2013-2014: Year of New Things

The last year or so has meant a lot of new things for us.

Back in November 2012, I lost my job as a Saturday flower delivery driver thanks to new management at the shop I worked at.  I decided it was a good time to pursue floral design at other shops.  In January 2013, I offered myself as extra holiday help at a shop down the road from our apartment and let them know I was interested in a part-time job in design in general.  They hired me for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and after that hired me on part-time as a designer and driver.  The first 6 months were hard as I tried to learn everything and become a better designer, and Christmas was utterly exhausting--my first 46 hour work week!  But by 2014 I was feeling really comfortable there and incredibly overwhelmed with gratitude for a good job and good coworkers and good hours.  It has been such a blessing and answer to prayer in so many ways.

Come June, though, I will be leaving, at least temporarily, to start a new phase of life: motherhood.

Stephen and I took a giant leap of faith and went off birth control back in September.  We were still in a dingy, dirty two-bedroom apartment that was, for all intents and purposes, a 1-bedroom apartment with a storage room that could absolutely not be a baby room unless something major changed.

But the Lord had His say, and we got pregnant in October, with a baby boy.  So we began another crazy journey: house-hunting for the first time in our lives.  Our budget was ridiculously small, but we were bound and determined to find a new home for this baby to live.  We searched the furthest ends of the suburbs around here for an affordable house that was also functional and safe.  There were some possibilities, and we even made an offer on one house, but the owners countered our offer and in the short time we had to decide what to do, we came to the agreement that it just was not right.

Completely discouraged by the hunt, we stopped house hunting for a while and pursued other, better apartments.  In the meantime, trying to be prepared for the worst, we bought a storage unit to move in all of our stuff from the second bedroom.  It was amazing the freedom that afforded--our apartment would have been finally livable!

But the Lord had better plans.  In March, Stephen's grandma came to us and offered up a suggestion for consideration.  She had a large house with a large master bedroom in it that could be turned into an apartment suitable to her with the installation of a kitchenette.  She would live there and we could have the rest of the house.

She left it open for us to decide, but the decision seemed pretty clear.  This felt right.  So after some talking about how it might work, we gave Grandma the go-ahead to begin constructing her back bedroom into an apartment.

Well, our lease at the apartment ended before everything could be perfected and ready, but we scooped out a place for our bed and Grandma's bed and started working together on readying the house.  It is still rather chaotic, but we all make slow progress on getting settled every day.  The baby at this point still does not have a room, but he does have a cradle in our room to stay in for the first few months, which would have been the plan anyway.

I absolutely love Grandma's neighborhood that we live in.  It is exactly the kind of neighborhood a family can feel comfortable in.  We have way, way more than we were ever hoping for while we were exploring other options.  God is truly amazing and we are truly blessed, and our little boy will be, too.