Nissan lot around 6:15/6:20ish, they closed at 7. The salesman walked out, we gave the Muranos on the lot a quick look over and picked out the one we wanted to test drive.

I loved it!! Joe loved it!! And, we both loved the price!! So, after approximately 5 hours at the Volvo dealer and 45 minutes at the Nissan dealer we had a brand new Nissan Murano!! 🙂

Proud Mom! Caisey told me she liked the car until I put that sticker on it, now it looks too Mom-ish. Ha!

We were pretty excited to drive our fun, new, smaller SUV home. We pulled up to the house and the boys walked out to check out the new ride. They both seemed to love it as much as we did!

Then Damian said, “I thought you were getting a Volvo…” I asked him if he wanted to continue to eat?!

I have loved driving my new Murano, so if you’re in the market for a new, smaller SUV, give the Murano a look. No, this is not an ad. 😉 I just really like mine. I like it so much I find myself admiring it from afar (like from inside the house while it’s parked in the driveway), often. Now, I do miss my Armada! I loved that big ol’ white tank, as we often referred to it and I’m so grateful for all the memories we made in it, but we are all in a new season of life. Joe and I are doing our best to embrace the fewer children household that we find ourselves living in. In less than one calendar year we will be down to 1 child in school (excluding college, of course). What the what?!?! We might or might not be excited about this… 😉

Our last day together. It was definitely bittersweet. I think I was more attached to that car than any house we’ve ever lived in!

Y’all! I left my MJ cd in the Armada!!! I’m so sad about this…who does such?!?!

So, I guess the moral of the story is, God keeps showing me he’s the “boss.” And, that’s ok, because His ways are always so much better than mine.

Something I keep reminding myself, that I recently heard in a sermon, “Even when our day is bad, God is still good!” I couldn’t agree more, but it sure is nice to be reminded.

Thank y’all for reading! Hope you have a Happy Halloween 🙂

~Susan

Easy Peasy, Right?! Wrong!

‘Now is a good time to do this.’

—

‘This won’t be too bad.’

—

‘It’ll definitely be easier than last time.’

—

‘I’m sure it won’t take as long.’

Yada, yada, yada…you get the picture. Yeah, those were my thoughts at the very beginning of summer when we first started planning our next big move. I just knew it was going to be easier than the last time we made a big move. You remember that move, just 2.5 years ago. 😉 You know the one, where we moved 600 miles from home. The move that required us to leave our family and friends and everything we knew?! The move that transitioned our boys from their old, comfortable schools to new, much larger, more diverse schools. Yeah, that move. That had to be waaay more difficult than our upcoming relocation was going to be, right?!

So, let me define “big move” — when one is relocating themselves and their family at least 2 hours away from their current homestead. To me, that qualifies as a “big move.” Really, any move can be considered a “big move” in my book. Moving is hard, stressful, exciting, back breaking–literally, adventurous, exhausting, etc., etc. Anything that can have so many descriptors is “big!”

As I was alluding to,

I really thought this time was going to be different. Surely, it was going to be easier! It HAD to be!

Yet, here we are still in Summerville, SC — waiting. UGH!!!! At least some of us are. And, some of us are in Myrtle Beach working. Because you know… the job. And, the bills. And, the reason for the move.

Our sunsets here are absolutely amazing almost every single night. Looking on the bright side, people! 🙂

I was recently asked what I was looking forward to the most about moving to Myrtle Beach, while living closer to the beach ranks pretty close to the top of my list, the thing I’m most excited about is being “settled.” >>I use quotations around settled because…well, we don’t seem to mind moving. Ha! However, I am praying that we will settle in Myrtle Beach for the long haul, but only God knows what our future holds.<<So, as I was saying, I am looking forward to getting involved with a church in MB (for Joe, myself and our boys) and hosting get togethers at our house. I think we are all craving that connection…the boys, also, rather they realize it or not!

As I sit and think back to mid June, I’m really kinda shocked that we’re still waiting to move. I really did think it would be a pretty smooth transition. I thought our house would sell in a timely manner, we would move to our new home before school started, the boys would start the new school year in their new schools and life would just go on. Easy peasy, right?!

WRONG!!

So, now I’m quickly realizing God has His plan and I have mine. Often times, the two do not align. And, even though I don’t understand what the deal is, I’m doing my best to trust in Him. His ways are so much better than mine! But golly, when I’m in the midst of something that I don’t want to be in, I get frustrated! Anyone else? Or is it just me?!

It’s funny how when life is going great we think we don’t really need God; we got this. Yet, when life gets hard, who do we turn to?!? Him, of course! As we should. We should always turn to Him!

I have realized though, in tough times and in times of waiting, those are the times that I grow THE most. I look to Him for guidance. For understanding. For peace. For courage. For all the things! I know that with Him all things are possible, but apart from Him I have nothing. He knows the big picture where as I can only see a small piece. So, as I wait, I will trust in Him to work all the details out for us and when the time is right, we will move. And, what a glorious day that’ll be!! 😉

In case you’re wondering, we’ve made some progress with selling our house, but we’re waiting on some other things to work out. So far that hasn’t happened. I don’t really want to share too much on my blog just yet. When the time is right and we head to closing, y’all will know, trust me! 🙂 In the meantime, if you could pray for all things to work out so we could sell this house and move that would be super fantastic!!! While I’m on the subject, what can I pray for you about?

I’ve been journaling the things I’m grateful for. It’s something I am starting to look forward to every morning. Life is too good not to!

Well, we’re hoping to have our new guest room ready to habitate soon, friends!! I can’t wait to see y’all!!! There’s nothing I like more than to get the guest bedroom and bathroom ready…one day, one day… I’m going to have an Air Bnb and if I’m really dreaming big a beach condo to rent out and for us to use. 🙂

In case you didn’t see my post, Bradley came home this weekend!! We were SO excited to see him and to hear about his college experience thus far. His brothers and Matt-the-cat have missed him, also! 😉

On Monday, Joe cooked breakfast and dinner! I was #winning !!

Then, Monday evening, Bradley had to leave us and return to college. Unfortunate for us and fortunate for him, I’m sure! 😉

Thank you for reading!! xoxo, Susan

The Waiting Game

We are playing the waiting game. Again.

UUGGGHHHH!!! This is certainly not my favorite game to play. There’s probably not many people that actually enjoy it, I suppose.

Our home went on the market about 3.5 weeks ago and nada. We’ve had some showings and some good feedback so that’s a plus, I guess.

As I stated, we’ve shown the house several times so we’ve cleaned the house several times…in those times of lengthy cleaning I’ve done some thinking about home buying and selling. We have some experience, with both. HA! We are looking to sell house #4 and buy house #5! I’m sure to some that sounds absolutely horrifying, but I think it’s fun and exciting. All except the waiting that comes along with selling. Sitting and waiting for a buyer.

In my hours and hours of cleaning I’ve come up with a few conclusions:

Trying to keep a house clean while 2 adults, 3 teenagers, 2 cats, 1 dog, and 1 turtle are actually living in it is pretty much impossible. It would be magical if we could all move out and live somewhere else while the house is being shown and sold. We could clean it one good time and let it be. However, since that’s not the case at this time, we are trying to keep it relatively picked up in case someone wants to see it on short notice. We’ve had a couple of people request to see the house in less than 2 hours!
I hope you are not eating lunch! I know this is gross. This pic shows what I’m up against. I try to sweep only to have my kitten playing in my pile of disgustingness. #helovesit
In every home selling tip guide out there, they always say bake cookies. And, I agree. That’s a wonderful idea!! The house smells great and you have cookies for the potential new home owners. The thing is, when I’m trying to get my house ready to show for the 1,000th time I don’t have the time or energy to add one more thing to my to-do list. So, my fantastic solution is to light a great “cookie smelling” candle and let that baby burn for as long as you can in the kitchen. Right before you walk out the door put the lid over it to blow out the candle (and not fill the house with the stinky smoke smell to totally eliminate your great smelling house). And, if you’re feeling real generous, go by some store bought cookies and lay them out on the counter in a pretty serving dish! DONE! 😉
Y’all, I can’t imagine why we haven’t sold our house?! 😉 #nocatsonthekitchencounter

…and, again

…and, again…
Toy mice that might look real at first glance. #wewillneversellthishouse
Do a little de-cluttering and organizing. Fortunately, Caisey has moved into her first Charleston area apartment just in time. So I’ve been able to give her some of our junk…I mean great stuff. 😉 It helps to have closets and cabinets and such a little cleaner. You don’t want someone to think there’s not enough storage space in your home because they definitely DO look through your closets and cabinets. One time we came home after a showing and almost all of our closet doors were left slightly open.
So proud of this girl!!!
I think curb appeal makes a big difference. Ideally you would have a bright fun door color to draw attention along with some beautiful flowers. I planted some flowers at the beginning of summer that are looking pretty good. I’d like to plant a few more but not sure it’s worth it, at this point. Don’t forget to add a wreath or other front porch decor to add a little extra pizazz. Lastly, tidy everything up..trim bushes, sweep porch and sidewalk, etc.
I do love my flowers!

Those purple petunias came back on their own. I didn’t plant them this year.

…when all else fails, paint your front porch chairs a bright and fun color! 😉

Now, keep in mind, our house is STILL on the market so you may want to disregard any and all advice I give. I may not know anything about the home selling process. I’ve just had lots of thinking time and thought I’d share…for what it’s worth. 😉

So, in conclusion, if you’re the praying kind we’d appreciate a little prayer that our house would sell soon, if that’s the Lord’s will for us.

I hope you’re all enjoying your summer!! Thanks for taking the time to read. I’ll continue to keep y’all posted on the goings on in our life.

So, real quick, if you’re going to the beach or pool and take your “old school” book use a post-it note as a book mark. It stays attached to the book and will not fly away in the wind. Y’all, I’m a freaking genius! It only took me 42 years to figure that out. :/

~Love y’all! Susan 🙂

Our Two Year Anni

Welp, it’s been two years!

Some days it feels like we just moved here and other days it feels like we’ve been here 47 years.

The boys and I relocated here to South Carolina on March 3, 2016 and we closed on our new home on April 29, 2016. So, almost two years in our home. Joe moved here in October of 2015.

So, since we are at our two year anniversary, I thought I would give an update on life in The SC… *Warning* this is going to be transparent, if you prefer unicorns and rainbows then move right along.

First of all, relocation is HARD!! I mean really hard! At least for me, it is. I feel like I gave up my old life and began a new one. My old life consisted of great friends to have lunch or coffee with. Friends to talk about our kiddos with. Friends to laugh with. Friends to have over for family cook outs. My old life involved our church that we were deeply plugged into; an environment that made us feel “at home.” My old life was running into people that I knew at the grocery store and chatting for a bit. My new life looks nothing like the old one, unfortunately. (*I must say that I do have a really good friend here whom I am SO thankful for though — her and her family have been so good to us!*) Then you add the fact that our kids are now teenagers so they don’t require as much of me as they once did. All of those things combined leaves me feeling a bit empty, BUT also kind of excited about the next thing. I wholeheartedly believe God has good things in store for us just around the corner! 🙂
I do like being here, but I often wonder at what cost. We gave up precious time with family and friends. Is being near the beach and enjoying warmer weather worth the sacrifice? I’m not sure.
We think we may have found our church, FINALLY!! We are not currently involved, but we hope to grow and learn and serve there very soon. Can I just say, trying to find a church that fits your family and your family’s needs is SUPER challenging!! I’m not sure why that is. Or, how to even fix that problem. We have been in this situation a few times and we know others that have, as well, and it’s a tough place to be. When I look for a church, I want to talk with and interact with “real” people that do not pretend to have it all together. I crave the authentic church that is outwardly focused. I want to see people helping people. I want to see the hands and feet of Jesus.
We are nearing the end of the school year and I don’t know who is more excited..the boys or myself?! I. Can. Not. Wait. School needs to be over with by now!! A few months off with no homework worries = BLISS!! Lord willing, Addison will be a freshman and Damian will be a senior next year. 😉 Addison in high school…how in the actual heck did that happen?! Seriously!
Bradley is in his final weeks of his high school career and I’m still in shock. I feel like I just dropped him off for his first day of (half-day) Kindergarten at Cedar Grove Elementary not that long ago. Recently, his friend from their toddler years! and his family were here visiting. It was so great to hear them tell stories from their childhoods. We reminisced about Halloween costumes, Yu-gi-oh cards, McDonald’s playdates, Sesame Street Live, and on and on. I LOVED it!! So, now that high school is just about over with we are now trying to navigate the whole college thing. After two visits to the University of South Carolina, he’s really leaning towards USC. I think USC would be a great fit for him, it’s a fantastic school with a beautiful campus. The big question…How to pay for it?! It’s SO expensive!! Oh well, we’ll figure it out…I guess. :/
Bradley and Dylan, buddies since birth.

My boy. <3 I can’t handle the thought of him leaving me in a few short months.

USC Gamecocks! Spurs up!
Caisey’s traveling gig is about to end. Once her time with KD ends (later this month), I believe her plan is to live and work near us in the Charleston area! Considering she has been away from “home” for 6 years, I am SO excited to have her close by!! She’s looking into teaching positions in the tri-county area here. I have no doubt that whatever route she takes in life she will be a success!
I’m still frustrated with the HOA. That’s not likely to ever change. I still want to paint my door whatever color I want and it not be an issue. Joe still doesn’t really understand my frustration. I’ve tried to “let it go”, but I can’t. If it was as easy to sell a house as it is a car or anything else we’d be out of here! I am a creative person and my outlet is to make things pretty, colorful, different, fun…not keep everything the same as everyone else!! So, it’s a struggle. I asked Joe, “how would you feel if you had to live in a home with all AC window units and you couldn’t change them AND it was a home you were buying–not renting?!” He gave me a puzzled look. I think he may now understand just a bit better. 😉 Next house, you better believe I will read through the HOA rules with a fine tooth comb! Prayerfully, their will be NO HOA.
In case you were wondering, Matthew and Hannah are getting along these days. That is as long as he doesn’t try to partake in her food. And, as long as she is allowed to partake in his food. If all things go according to Hannah’s plan then he may lay in Addison’s bed beside her. 😉
She is allowing him to lay next to her.

Such a cute pic, I had to share. We all love Matt the cat so much!!
In the last two years we have entertained several peeps and used our guest room lots of times. We’ve even had some folks visit us more than once. We must be doing something right…or, it could be the lure of the beach. 😉 Whatever draws them here, I am grateful! I love to prepare the guest room and get everything ready. My dream is to own a beach condo or rental of some sort one day! I’d like to rent it out some weeks of the year and use it other weeks of the year. Ideally I also would like to be the one to clean it and get it ready for the next guests. 🙂
Does this entice you?? 🙂 🙂
As for my last update, we’ve made 756,642 trips back and forth to Kentucky! I feel like most of those have been within the last couple of months. Ha! We are actually headed there this weekend for Bradley to attend prom with one of his very best friends. While it’s a long journey, especially when you add in both trips (to and fro) I’m super excited for him!! He will have so much fun!! –When we decided to move here my goal was to always be available to our friends and family (framily) back home. We have tried our best to do that. We may not always be able to make that trip, but we are always just a phone call away.

*In conclusion I feel the need to apologize.*

If I’m complaining too much for your liking in this blog post, I’m sorry. But the truth is, I am complaining. A lot. However, I realize I am beyond blessed! And, most days I am thankful and super grateful to be living this amazing life. I have SO much to be thankful for!!! But, there are days when I question and second guess every decision we made related to this relocation. I’m not sure when that will change. The only thing that keeps me sane on those days is reminding myself that God called us here. He placed the desire to “move to the beach” in us. He made that desire so intense that I believe had we not followed through we would have always wondered ‘what if?’

Ultimately, we choose to listen to Him. His plans are always good! Not easy, but good. We choose to look to Him for guidance and direction. Like the song says, “Wherever He leads I’ll go…”

So, I wonder where he’ll lead us next?! 😉

Thank you for reading! ~Susan