Well, THAT Was Unexpected!

Hello there!  I'm stopping by for a quick update. The past week has been full of surprises, so let me take a deep breath and tell you all about it!
Tuesday (1/18): Matt got a phone call requesting an interview for a job he'd applied for months ago.  The employer said he'd misplaced Matt's resume around Thanksgiving and had just found it again. (Ironically, it is a job Matt knew he was well-qualified for and he'd been wondering why they hadn't called him.)
Thursday: snow day.  Actually, more like an "ice day". The boys were thrilled they didn't have school. It was completely melted by lunchtime.  Unlike recent years, it's the only bad weather we've had all winter! (Tomorrow will be 62 degrees! Yay!)
Friday morning  I received a call from my nephew Jared.  He is the oldest child of my older sister and I have not seen him since...hmmm...1996? (He would have been about 9 then; he's 23 now!)  Anyway, he called to tell me that he and his sister ~ my 20 year-old niece ~ were enroute from California to Michigan and wondered if they could spend the night here.  Well, ummmm, YES!
He and Elizabeth pulled in around 7:30 that evening and I thoroughly enjoyed lavishing some good home-cooking on them. Jared had flown out to CA to help Elizabeth move back to Michigan and they had been driving for 2 days straight.  The previous night they had grabbed a few hours of sleep in their car at a rest stop in 21-degree temps, so when they arrived here hot showers and warm beds were greatly appreciated.  The four of us stayed up late into the night catching up on all those missed years.  Their 6 a.m. departure came much too soon. I'm so glad I remembered to snap a picture of them before they hit the road!

My nephew and niece, Jared and Elizabeth Winkel

Saturday morning Matt had his job interview. (I must say, he looked positively yummy in his sport coat and trousers.)  He felt good about the meeting and has a second  interview with them next week.  We're hoping and praying and trusting that it will bring a job offer.
Also on Saturday, an agent asked to show our home that afternoon.  It had been weeks months since we'd had a private showing for a potential buyer so we were eager to have the house in tip-top shape and spent the day getting it ready. We left during their tour and when we returned home we finally had a chance to sit down and relax.
Whew!  After all that excitement, I declared that Sunday would be a day of rest for the family.  We all  just took it easy that day: we had a late brunch,  shared family devotions, watched the NFL playoffs and just enjoyed the company of eachother. It was a rare but much-needed luxury.
Our agent, Brent, asked to show the house again on Monday morning at 11:30. We have our cleaning routine down to a science and have it timed out to take about 3 hours from start to finish.  With Zac and Seth at school that morning we had to put a little more responsibility on the girls but everything was moving along perfectly on schedule. That is, until the clients showed up at 10:15, an hour and 15 minutes early.  Yikes!
We aren't supposed to be here when people come through, but the realtor and clients apologized for coming early and insisted we not worry about leaving. The clients (who were in their 60's or so) said, "We know how hard it is to get little ones out the door.  We raised 10 children."  I laughed and replied, "Well, we have 8!"  Ahhh...instant connection. That's good when you're trying to sell something!  They left and I worried that the house had not been ready enough.
I guess they liked it, because that afternoon Brent called and told us that the couple was ready to offer our asking price in cash ...if we could close by this Friday and move out by the weekend.  Yayyy!!!

 Wait......WHAT????

No way.   First, we don't have anywhere to move to.  Secondly, even if we had a place waiting for us, we couldn't move out with 5 days' notice.  Brent told us that the couple also liked another house, which was vacant, and would give an offer in writing to either us or the other owners on Tuesday.  Matt and I discussed it, prayed a lot, and by Tuesday morning we'd decided that we would decline. We know that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is PEACE, and we did not have peace about it. To try to move a family of ten in 5 days to...nowhere... would be chaos, in the least.  God is not a God of chaos.
So...the couple, who were actually buying the house for their recently-widowed son and his 2 year-old, went with the other house. 
I'm fine with that. I'd rather be in foreclosure but in His will than force something that is outside of His plan for us.
It will all work out. I'm at peace.

And now for your entertainment, here's a video of Katie singing her geography songs.  Abby has taken it upon herself  to homeschool Katie and she is doing a tremendous job!  Abby loves writing out the lesson plans and following a schedule, and every morning she sets up a classroom in their bedroom.  All of this while getting her own online schoolwork done as well! She taught Katie several geography songs as well as Bible verses, and today I recorded Katie's performance of two short songs.  She says "motor" instead of "border" but it's adorable. (It's Abby's voice you hear helping her.)

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