Novena: please pray one last time ...

... we hope!

A week from tomorrow, on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, we are scheduled to close on our house in Virginia. Yes, we will have a home again -- God willing! We have started a novena to the good saint and cousin of our Lord ... and ask that all our family and friends join with us [see prayers below] ... hopefully for the last time on housing issues (for a while anyway!).
Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes ... we have felt them throughout this Year of Job and Lamentations!

Novena to St. John the Baptist (feast day June 24th) …

O Martyr invincible, who, for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, didst with firmness and constancy withstand the impiety of Herod even at the cost of thine own life, and didst rebuke him openly for his wicked and dissolute life; by thy prayers obtain for us a heart, brave and generous, in order that we may overcome all human respect and openly profess our faith in loyal obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ, His Vicar, and His Church.

Say an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.

Pray for us, St. John the Baptist, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ (add your personal intention -- for the successful close on our new home here in Virginia if it be God's will).

Let us pray.

O God, who hast made this day to be honorable in our eyes by the Nativity or commemoration of Blessed John, grant unto Thy people the grace of spiritual joy, and direct the minds of all Thy faithful into the way of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Where should we go today?

How's about down to Orange County for three hours of (God willing) our very LAST EVER home-inspection on the house we got a signed contract on May 13th - Feast of Our Lady of Fatima! We love this house ... it's exactly what we need ... in a beautiful area ... a house in which we can put down roots -- both figuratively and literally -- and live in for the rest of our lives. This is the kind of house the littles can grow up in and all can eventually bring their children to visit.

Yep, this is it!

Many of you probably are smiling and saying "yeah, right ... famous last words" -- well we SOOOO hope God agrees with us and lets us settle in and make this house our home ... for living, loving, and learning and sharing with all our friends, relatives and benefactors, now and in the future. We can't wait to bring simplicity and loveliness to our new home ... which, if all goes well, will close on June 24th. Please keep us in your prayers ... that this is God's will as well as ours.

Besides, we stopped at Sonic on the way home -- rootbeer floats make anywhere look great!

Novena: won't you STILL join us?

Do you mind continuing the prayers asked for here ?

After we finished the novena to St. Joseph, we started up again ... and on Tuesday (April 7th) of Holy Week we got an offer on the house in Colorado!

Actually, we received THREE offers on the same day. They were pretty good offers and we chose the best with a closing date of May 11th (exactly two months after we started that novena to St. Joseph and five days into a novena to Servant of God, John Paul the Great).

We started the process of canceling utilities, autopayments and HOA fees and were all set for next Monday's closing. Yesterday evening we got an email from our realtor: the buyers ran into a snag and needed to postpone closing. Thank goodness we have a realtor who is pretty tough -- the powers that be wanted to push closing off to the end of May but he pushed for sooner. So, now we've got closing pushed back one week.

On the 18th of May -- which happens to be Servant of God John Paul the Great's birthday -- God willing, we will close on the house.

Please continue to pray to both St. Joseph and John Paul the Great for us as we head down the homestretch to finish off our Colorado adventure and really begin our Virginia one!

THANKS!

Prayers!

WOOOHOOOO!

We just signed a contract on our house in Colorado -- it's less than we paid, but more than we owe so God is so good to us!

Please continue to pray as we go thru appraisals, inspections, etc until closing in mid-May ... and thank you so much for all your prayers on our behalf. The Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and Servant of God JPtheGreat really are coming thru for us ... and we continue to pray thru them for God's assistance.

House: We need a miracle here y'all!

Dear prayer warriors ....

9 months ago I came to you with a prayer for our house in Denver to sell as dh had just accepted a job helping to start up a brand new high school here in Virginia. We're loving the school and being in Virginia, but we still haven't sold the house in Denver.

Right now we're leasing a town-house but with little ones, renting is quite stressful as every ding, bump or spill on the carpet is nerve-wracking. Our lease isn't up until June, but in March we need to tell our landlord whether we want to continue renting.

Also, we will need to do the long-haul drive to Denver this summer to work on the house if it hasn't sold by then. Altho it would be GREAT to see our Denver friends ... we'd rather they visited us here!

We've started looking at our options here and because the market is very depressed here, we have some great options -- both in-town homes or out in the country a bit with some land (and thus, space for the boys to get out all their excess energy). There are some really great places but we are stymied until we can sell our home in Colorado. We have been such "nomads" for the last dozen years that we'd like to put down roots, figuratively and literally here in Virginia.

So please, please join us in prayer that we're granted a miracle and someone wants to buy our house for a fair and just price and SOON! Also, that we're able to find a good house here, for a fair and just price, and that we're able to help a family out here in Virginia by buying the house they need to sell.

As always, we pray for you and yours daily ....

Christmas: on the ninth day of Chrsitmas ...

... my true love gave to me ...

a lovely morning Mass together than a few hours back at the "ranch" as it were and then he and I spent the afternoon reveling in the glorious Winter sun and driving around the foothills looking at possible houses/property once our house in Denver sells.

It was so much fun putzing around ... spending time together ... looking at homes that would be wonderful to finish raising our family and then retire to ... homes with amazing views ... homes with lovely history ... homes that could accommodate our family now and then later too!

But, we still wait for Denver to sell, so for right now ... it was just a beautiful afternoon out and about ...

Finishig up with an easy dinner or baking frozen pizzas and eating leftovers from our feast over the last few days ... watching another Foyle's War and just enjoying being home for Christmas Break.

A great ninth day of Christmas!

Musings, meditations and a bit of whining ...

... as I sit here at 1:50 am ...

the house is silent... we've brought in the New Year and I'm catching up on my reading of the Magnificat for this evening. Fr. Cameron (OP, of course) has some great meditations in this issue.

But what really strikes me and mine tonight is the example of Simeon and Anna -- both of whom waited and prayed ... prayed and waited for God to answer their pleas. They never gave up ... just kept praying the same prayer and it was answered with the birth of Jesus in a Stable in Bethlehem!

We have waited since end-of-March-2008 for the sale of our home in Denver. We have prayed novenas to St. Joseph, beseeched the help of Mary and prayed directly to God ...

... but our house still remains un-sold.

But tonight (or rather, this morning), I find hope ... hope in trusting that God will answer this prayer in His time ... not in mine! As Fr. Cameron puts it:

What at first seems like refusal on the Lord's part is in fact an invitation to greater ardor. Jesus blesses us with the chance to show Him how much we rely on Him and how little we can depend on ourselves.

In other words ... when we've done all we can ... all we have left is prayer and asking God to take over!

Please join us in praying for God's will to be done in the sale of our house in Denver!

Colors in the Home

Molly on 4Real asked about colors in the home -- that is, on your walls.

Well, I had mentioned that we moved into our house and the walls were already painted, lots of colors that I would NEVER have used. As we've been in here 6 months now, and we've put up our cherished pictures, I've come to realize that although I would never have thought to use these colors, they work with what we have and like....

See for yourself:

This is the paint in the master -- note that the two walls are actually different shades of red-burgundy!Boys' room is actually a bit deeper blue-green than this picture shows, but the team banners sure look like they were made to go in this room. (BTW, we're NOT Dodger fans; it is from the game they went to against the Rockies).Here's the girls' room -- StringBean's "Cinderella" print looks great on these darker blue walls!Here's the upstairs bath, with its pale lilac walls and purple stencilling. The tile and all fixtures are white.The bath downstairs is a rusty orange tone -- and note that the ceiling is the same color. The tile and all fixtures are white. This is the only room we haven't found something to hang up -- the color is a bit odd.

The living room is a green that is somewhere between the two green panels on the knitted wall-hanging (the camera had a hard time picking up the shade of green). But if you'll notice the wall-hanging and the Guadalupe print are complementary shades of green.This is the dining room. My camera just can't get the color right -- a cross between mustard yellow and brownish gold. But our icons look great on this wall! Burgundy goes well with this color too, so our table runner and candles are burgundy.

So, there you have it -- color that seems odd, but works!