Yippeee!

The past 2 months have been a bit of a whirlwind of housesitting (Dorch's, Schatzman's, Hofs) and trips (Florida & Guatemala); as well as the accompanying mountains of laundry, stale housework, and last-minute treatment plans for work that come with not living in your own home or being in your own country. So anyway, on returning from Guatemala last Friday, my main big hope for this week was that I would be able to restore some semblance of routine and normalcy to my life. Gratefully, God has had more exciting plans for the week.
Although I enjoy my current job and really care for my clients, I have not been terribly excited about the 10 hours a week I spend commuting back and forth. It is kind of sad when listening to podcasts becomes one's major social event of the day. For several months now, I have been hoping to find some contract work in Northwest Arkansas, to help alleviate the the driving time, and today that prayer was answered! Sometime within the next couple of weeks I will start seeing clients at the Children's Advocacy Center in Rogers - an organization I have been interested in working for ever since I started grad school 4 years ago. It will only be a day a week starting out, but hopefully it will expand in the next few months.

The other really exciting event that took place this week has to do with Josh and my housing situation. For the past 2 years we have rented the basement of a family who spends most of their year living in France. While this situation has been a huge blessing and has definitely saved us money, we are definitely starting to feel the itch to be in our own place. For several months now we have been driving through a new development in Lowell and debating about whether or not that might be the place where we decide to settle. It is in a super location, just two miles from the interstate, but it feels like it is out of the hustle and bustle a little. In the midst of all of the discussions we've been having about things like, "what community do we want to be a part of ?" "what school district?" "downtown or more neighborhoody?", we found out last week that the development, Weatherton, just dropped their lot prices in half!

To make things even more appealing, we found out that several of our friends from church are also considering building there, which would be so fun! The cherry on top of the whole deal is that our favorite lot had been marked as sold for the last couple of months, but when Josh went and talked to the realtor yesterday, he found out that it had come available again. So, as of today, we officially have our name on Weatherton, Lot 19. If you look at the main street that runs from 264 straight through to the back of the neighborhood, our hopeful lot is on the corner of that street and the back street of the neighborhood, on the left. So, although we are totally open to the reality that God may change our plans between now and when we could start building, this is, nevertheless, and exciting and very adult-feeling day.