Friday, May 15, 2009

Chicago trip part Uno

Well I left for Chicago Monday morning and got back from Chicago Thursday morning at 1am (that is another post all on its own).

The goal of this trip was to find a house. I came armed with a list of houses I found online that caught my eye after months of research.

The funny thing is the house we got was not on that list.

Sometimes you can plan your little heart out but in the end all that matters are HIS plans.

If some of you have been blessed to visit Chicago you know that it is a fun BIG city with loads of public transportation.

I spent the majority of my time on public transit.

Mr. Genius and I got off the plane jumped on the blue line subway and got off of the subway and RAN to the merta commuter train to try to make it to meet the realtor. Unfortunately I got there 2 minutes after the commuter train left.

Mr. Genius had to leave to go to work.

I was kind of mad at him cuz he was leaving me ALL ALONE and to be perfectly honest with you
I wanted to crawl in the corner get in the fetal position suck my thumb and cry.

I probably would have if I didn't think someone had peed in that corner.

This totally intimidated me to be alone in Union station waiting an hour til the next train came all by myself.

For those of you that really know me, this is not like me. I think in my old age I am getting more nervous.

I thought for a second to go outside the train station and walk around. I walk outside for 10 feet got scared that I would get lost and not make it back to the station in time. So I just sat right in front of the train that would take me to meet the realtor until they let me on it.

The adventurous Mama, that walked the streets of New York City by herself, at midnight I might add, has officially left my body.

After getting on the train and an hour ride later (3 hours after landing in Chicago) I meet the realtor.

Our realtor, Kelly, and I looked at some houses on my list.

I have been praying that I would just walk into the house that God wants us to have and I would immediately just feel at home. I didn't have that feeling in any of the houses that I had on my list.

One of them I thought for sure that I would love, the problem was it backed to a very busy street.

I was crushed.

I was feeling really discouraged.

So the realtor took me to look at one house in another area that is about 15 north of where we wanted to live.

The realtor drove me through the downtown part of this city first and I fell in love with this cute little city. I knew that this city was my new home.

The problem was that I didn't like the house that we went to see. The backyard was extremely small and it was on a corner with the road right next to it. There were also a few other things that just kept me from thinking that this was the one. It was really a beautiful house but I just couldn't call it home.

So I took the train back to downtown to meet Mr. Genius then we walked over 2 miles to the hotel.

Oh it was 11pm when we got in our room.

I was beyond tired. Yet my mind was whirling over what we need to do. So we looked online at some more houses and I picked 3 more to look at the next day.

The next I went to look at those houses and the 2nd one will be our new home!

It was just as I prayed for, I walked in the house and immediately felt at home. I had a list of things that I wanted in our house, it meet all the items on that list.

Kelly was even amazed that it had everything on my list. She kept saying "This never happens. No one ever gets everything on their list."

And to make this even more amazing this house was company owned. The couple that built this house in '05 got transferred and their company bought the house from them. Meaning with the company not having an emotional connection to the house. We got this house for substantially less then what the original owner's bought it for when they built it just 4 years prior!

Now this is still Chicago prices, so it was still a little hard for us to swallow.

But I have now doubt that the house is where God wants us to be.

Now my prayer warriors I have another prayer request.

We are closing on our Murfreesboro home on May 29th and moving out on May 31st. The problem is that we will not be able to close on the new house until the 2nd week of June. We are really hoping that we can move straight into the new house on the 31st and pay rent until we close. This is not a normal practice, and our realtor didn't even want to ask this. I told her that is wouldn't hurt to ask. We haven't got an answer yet cuz we are waiting until we have a definite closing date.

This would help us with the expense of moving twice and also at that time we would have to start paying for Mr. Genius to fly back and forth and for his hotel room in Chicago. So it will save us that expense as well.

As much as we don't want to leave all our family and friends here in the 'Boro, it feels weird to ask people to help us pray for us to be able to get there as fast as possible.

So thank you so much for all your prayers we truly appreciate them.

Thank you my friends!

1 comment:

Chris and Dawn said...

The house is beautiful! I LOVE Chicago, and I'm so jealous that you get to live there and that Jenny gets to come visit you there! Praying the move goes smoothly.