We bought a house--now the real work begins!

After a week of pondering if this was the right house for us, we signed a contract. Now the real work begins! We had really gotten to know the owners' daughter that was selling the house, and she trusted us. So even though the closing date was still a couple weeks away, we started tackling some of the projects around the house. One of those was the gutter system. Instead of funneling the rain water away from the house, it was disconnected and the water was flowing under the driveway and sidewalk. That will have to be repaired, so Mark started working on the gutters to make sure that this drainage problem wouldn't happen again.

He thought digging the trench to bury the drainage pipe would be a simple half-day project. He was glad to find a shovel in the garage to do the digging. But then he got his first lesson in Kansas rocky soil. He was glad to find two pick axes that were also in the garage inventory. It took two days of chipping away at the rocks to make that trench. If something happened so that we didn't actually close on this house, he donated some hard labor.

At the same time that Mark was digging ditches outside, Denisa was inside cleaning the kitchen. Remember that we were buying this house "as is." That included treasures (and junk) throughout the house. The family left all the cabinets full of dishes. After living in a motor home with four plates, four bowls, and four glasses, Denisa was overwhelmed. She found a set of eight place settings, and another with twelve. She found everything from a crock pot to a griddle to a food processor to a blender. All the appliances that didn't fit in a motor home were left in this house. We worked for several days after our son and daughter-in-law returned from Switzerland and they took over child-care duties. We did stop working long enough to celebrate Denisa's birthday with a home-cooked steak dinner and coconut cream pie from a local bakery.

In the middle of this busy time, we also got to spend good time with our children and grandchildren. We vowed that we wouldn't pass up any invitations from them. So when they called to ask if Gram wanted to go with the girls to a pumpkin festival, she was all in.

Then it was time to make the trip to Oklahoma to pick up some of our belongings to put in this house. Nine years ago we gave things away and we didn't keep anything in storage. But some of our things are returning now that we will have a home again. Some of our best things burned in the wild fire that destroyed Denisa's Mother's house a year ago. But we still had a few things at Mark's Mother's house and at Denisa's sister's house. We rented a u-haul trailer to get them from Oklahoma to Kansas City. Denisa is a bit of a planner, and she cut out scaled versions of each furniture piece to make sure they would fit inside the trailer.

Some things were in the barn hay loft, and the rest were upstairs in Mark's Mother's house. But we managed to carry them all down all those steps and got them loaded in the u-haul. The sun was setting when we hitched up to the trailer that was filling up.

We drove on to Oklahoma City to pick up a large antique armoire and another old dresser that Denisa's sister and brother-in-law had been graciously storing for us. We were surprised to remember how many boxes of photo albums and scrapbooks were stored in that armoire. But Mark and Joe kept packing things in that u-haul trailer until everything fit. We even got the little play kitchen cabinets that Denisa's father made for his three daughters over sixty years ago. They were headed to Kansas City for another generation to play with.

We closed on the house on October 4, and our son helped us to unload the trailer. Now more of the real work began as we started the cleaning. Those that follow the blog know that Mark is known to climb up treacherous mountain paths and out over tall ledges. He channeled that adventurous spirit when cleaning out the tall ledges that haven't been touched in a while.

The ceilings in the bathroom and the entryway are crazy tall. The last owners were an elderly couple who weren't able to climb to the top of the ladder and stretch up to those heights. So the new "elderly couple" owners were finding 14-year-old dust to clean.

Instead of climbing mountains, Mark was climbing trees to get on top of our very tall house. A native elm was allowed to sprout and grow too close to the house. So Mark was up on the roof to trim the branches. Another adventurous project will be removing this sizable tree.

We continued to find things that we would need. Yes, there was a big shop-vac in the basement, and a full set of cleaning supplies. We also found an angel food cake pan, Christmas decorations, rakes, a full set of rubbermaid storage containers, and a whole collection of Boyd's bears. We found lots of things that we didn't need, and we made many trips to the local goodwill store to share our bounty with others.

All of our kids have been great to help! Our oldest son and our daughter-in-law showed up with their lawn mower to do our yard. Our younger son came to help with some heavy projects. But, again we made sure we stopped to have fun. It was pure joy to have the whole family together, playing in the parks and walking the trails in the new town where we just bought a house.

It's just 2.4-miles to our son's house. So when they called to invite us over for breakfast crepes we were there in five minutes.

We are spending lots of time cleaning and sorting through the contents of our new home. It's a new adventure and a new stage of life for us. But we don't plan to be here all the time. We still have lots of traveling to do. Our travels might be a little shorter in duration and take different forms, but we still plan to continue to wander God's wonders--even though we bought a house and the real work has begun.