It's called character...

If you owned a house and the basement leaked, what would you do? Would you

A) grade the soil around the house to cause the water to run AWAY from the house?
B) fix the broken downspouts so the water doesn't pour into your basement?
C) drill holes in the basement floor so the water can drain out quicker?

If you answered C you probably owned this house before us. There are so many great things about this house that I love and then there are things like the holes in the basement floor that make me scratch my head. There are so many things that we want to fix/upgrade that I don't even know where the list begins. Thankfully none of them must be taken care of RIGHT now and we can wait until we have money to fix them. Otherwise my mom may have gotten a downspout for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas we got our tree up, but have not had time to decorate it. I knew that being a pastor's wife would be busy but moving and being a pastor's wife is just plain crazy. No one should move around Christmas time. Moving has not gone like I planned. Our box spring doesn't fit up our stairs, the back porch is filled with boxes and a cold crawled in my head and died. So needless to say I am full of grump.

Anyone want to come clean and unpack boxes?

Woo Hoo!

We bought a house today. We are now homeowners.

We move on Saturday. Which is not soon enough. I just cleared out a cupboard in my kitchen and found a family of cockroaches. Ughhhh! I still have the shivers from that discovery.

Ben just pointed out that cockroaches are supposed to be cleaner than than the inside of your mouth. Doesn't matter. I hates them!

New title...

I think I may have to change the name of this blog to "Old News that Andi Never Writes about".

We are buying a house. And it's sucking everything out of us. All our time. All our money. All our laughs.

I've decided that buying a car is much easier than buying a house. For one cars are not covered in asbestos and two they don't have leaky basements. I think I may decide to live in my car.....

The plus side to all of this is that I will get a cat out of it. This is what she looks like:

Time to go relax and not think about loans and inspections and moving!

Who lives there anyway?

Everyday I drive past this house that has a sign in the front yard that reads,

"Fur Room for Rent"

and up until recently I thought that they were trying to get someone to rent a room decorated in fur. Zebra walls, leopard bed, fuzzy fur-like carpet. I couldn't figure out who would want to rent a room covered with fur. A wannabe rapper for his new music video? I have no idea. It took me two months to realized that they were trying to rent out a FURNISHED room. Which makes a whole lot more sense and seems much more marketable. I still can't help but think that it has a zebra print bedspread though.

Speaking of random things I've seen since moving here... the other day I was sitting in my car at a park on my lunch break. There was some event going on and there all these adult women dressed up like bumble bees. Which wouldn't have seemed to odd if there had been any kids there - but there wasn't. It was all adults. Anyway, the lady bee comes walking out to her car and throws her car door open into my car. WHILE I AM SITTING IN IT! She doesn't stop or even seem to notice it, she just starts digging in her car. Of course I get out and point out that she just hit my car. The one I am trying to sell. She apologized and we looked at the car. I don't think she was sorry that it happened, I think she was sorry she got caught. It's a good thing she drives a car with a plastic door.....

What I am realizing is that just like in Kentucky, people are strange...

Living Right Here, Right Now.

Yesterday something happened that reminded me of the importance of living in this neighborhood. Our church follows the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) model for ministry. There are three things that are essential to christian community development:

- Relocation - living in the community so that the issues become "our" problems and successes instead of just "yours".

- Redistribution - working toward justice for all people regardless of their race or status.

- Reconciliation - people to God and people to each other.

Yesterday I saw again why relocation is so important. I was locking up the church building after a group of volunteers helped clean it when I noticed a woman in a wheelchair in our parking lot. Because I was here and was walking to my home, I got to meet her, hear her story and pray with her. She's going through a rough time right now and I hope that yesterday she realized that God loves her.

I love this neighborhood. The people here are so open. It is so encouraging to be able to spread God's love just by walking home. This neighborhood is helping me learn what community really looks like. It's messy and inconvient and it doesn't fit in a program or time frame, but it's good and encouraging and I think this is how we are supposed to live.

What I found on my wall

A nail in the wall in our apartment:


I wonder what was going through the person's mind as they were trying to hang the picture that hung on this nail. Were they thinking that it wouldn't be that hard? When they realized that it was crooked, did they think that they could just put the nail a little lower? Did they lose their level? Were they super frustrated with their wife who couldn't decide where they wanted the picture? How many curse words were said when putting this nail in?

Either way it entertains me!

Drama

Sigh. There have been about a million things to blog about and I haven't had time to just sit and write for a while. The big news is that I love being here! Yeah, our neighborhood is a little rough, but it's a seriously fun place to live.

What I don't like is our landlord drama. We are currently depositing our rent with the county until he makes the repairs he needs to make. We have no idea what happened to him. He hasn't been by to pick up our neighbor's rent, our certified mail to him has gone unclaimed and he's changed his phone number. Our water was almost shut off because it hasn't been paid since February and it took Ben talking to several people at the city to keep it on. He didn't show up for the mediation appointment we had and he hasn't returned anyone's calls. We have no idea what's going on.

What I do know is that I am getting tired of washing my clothes at a laundry mat when I have a washer right in my basement. I'm ready to find a new place....