Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

Okay, I give.

Coming home from camping the other day we stopped at the Goodwill and I peeked through the housewares section quickly. Stacked in amongst the frames I found a print by one of my favorite artists, maryanne radmacher. i was so tickled.

then, i saw it was signed. by her. in pencil. right at the signature. a signed maryanne radmacher print for $2.99. then i read it. gasp.

may your walls know joy;
may every room hold laughter
and
every window
open to
great
possibility.

the side of the print has a portion torn from a dictionary for "home", it has words like "focus, habitation, near, interior, arrival, refuge, present within, at ease, social gathering, be at, to visitors, freedom, pleasure, content, make oneself free, sociable, stay at, knowledge, skill, with friendship.

the little block under it has the words to favour, gain the friendship of, embrace; receive with open arms, meet half way, take in good part, affected, unhostile, neighbourly, sympathetic, harmonious, hearty.

it is a housewarming print and i got mine right from the artist. :D

yesterday i was im'ing with penni and she asked about the house. i told her i was beginning to chicken out. i felt some fear in the disappointment and was avoiding doing what was next. there is a business man at our church who walked our friends through the difficult process of returning the house to the bank, and i knew he would be the person to ask to help us. for some reason i was avoiding making the call.

penni gave me a shove. i got off the computer, picked up the phone and called. he wasn't home, but called me back. he was so excited. i could just hear it in his voice that this might bring this journey full circle for him too. he said he'd be happy to help us meet with the right people at the right time and help us to figure out what the bid should be and how to navigate the process well. he said that this kind of thing is one of his favorite things to do - so his excitement in all of this reassured me that doing 'the next right thing' was exactly the right thing. thank you penni for the push! he cautioned me though that this could definitely take some time. banks don't move quickly and i reassured him that we weren't in any rush (but in my heart of heart I WANT IT yesterday!)

then last night i shared vaguely about this process. our group knows that my heart beats for a home, for some roots. i had only shared with one couple so far of THIS particular home. they prayed for us - and three of them said specifically "by Christmas" - by Christmas - I gasped. Really? I barely could ask for so much. One of the women heard in my voice my hesitation and spoke directly to my insecurity of being afraid of asking for something so big. that somehow i didn't think i deserved this. it was truly beautiful.

i joked afterward as we were making plans for the next week that we would host the christmas party! :)

then today after we were done garage sailing (we do sail through them!) we went out for chinese buffet. we have a tradition in our family that the fortune cookies are disbursed by taking the one closest to you, otherwise it could mess up the karma (no spiritual beliefs here, just laid back joking, honest). i don't know if i mentioned in the last post that one of the things that really started me down this path was our financial advisor giving us a bit of a shove into this and that shortly after that we had chinese and liam got a fortune that read "You will move to a wonderful new home within the year." - it was such a joke for us, but stranger things have been known to happen. i kind of held on to that and only really remembered it as "you will move into a new house" (the timing was lost to my memory).well, today the kids and i had opened our fortunes and they were pretty bland, and liam's was sitting there while he ate his dessert - and i joked and handed it to him saying in a spooky voice "you will move into a new house"... and guess what. it's EXACTLY THE ONE HE GOT!

within the year. from liam's fortune cookie to god's ear...