My anxiety about Charlie, and doing the right thing by him, even if that meant giving him to another family, was super high this past month. One of the toughest parts about this move was not knowing where we were going, and also knowing that we couldn't make real estate decisions based on our outdoor cat. But I feel like by calling Charlie our outdoor cat somehow lessens the relationship we have with him. As if he was indoors with us, he would be a more valid member of our family. I have so many insecurities about his life as an outdoor cat but he IS a part of our family, and that is why my anxiety about him was so very high. My allergies are so bad that I can't have him indoors, but that doesn't stop me from spending time with him every day and worrying about him 24/7. And he loves us. When we are outside, which is as much as possible, he is with us like a faithful and loyal companion. A friend of mine, not yet aware of my anxiety about Charlie, told me a story about how she and her family obtained their cat. Come to find out, he started as an outdoor feral cat and on the journey of him becoming their indoor cat, they found a heated cat house for him to put in their sunroom. A lightbulb went on in my head - if I could get Charlie used to a heated cat house, when we move he will know this is still his home and even if the next place isn't as luxurious as the giant barn/garage he is used to know, at least it will be warm and familiar to him. So, I bought the cat house and Will built it for me and this eased my anxiety from a 10 to a 6. Here Will is below, with a little help from Opal, building Charlie's cat house. In the bottom photo, Charlie is keeping me company while I work in my garage office.
The Friday of Labor day weekend, we found a newly listed house. Keep in mind, we were looking multiple times a day as the clock was ticking closer and closer to our impending homelessness. A family of six doesn't just crash on someone's couch in a pinch. So when a new listing came up, we were one of the first to know. The first thing that caught my eye about this house was the towering white pine trees in the yard - it had a decidedly up north look to it. This house was in a perfect location, perfect lot size, perfect inside square footage with the right number of bathrooms and bedrooms and all the photos online looked good as well. Plus it had air conditioning, something that we knew we needed in our next house with Violet's inability to sweat. And, it wasn't as old as our last house either - 65 years instead of 101 years old - old enough to still have the character we love, but new enough to be less of a money pit. AND - it would be a safe and lovely place for Charlie. We decided to check it out. Once we got to the house, we started noticing how run down the exterior looked. When we opened the front door, a terrible smell greeted our noses and we could see (and smell) right away that the house was in a neglected state. Opal could not get past the smell and so I ended up waiting outside with her while Will and the realtor walked through the rest of the house. Will seemed unusually excited, but in my mind, the smell was a deal breaker. Will talked about it all the way home, and I definitely could see his points - it was priced low enough to fix up and everything else about it was perfect for us. That night I told Will that we would be crazy to buy a smelly house in need of so many repairs so I suggested we go to bed pretending we are not buying the house and see how we feel in the morning.
Needless to say, we went to bed in a depressed state and tossed and turned all night. If Will hadn't been so excited about the potential of that house, I would have never thought about it again. But because he was thinking about it, I was thinking about it and I really did love the location and the giant white pine trees towering in the backyard. White pine trees are my absolute favorite tree, and the scent of sun-kissed pine needles on a summer afternoon are one of my top favorite scents. So, Saturday morning after a depressed night, we decided to flip the coin of decision, and now pretend that we were going to buy the house. Oh, the excitement that unfolded! We went to Home Depot with pen and notepad and started pricing out exactly how much it would cost to make the house livable. It was like Will and I were walking on rainbows as we skipped through The Depot (as I call it) and started to realize that this house could work for us. We called our realtor with our thought process and she suggested we go back and see the house. We took my dad with us on Sunday and I wore a respirator in case the smell was mold. I was fully aware of the ridiculousness of the situation with me wearing a breathing apparatus in a house we were seriously considering buying, especially since we were leaving our last house due to mold. Opal refused to be set down in the house and had major anxiety the entire time we were there, which made it difficult for me to really look at the rooms and determine how much work there was. My mom text me after hearing about what my Dad saw and asked me, "Where are the matches?!" I just had to laugh, because she wasn't wrong but here we were, considering the craziest thing Will and I have ever done. My dad's opinion of the house was that we would need several lifetimes to fix it up.
The reality is when certain opportunities are presented to you, the decisions you make are a combination of the events in your life leading up to that moment (our desperation of not finding ANYTHING suitable to move to in three months) combined with a spark of joy that I have to believe can only come from God. I believe the spark of joy means you are on the right path. Even if everyone around us thought we were crazy, we had a certainty that we were at least meant to make an offer on this house. After some serious bartering back and forth, our offer was accepted and we were now in the process of purchasing a house. In the above photos from top right in clockwise order: a photo of the roof in need of repairs, us finding the piano of my dreams at a very affordable used price shortly after going under contract for the new house (keep in mind I had been looking for about eight years and nothing fit in the budget yet), a new to us car that we ended up buying on a cash loan from Will's parents so it didn't mess up our pre-approval to buy a house, a graph paper floor plan with cut outs of our furniture to start planning where our stuff will go, and my secret weapon and the reason we felt confident buying a smelly house despite my mold sensitivities - Molly the Mold Canine. Our friends own a company with a highly trained dog who can sniff out mold through walls, tile and carpet. I felt confident that with Molly, I could be sure the house I was moving to was safe.
We had spent the entire summer with only one car, and we were running out of time because we needed a second vehicle in September to get Violet to her newly starting vision therapy twice a week. But, we couldn't make any large purchases since we were pre-approved to buy a house. Will's parents' elderly neighbor could no longer drive and decided she wanted us to have her car, and would sell it to us within our budget. This was a huge, huge blessing as during the summer, used car prices rose over 26% due to a chip shortage in new cars. To make things even more doable, Will's parents floated us a cash loan so that we could purchase the car before buying our next house. The first few days that the girls and I had wheels again, the feeling of gratitude and freedom were hard to explain. Bless Hilda, the neighbor who had it on her heart to help us out, and bless God's timing, because he really does make sure that you get what you need when you need it. In clockwise order from top left below: the girls and I enjoying donuts from our favorite local donut shop at the park on our first official school day, Violet with her first pair of real dentures and her proud smile, my first official sale to a non-friend or family member for Wildflower Moon, tomatoes from our garden, pickled green beans that I can every year late summer, and finally, Hickory, Dickory and Dock - the neighbor's goats who escaped from their pen and were looking for food at the end of our driveway.
Violet's dentist is a dear woman who has taken Violet under her wing. Will took Violet in for her new dentures that we had been waiting all summer for. Getting dentures is a multi-step process and one that insurance does not cover for kids unless they lost all of their teeth due to decay. Because Violet was born without most of her teeth, insurance does not cover dentures for her. For seven years, Violet has not been able to eat apples, raw carrots, a piece of pizza without it being cut up, and many other foods as well. Teeth are not cosmetic, and I hope one day that insurance companies revise their policies. When Violet was being fit for the dentures, the dentist took Will aside and told him that because she had never made dentures for a kid before, this one was on the house. Will, who is not an emotional guy and definitely not a hugger, ended up hugging the dentist and holding back tears. The price of this gift for our girl is equal to the price of the car we just bought. Again, gratitude and humble awe filled our souls and we couldn't help but realize that as much as what we are going through right now is scary and filled with unknowns, God's got us. He really does. And then, seeing Violet smile with confidence and pride - priceless. We would have paid whatever it took to give this to her, but God put on this dentist's heart to gift it to us. Amazing. And then, seeing Violet learn how to chew for the first time at seven years old broke our heart and put it back together at the very same time. Because she has a few teeth, but they are in random places, it never occurred to Will and I that she is unable to chew like you or I, because none of her teeth line up. God bless it, but teeth are not cosmetic! Insurance currently pays to break her jaw and reset it so that her jaw lines up for implants but won't pay to proactively give her dentures so that she doesn't need to have her jaw broken.
In the picture below in clockwise order from top left: hosting the girls' yoga class in our backyard, Opal "shopping" with her new backpack from friends, doing school with Violet while making bracelets for Wildflower Moon, a hilarious headline combining the loved children's book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with the current real life bus driver shortage, Violet's school bin that we had to unpack for the start of school because I mistakenly thought we would be moved by the time school started again, and finally, Violet doing a math preschool program with Opal.
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