Whenever you buy a home, you always hear how things go wrong sooner than later, and the realities of being a home owner sink in quickly.
I knew this was a real thing, but I had no idea that it would happen the moment we came home as official moved-in home owners.
However, God was and is so good, and His hand protected us from things being much worse. So I want to start off with saying that.
We were able to praise God through it all, and it was one of those moments where I thought, “Devil, you can try but you’re not gonna win. I’m still gonna praise my Jesus! HA!”
So before we get to the dramatic moment… let’s start with the beginning of the day.
Saturday, May 19th, 2018
First off, I want to brag about how AMAZING our moving day went! We had so many people ask if we wanted help moving into our new place, and actually had to start turning people down (crazy, right?) because there was going to be more bodies than space. But the people that did come out… we couldn’t have pulled this off without them!
9 a.m. People start showing up to help us move!
The day before, Daniel and I picked up a friend’s large box truck (thank you Mike & Missy for letting us borrow it – huge life/money saver) to help us with the move. We literally had our friends Joseph, David & Ashley (who also brought a truck & box-trailer), Alfredo & Rebecca, Christopher and then my parents and sister helped us load all of our stuff (which embarrassingly, was a lot) and get it packed.
I think we were done in like an hour and a half! Daniel and I were blown away. In comparison, packing the U-Haul to move to Georgia took us over 3 days!
10:30 a.m. We head to the new house (!!!) and unload all our stuff. We were greeted there by more friends – Colleen and her sweet girls Leah & Caitlin. Everyone was constantly moving – these people were hustling! We were able to unload the box truck and trailer and wrap up by 12.
12 p.m. My mom cooked a whole spread for us to eat, and I think mine and Daniel’s favorite moments were sharing food together in our new home. It was so incredible hearing all these people that were connected through us, but didn’t know each other, have great conversation together. It was just a really special moment for us, and made us even MORE excited to be home owners and entertain! It’s the thing we’ve missed the most… We just love serving others and sharing food together.
I also made everyone take a group photo, because I wanted the memory of these amazing people that helped us move! So thankful for these folks (and the silly photo… it just makes me smile).
12:30 p.m. We were practically done! So a lot of people went home. We actually had more people who were originally going to show up for the afternoon shift of helping us move, but we were amazingly already done! So we texted those folks and told them that they were welcome to come over, but we were 95% done.
A few people did stay to go get our bed and a few other small, awkward items (like my screenprinting equipment) with one last trip to the house. Myself and my friend Ashley stayed back to clean the house + set up our kitchen. Another darling friend named Ashley (so now there’s two Ashley’s in our house) drove down from Atlanta to help clean! She legit scrubbed my bathrooms, and I’m pretty sure they’re so clean you could eat off of them. So I’m thankful for her driving down to literally scrub my toilets, then head back, as she had another commitment and had to leave. So Ashley G, thank you for this amazing blessing! You’re a gift.
2:30-3 p.m. ish The guys got back with our bed, set it all up, and then everyone heads out. We’re still blown away that everything was done so quickly! Here we were with everything done in a mere few hours!!! Just so blown away by these people God brought into our lives and how hard they worked. We appreciate y’all giving up your Saturday to help us!
3-5 p.m. Daniel and I sat on the couch together (something we enjoy doing as a way to pause) and just sort of reminisced about the day thus far. We prayed and thanked God for the amazing people in our life, and how smooth and beautiful today went. We just really reveled in this moment, wanting to soak it up and remember it.
We did a few things around the house, and then decided we should head back to my parents to do a final check/cleaning.
5:30-10 p.m. We went to my parents to do a final cleaning swipe of our room and the garage (which stored all our stuff) and the attic space where I had Rosalynne Love for the last 21 months. My sister was in town, so we also wanted to get some QT time with her before we moved across town, and before she headed back home to Illinois.
So we went for a celebratory (and very refreshing) swim. The water felt great and it felt good to get off some of the grime & grit that comes with moving. It was nice to enjoy some slow-paced quality time with my family.
GIF below of Daniel jumping into the pool. He’s my fave :)https://giphy.com/embed/3CVwGeToObXZkGp1ig
We ended our time with them with a late night dinner of left over tacos and watermelon. By around 10 o’clock, I was literally falling asleep with my head on the table, exhausted from the day. So I asked Daniel to take me home.
We had sentimental goodbyes (as this was the first night we would not be staying there) and said our “see you laters” and “see you soons.”
10:30 p.m. We came home, and like I mentioned before, I was EXHAUSTED. I felt 100% done and didn’t think I had any energy left to do anything… I didn’t even want to shower, but I felt really gross (mostly my hair – though the swim did help) and knew a shower would feel incredible. So as I was gathering our shower stuff, I asked Daniel to go into the garage to locate some towels.
About 5 minutes later, I hear him walk slowly and somberly up the stairs. Strange. Then I catch his eye and he says to me, quietly, “Rosalynne, I think you need to come downstairs.”
I gave him a questioning look, not sure why he was acting so weird. So we slowly go down the stairs… I’m thinking there’s a weird bug or animal in the garage. I was trying to figure out what creature could possibly be in there, when Daniel opens the garage door, and I hear this spraying noise and see that our garage floor is absolutely covered in water.
Immediately, I go into survival mode and tell Daniel we need to turn off the water asap. He does a cute little freak out dance (like it officially hit him what’s going on) and then runs outside to turn off our water.
Once we figured out how to shut off the water from the street (because our water heater shut-off was installed incorrectly, and we couldn’t shut it off from there) we immediately went into go mode.
We moved all the boxes inside into my studio, which is thankfully on the same level as the garage. Once we got all the dry boxes inside, we started unboxing the boxes that received the water damage. Every. Single. Time. we opened a new box that was water damaged, I had anxious thoughts on whether or not our stuff would be ruined.
I had so many thoughts run through my mind. First, I literally had all the feels for people that have gone through hurricanes or other natural disasters and had to go through this, but on an even bigger level! They actually had all their stuff ruined, along with furniture, and maybe even their home altogether. I am thankful I’ve never had to go through something on that level, and had a glimpse of perspective shift on some of the emotions behind experiencing something like that.
Plus, I kept repeating to myself, “it’s just stuff.”
I honestly hate how attached I am to “memories” that I’ve associated with certain material things. Daniel and I have been really trying to work on a more minimalistic mindset – still having stuff, because we think it’s okay to enjoy things, but to not be so attached to it. So I also thought, “Well, maybe this is a good way to start letting go.”
2 a.m. We got everything inside, the garage and all the water swept out, and fans on the drywall to help dry it out. Miraculously, none of our stuff was ruined… I was amazed. There was just so much water and so many boxes were soaked halfway up! But the boxes took the hit and somehow the stuff inside didn’t have any water damage.
God, y’all. His presence was so evident. So apparent that His hand was a part of this.
I mean there were just so many things! The fact that we even went downstairs and caught it (it would have been so much worse had we not noticed until the morning). The fact that the electric wires were soaked in water, and easily could have shorted and caused a fire, but didn’t. Or blow a fuse, and that didn’t happen either. The fact that none of our stuff was ruined, even though many things got wet.
Like, what?!
I’m just blown away.
Another thing I’m thankful for was how healthy our attitudes were. Honestly, when I walked downstairs, I had to do everything not to laugh. That’s how joyful I was! Even looking back, there’s joy over the situation.
Why?
Well, because we prayed.
Friday evening and Saturday morning, we prayed for good attitudes during our moving day. We knew there would be different kinds of people and personalities and different ways of handling situations that could potentially be stressful and exhausting.
To be perfectly candid: we prayed thinking it was for “other” people (isn’t that funny how it works), but found that we needed it ourselves!
God gave us EXCELLENT attitudes to be able to praise Him (literally, we sang “I will praise you in this storm” just because the spray from the water heater felt like rain in our garage…) and found things to celebrate as we cleaned our garage.
2:30 a.m. We brushed our teeth with water bottles, were fierce about not flushing the toilet after a tinkle (because we only had one flush in the reservoir) and crawled into bed… Dirty, filthy, sweaty and all. But we didn’t care, being horizontal felt like a dream! Then we slept soundly and rested well.
Sunday, May 20th, 2018
We had different plans for today, but with the lack of water and a water heater, the day was spent buying a new one and getting it installed. Thankfully my dad was able to come over and help Daniel (since this was a first for us, but for my dad, he’s installed many of water heaters).
I spent the day cleaning the rest of the house, and finishing setting up our kitchen. Eventually we did get water back, so I was able to wash through all our kitchen supplies that had been sitting in boxes the last two years in a garage. I ran to Aldi (my new fave) and stocked up on some basics.
By the end of the night, I think things started to feel like we thought they would feel Saturday night. It started to sink in that we’re home. This is ours! It was a really good feeling. We were able to shower (which felt AH.MAZE.ING) and fall asleep around 10:30. Monday we woke up, and were able to enjoy our first cups of coffee together on the couch (with minimal clothes on #finally) and it was just the perfect start to what we call our “official” first day.
So it’s been a wild 24-36 hours! But honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean, we’ve got a heck of a story to tell now! Even Daniel got a kick out of chatting with some guys at Home Depot and sharing how we’re buying a new water heater, not for maintenance like they were, but as first time home buyers, 24 hours into our first house.
God has been so good and faithful through this entire process. I’m still so overwhelmed and thankful for all that He has given us to steward. Now, I just hope and pray that we can continue to steward it well.
Here’s a few screenshots from the video I posted on Instagram Stories this morning (watch via my highlights, if you’re interested). Excited to leave for work with only a 20 minute commute! Literally felt like a blink (compared to our previous 50-60 minute commute to work).
So that’s our story and we’re sticking to it! I’d love to know, do you have any fun home buying stories? Please share in the comments below!
