My Most Abject and Humblest Apologies

How could I leave you all hanging like that? I guess you know by now that I have been out of town for a few days; otherwise, I would never have neglected my blog for so long!

Randy and I headed back to Arlington on Tuesday on a mission--WE WENT TO FIND A HOUSE! I have to be honest and say that at this point, I have talked over the finer details of the last three days with so many people so many times that I am going to decline to do it now. Suffice it to say that we did not purchase a home while we were there, but we did find one that we will hopefully at least make an offer on. We are essentially trying not to be impulsive and have agreed to sleep on it for a day or two, which is usually the sort of thing that sends me into panic mode ("What if someone else swoops in and snatches the house from us???"). But I have to believe that if God wants us to buy the house, then everything will just fall into place.

I will say this: We looked at perhaps 20-25 houses all told--I lost count after a while--and it sort of seems like a no-brainer because it was the ONLY house that Randy and I both felt pretty much the same way about. The realtor we are using, a fantastic lady named Patti who just happens to be a member at Woodland West, was an invaluable resource to us and was helpful to me, especially, in being very objective about each house. I tend to "romanticize" things sometimes and on Wednesday, our second day of house-hunting, I did go on a tear where each house felt like "THE house" and every one was better than the last. Patti helped me to focus and see each house's potential, but also any flaws that might exist.

This is a funny story: We looked at one house on Wednesday that I absolutely fell in love with, and it's still painful for me to think we have to let it go because it was just perfect (there I go romanticizing again!). I was ready to sign on the dotted line and Patti said, "Okay, I want to point out that this house backs up to a vacant lot that has been zoned commercial." Now, we could roll the dice and take our chances, but that's a pretty big gamble, not knowing what might go in on the other side of your fence (and I should mention, this was a house with a pool, which means that we would likely be spending a LOT of time in the backyard). In a moment of weakness I asked Randy, "What's the worst that could happen? What's the WORST that could go in there?" Of course I had already been thinking a) strip club, b) tattoo parlor or c) Walgreens, but Randy made me laugh out loud when he said in a distorted voice, "Kksshh--may I take your order?--Kksshh" "Uh, yeah, I'll have a #3 combo with a Dr. Pepper." And heaven forbid it should be a fast-food place that's open all night!