Home

Right on schedule, three years after purchasing what we thought was going to be our last home, I caught my husband looking at houses for sale.

To be honest, I understood why he was house hunting again. The traffic on our street quadrupled after Wal-Mart built a Neighborhood Market a half mile down the street, and the area has grown to the point a two-mile drive takes ten to twenty minutes, depending on the time of day. Still, I dreaded the nightmare of another move — until my husband showed me pictures of the house he was interested in.
We scheduled a viewing.

The moment I stepped out of the car, I knew we had found, home, the place where we could set down roots.

The half-acre property sat alone on a small hill overlooking the Snake River Canyon, rolling hills, and farmland. Fully landscaped in lawn, trees, and shrubs, it was like standing in the midst of a private park.

He didn’t have to convince me to put in an offer.

Yes, it was a nightmare selling our other home, applying for the loan on the new one, and the physical and mental stress of moving, but…

Several coveys of quail pass through the property every day. Ducks, geese, and swallows fly overhead in the evenings. Mourning doves blend their soft coos with a myriad of other songbirds. Butterflies and hummingbirds hover among the flowering shrubs. We saw a doe out front the other evening, and an owl flew across the back lawn. A fox crossed the road in front of us on the way back from town, and the term starry night has taken on a new meaning.

The inside of the house is what I would call Spanish country. The walls have tons of plant shelves and built in niches, a double fireplace, with huge picture windows in every room, wood and tile floors throughout.

The closet town, seven miles away is small, but with enough amenities to supply necessities. A larger town with tons of shopping and medical services is less than a thirty-minute drive, on country roads with little traffic. People are friendly (even at the local DMV).

This morning, amid the usual serenade of doves and killdeer, I heard a Meadowlark, one of the first since leaving my home in Oregon. Its lilting song has always reminded me of what a wonderful world we live in.

The fragrances of sage and pine, along with the sound of rushing creeks transport me back to my happy childhood, a time of family gatherings and celebrations, a time before tragic deaths, misunderstandings, and separations drew us apart.

This isn't just a place to live. It's a home where I can heal from long buried wounds and let go of new ones.

I am not alone with these feelings. I’ve never seen my husband smile this much, or be this happy.

How like God to leave the best for last.  

Thank you, my Heavenly Father, for caring so much. 

This is the my view while writing this post. My warm weather office, a little piece of heaven. 

Gypsy Blood

My husband must have it somewhere in his lineage. About every two years, like clockwork, he gets restless and begins a search for new places to live. He’s looking again now. We are just settling in. After numerous configurations, we finally found the right one for the living room furniture, and after much trial and error, discovered the perfect organization for the kitchen. We’ve found the best routes to the grocery store and other important places and found good doctors and dentists. 

In the last fifteen years, we’ve moved seven times. We lived in two different homes in my hometown in Oregon before moving to Arizona. We changed cities twice while in that state. Since coming to Idaho, we’ve relocated to three cities, and now he’s looking again. At least this time he doesn’t want to move out of state, just to another city. 

When we bought our current home, he promised we’d live here until the kids carried us out. So much for that promise. The moment I retired, things changed. No longer needing to worry about jobs, he wants to be in a smaller city closer to his favorite hunting spots. But will it be enough to deter his wanderlust? We aren’t getting any younger and the last move almost killed us. 

His answer to my concern, pods. In theory, it sounds easier than a self-driven U-Haul, but there is still the packing, the loading, and the unloading. We know the guys from Two Men and a Truck by their first names. Wonder what comments we’ll get when we call them for the fourth time. 

I have put down parameters. I refuse to move unless the next house is a huge improvement over our current home, and that will be quite the feat. Our home is custom built with many beautiful additions, with a perfect location (except for not being closer to hunting areas). We have great neighbors, a gorgeous walking trail, and we are not far from all the amenities we could ever want. It will be very, very hard to top all that. 

Rather than fretting and worrying about the move, I’ve left it in God’s hands. If He wills it, then so be it. Everything will fall into place. If not, then it won’t happen.

So far, every house my husband has been interested in hasn’t worked out. Either it already had a firm offer when we called the realtor, or something wasn’t right about the location, the property, or the structure. 

On our wedding day, I promised my husband I’d follow him anywhere. Perhaps I should have paid more attention when the lions roared the moment those words left my mouth. Maybe they were warning me to be careful with what I promised…