Searching for Inspiration (and a House)

It's too hot to think.  It's not supposed to get this hot in Portland until August.  Everyone is sweltering and altering their daily plans because it's just too hot for Portlanders to function.  I had been going to treat my readers to a prepared rant on the conflict of interests that is house hunting, but the heat wiped out everything I was thinking.  The only thing that's running through my mind at the moment is the Dora the Explorer  theme song, accompanied by the gentle shushing of the fans. 

House hunting, though, that's an experience.  The last time we bought a house, we weren't contending with a designated lease period.  We were living in military housing so we could take our time.  We visited one or two houses at a time, two or three months apart. And houses were staying on the market for two or three months at a time.  If we liked a house, we had plenty of time to consider it.    Leisurely was probably the best way to describe it.  Granted, we bought at a high point in the market, but the point is that our first and only experience with house buying was not a stressful experience.    Now we're caught in the crux of a different situation. 

See, now, the market is hopping.  Houses will pop up briefly and be sold three days later.  It seems like half of renting Portland wants to buy a house, but only a tenth of owning Portland wants to sell.  And we have a lease that lasts until October.  Breaking the lease will subject us to fines and fees in the neighborhood of $3,000, which is simply not feasible.  Likewise, staying after our lease is up and paying by the month would be ridiculously expensive.  However, trying to pay a mortgage payment, a rent payment, and the little bit of extra that we're paying to keep our rental all in one month too is also a financial infeasibility.    The trick will be timing, which requires (forgive me) constant vigilance.   

Every night my husband checks his email for new houses.  Every night, he adds a couple to our ever growing list of houses.  Then we select a few in a common area and email the realtor.  We keep the realtor busy.  I think we've crammed 10 houses into a week.  We put on offer on a short-sale.  They asked us to play back-up to another offer.  "That's good," our realtor said, "but you'd be crazy to count on it."  So we keet looking.

The most interesting part of this process is watching the effect that it has on Seth and myself.  For a while, it felt like our personalities were merging and switching.  He was the manic stress hound, pushing frantically to find some solid ground, and I was telling him, "Love, don't worry about it.  Look at the facts.  New houses pop up every week.  We're not going to be left without options.  We can just look. (How many times has he said that to me?!) God will provide.  (That too.) Really."  That was kind of empowering, actually.  I don't often get to be the level-headed one. 

Something good: http://lahash.org/pathofhope/

At the end of April, I set myself a goal to write about something good in the world either in May or in June.  So far, I'm really glad that I gave myself two months because May and June are turning out to be fuller than I imagined.  We are house hunting, self-educating, school testing, and I am still trying to develop my own tutoring business in a haphazard way. 

But, until I get some time to sit down and do a little research, here is a bright spot on the world radar.  An old classmate of mine is part of a ministry in Tanzania that works to bring education and healing to the poorest of the poor.  They have just launched a new initiative called Path of Hope to help children who have been affected in one way or another by AIDS.  Give them a look and see what God is doing in the world. 

http://lahash.org/pathofhope/

Welcome to the world.

This is for Uncle Jesse, Aunty Abby, and new cousin Zeb.  (The candles and the song were her idea. She needed some help with the pronunciation.)

 

Boogaloo's end of school program. PArt one.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without  finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.  James 1: 5-7

How many times have I seen those words? But how many times do I decline to ask God for wisdom because I feel like we should really figure it out on our own.  OR how many times do I ask with the firm intention of staying as confused as I am at this moment until the path opens that gives me my way?  I'm ashamed to say it, but that's my modus operandi most of the time.  Confusion?  Cognitive dissonance?  Something new?  Spin around in circles until the situation becomes urgent, say a quick prayer, and push my foot down on the throttle, and hope I'm going in the right direction.  It's not an intentional slight to God.  It's just the way I generally do things when I'm not sure what I should be doing.  (It bugs my husband to  no end.)

However, it turns out that James meant what he was talking about.  It's easy to forget that not only were the Biblical writers inspired, they were also writing from a lifetime of experience and reflection.  James had seen God provide practical answers to intense conundrums.  He had, I assume, felt God's reassurance when he felt like an idiot for asking.  And he had lost out on answers of the moment for doubting when he asked. 

All this goes to say that Seth and I are contemplating buying a house.  In the current economy, buying is much cheaper than renting.  Our area expects to add about 40,000 new jobs in the next two years.  Rental prices are expected to skyrocket.   Add to that the discount on interest rates that a veteran can get right now,  and all the impetus seems to be for buying a house.  Seth certainly felt that way. He's been respectfully insistent. The only way two mortgages would become a burden would be if we had to move again. The odds of that happening were extremely small, and we can always get a renter. By all human measures, we are in a good place to buy.

 I had only one objection:  we already have a house, and the thought of having two mortgages made me extremely anxious.   Anxiety is part of my hardwiring at the moment.  It grabs ahold of me physically and mentally and turns me into an arthritic little soul that can barely move.  God and I are installing some buffeting circuitry, and I hope to be largely rewired by the time my daughter becomes a teenager (can I get a "yeah, right"?), but right now that's how it is. 

I am particularly anxious about money.  Dave Ramsey, noted financial expert, talks about a security gland which women have and men don't.  This security gland warns us when a financial risk is approaching.  My security gland is about half of my endocrine system.  When Seth and I started talking about a second mortgage, I could literally feel something cramping up right above my appendix.    I tried to massage the feeling down, but it didn't work. My whole body tensed up, and I went into a fetal position in my recliner, doing my darndest not to whimper like a puppy (anxiety affects me that way). 

Seth looked over at me and asked, "Love, are you all right?" 

Perfectly.  Thank you.  Taking a deep breath, I replied, "This just makes me really nervous.  That's all." 

"Well, it's not like we're buying anything right now," he replied as he clicked on the link for another house.   No, neither were we buying a car the day we bought one, and while I don't regret that decision, the precedent has been set. 

That night, as I lay awake snuggled under his strong arm (I love him so much.),  I prayed fervently.  "Lord, please give us wisdom, and if you show me that this is good, make my anxiety go away."  Then I resolved to ask the ladies at Bible Study for advice the next day.   There is  a lot of combined experience in my Bible Study group. 

The next day didn't go exactly as I had planned.  I ended up going to the ESL Bible Study instead of what I call the original study.  I shouldn't downplay the life experience of the women in the ESL group.  They all emigrated from other countries, for crying out loud. But I had kind of counted on going with the other group.  I thought my opportunity was slipping away from me.   Still, I had promised God that I would seek out advice, so I asked for prayer, and the ladies told me, "Now is a good time to buy."  Okay, that's one check for the pro's column.

I picked up my daughter from the Little Lambs group and headed out to the playground for some swing therapy (Boogaloo loves swings.  They're very soothing.) .  One of the Boo's classmates was out there with her grandmother, Mary, also swinging.  We pushed the girls on the swings and discussed weather, vacation plans, a trip the lady had just taken, and then, since neither of our girls showed a sign of getting off the swings, I asked Mary if I could run a situation past her.  I explained the position we were in, and my fears about a second mortgage. 

She smiled and said, "My husband and I have fourteen mortgages right now. And now is really an excellent time to buy."   She proceeded to detail 30 years history of being landlords and using rentals as their primary form of investment on a single teaching salary.   She told me how they had started out as newlyweds in a duplex, renting out the other side.  They had sold rentals to pay for their kids' college education, sold everything off in the crash of 2008, and started building their assets again.   "There were years when it was tense," she said, "but in those years, the blessing was that we paid no income taxes."

She gave her granddaughter another push.  "We should really have you over sometime, so you can talk to Dave about it," she said.  "Would you like to come over sometime next week?" 

Can I refuse the hand of God?  I accepted with gratitude and went straight home to tell my husband all about it.  Then we started looking at houses, property, building considerations, all kinds of possibilities.  Seth is an idea man, and I entertained all comers. 

A day later, Seth came to me and said, "Love, I can't believe how radically you've changed positions on this." 

I smiled.  Nay, I outright grinned and said, "Well, I prayed very specifically about this, and God gave me a very specific answer.  I kind of figure it would be an insult to him to keep worrying about it."