It's been a few (count 'em - 8!) months since my last post. I'd almost forgotten I had a blog. How funny, a medium to spill your thoughts, and I'd rather keep them churning inside my head. Where to begin...
Well, right after my last post, Olivia and I started looking for a new place to live. We were determined to begin putting the fiasco of the last few years behind us. We searched and searched. Every type of home and location in the city. We enlisted the help of a realtor we used to sell a previous home, Lisa Bray (good realtor!). After months of searching, we finally found and purchased a home in Laveen. Nothing to out of the ordinary, right? OK, here's where it gets a little wierd. The kind of wierd that makes you wonder if God has some grand design, or if there is a cosmic force that is "fate". Now follow along....
I brought my dad with me to look at houses and he never liked any of the homes we looked at in the city. He thought we should be looking at horse properties. Suffice to say, I never thought about it since I left home. Keeping animals and mowing large swaths of grass are something I thought to be a burden I no longer wanted. But a funny thing happened during our search...
Once we enlisted the help of the realtor, my dad met her and unbeknownst to any of us, we all shared a common identity. My dad informed Lisa that he was a farmer, and Lisa explained to us that her father and brother were also farmers. upon learning her maiden name (Perez), my father knew who her father and brother were and additionally, that Lisa used to work in the sheep/wool industry and knew some of the same ranchers my father has known for years. SIDE NOTE #1- this is not an uncommon thing for me, as I am used to my father having some obscure aqcuaintance to individuals at random. Olivia is still getting used to it but is learning that my family knows a lot of people far and wide! So that was just a start to this wierd journey.
We took the kids home to our county fair in March. I was asked to participate with the sale. I hadn't been back to the fair in a long time, and that day, I remembered what I had forgotten a long time ago -that everything I have done in my life, is a part of me, and I can try (and belive me I have), but I will never "escape" it's call. I am what I am, and what I am is a farmer's son. Whatever else I do in life, I carry this with me.
So having remembered this, I set about explaining to Olivia that perhaps my father is right. She understands and does not require any further prodding, as she would like to see what we can find. So we call up Lisa and explain to her that we have "switched gears" and now want to look at horse properties. (Raise eyebrow now) Lisa explains to us that she can show us a few homes in the Laveen area that she knows are for sale, but coincidentally, she is looking to put her home up for sale in the near future. She lives on an acre in Laveen, in a brick home that she built in the 80's. SIDE NOTE #2 - a couple of the issues we had with all the other homes we looked at, were the years they were built and the quality of the building materials. At this point, the whole affair is starting to feel almost scripted...
We meet Lisa at her home first. The place is immaculate. It is everything we want and nothing we don't. Pretty hard to top a place like this. So we go to look at the other homes. They have some of the same issues we don't like or have really hefty price tags. I won't bore you with details of a home search. It is almost as bad as buying a car. So we speak to Lisa some more about her plans, since she says that she was thinking about selling her home, and it is not technically on the market. She says that we are probably within her price range for selling, and we can't believe our ears. So this has all transpired by the middle of April. By the begining of May, we finally have a contract price ironed out and escrow opened. By the end of June we close and Olivia, I and the kids have settled into our new home that we've aptly named, "Serendipity".
