Remember. Take 2.

Last week I needed to come up a list of all the addresses that we've lived at for the past 7 years for some paperwork for the hospital for Glenn. I discovered that over the last 7 years our mail has gone to 11 addresses (one of which we've slept at a couple of times but never actually lived at). If I had filled out this paperwork last month it would have been 12. Abigail, our baby, is 7 years old. All 6 of us have been there for all 12 of those address changes. A complicating factor in the paperwork process was that we were homeless for 2.5 months at the beginning of medical school and 3.5 months at the end. I just decided to put down the address that our mail went to for those time periods because it is most likely for a background check so that is where the government assumed we lived. I don't think we have even gotten a parking or speeding ticket over the last 7 years so I doubt his background check will turn up anything.

After doing my research to come up with our old address list (and saving it to google drive for next time) I came across this post that I had written a couple days after a FMF on Remember back at the end of March (hence the title). It is a trip down memory lane of places we've lived. I have several posts in my drafts list that I've written or started over the last several months of transition that I'll be posting here over the next month or so, Lord willing. Here is the first:

Now that we know what city we are going to be living in for the next 3-4 years the next hurdle that we need to overcome is housing. We've been living out of our van sleeping in the homes of friends, relatives, and occassionally people who are practically strangers to us for the last almost 10 weeks. Oh, we also slept for almost 4 weeks on a docked ship in the middle of those 10 weeks and for this past week we've been sleeping in an old schoolhouse that's been renovated to be a nice vacation rental (if you're looking for a nice vacation spot near the Adirondacks check it out!!). It's been an adventure and we've been able to help people at several of our stops but I'm growing weary.

As we've been weighing the rent vs buy question and scouring the internet for homes it has made me think back and thank God for our previous homes.

Our first home was a two bedroom apartment that was part of a 4 apartment house that we rented from TTU for only $150 a month. I think it was originally supposed to be more than that but that is how our lease came to us. It was ridiculous how cheap it was but it was God's provision because that was about what we could afford at the time with both of us still being full time students and newly married. Young and foolish, yes, but God took care of us.

A year later we moved from our first apartment to our first little two bedroom house. We wanted to move to a nicer neighborhood since we were new parents of little Caleb. Our rent doubled at that point but God continued to provide since we were making a bit more more money with both of us working at least part time.

Late the next spring we were thinking about moving again just south of the border into Georgia because Glenn was looking at going to the Medical College of Georgia and to go there at the time you needed to be a GA resident. God had other plans though and, after mom's heart attacks and subsequent problems, we went up to New York to be there to help out. It was decided we should move up there so Glenn drove down and, with the help of our Sunday School class, packed up our little house in a day and moved our stuff up. We stored our stuff and moved in with my dad for a while to help him out. (I'm wondering if this was technically the first time we were homeless).

We lived with my dad until about Christmas when we moved into a 3 bedroom apartment that we rented from my grandparents. While there we continued to help my dad and visit my mom. Glenn had various jobs including substitute teaching, working as a tech at a hospital and working in a factory making portable bandsawmills. We welcomed Hannah home in that place.

After mom passed away we decided that we needed to get Glenn back in school so he could finish his education. Through a series of events it was decided that we were going to go to Houghton. It was only about 2 hours from Waterloo and we made several drives down there to try to find a place to live. We finally found the apartment over the mini-mart in mid-July and made the move in early August.

In late November I was getting a bit nervous looking at our bank account and wondering how we were going to be able to pay rent on our apartment for the rest of the school year with the whole no jobs available in the area thing I mentioned on Friday. A few days later I was approached by a friend of my parents who lived in town. He asked me if we would be willing to house sit for them for the spring semester. They always spent the winters down south and had often had people house sit for them. They told us that we could stay in their home and they would just have us pay half of the utilities (since they would have had to keep the heat and freezer running even if they weren't there and would have to pay at least that much anyway they reasoned). We saw it as a gift from God so we said "yes, thank you!" and put most of our stuff in a storage unit and moved into their home before leaving to go to Georgia to visit Glenn's sister for Christmas. That beautiful home was the place we welcomed Lydia home to.

The thing with house sitting for a semester for snow birds is that semesters end and snow birds come north for the summer. I really can't remember exactly what we did after we moved out during finals week. I'm with Dory... "I'm a little vague in the details." Hmm. Anyway, that summer we lived various places... between dad's house, our friend's one bedroom apartment, our Burb, our tents in various locations while Glenn worked for STEP. They fought over who actually claimed us in our Christmas letter that year. I was really grateful to move into a 4 bedroom house that we rented from some missionaries for the next 23 months. Abigail joined us there.

After Glenn's job for the year was done and he didn't get into medical school the first time we found out that my grandparents had tenants move out on them in the middle of the night. We decided that we should move to Waterloo and rent from them again while we tried to decide what to do. Glenn substitute taught and retook his MCATs while I homeschooled Caleb and worked a day a week as a secretary. After a few months we moved across the parking lot to a cheaper, smaller apartment also owned by my grandparents.

Glenn was able to get a job working at a hospital in Rochester the next year and we spent a bit of time and many a day driving around looking at apartments there. God provided us with an apartment less than a block from the hospital at a decent price and we moved in with a 11 month lease assuming that we'd be starting medical school at the end of the next summer. It was a great apartment and we loved living so close to Highland Park.

Well, it turns out that Glenn was put on two different wait lists but didn't get a seat in a medical school class that year. Since we hadn't signed a new lease our landlord rented our apartment to others and we were not sure what we were doing since we assumed we were starting medical school. A gracious couple from our small group invited us to stay in their home for a couple of months while we tried to figure out our next steps and they spent a good bit of that time on a mission trip.

While looking for a place in Rochester again we really wanted to live near the park again and God provided us a little house (2 bedrooms, about 600sq feet) with Highland Park as our back yard. We lived there when we got the news that Glenn was accepted to medical school and found out that we got to move to Syracuse.

Craigslist and Orange Housing were both helpful in finding a place to live in Syracuse and, since Glenn was taking summer anatomy, we decided to sublet for the summer instead of get a year's lease to try to figure out where in Syracuse we wanted to spend our 4 years there. Our 3 bedroom apartment sublet (with two porches) was great and we loved the neighborhood but before the end of our time in that apartment we found out that we were approved to buy a house. Thus started our painful house hunting/ adventures in homelessness 2009 version. God provided a place for us to sleep every night but it was tiring and stressful moving around, living out of our van and constantly looking at houses, putting in offers, and having things fall through all while Glenn was starting medical school.

That's where I stopped in March, so I'll finish our walk down memory lane now.

Graciously in October, after 2.5 months of being homeless, we were able to move into a 3br 2bath flat just a block from the place we had sublet. We moved our stuff out of the attic of the house we had sublet (where the landlord had graciously let us store our possessions for free) and into the apartment that wasn't really ready for a family to move into yet (There was a sink, toilet and bathtub in the living/ dining area and piles of saw dust and debries everywhere because of a problem that had happened in one of the bathrooms and the reconstruction that needed to be done. Within a week or two it was cleaned up and there was a complete, working bathroom for us.) We thoroughly enjoyed living there. We think that our landlord saw that and decided that, since it was such a great place for a family, he wanted to move back in and told us on Easter that he was going to fix it up and move in himself.

That was, again, not part of our plan but God was gracious and quickly provided another 3br apartment just a few blocks away for us to live in for our last 22 months in Syracuse. After that Glenn started his RMED track in Lowville, about 2 hours from Syracuse. The hospital graciously found and provided a 3br apartment for our 10 months there. We had no idea what it was going to be like, having not seen it before moving all of our belongings there, but it worked out great and we are so thankful for our time there.

Well his rural rotation ended in January, as did our lease, as did most of his medical school requirements. We weren't going to find out where we were moving to until mid-March at the Match so we put our stuff in storage once again and set out for our mystery months adventures, living out of our van visiting programs, friends and family and volunteering a bit along the way.

After finding out we were moving to Fort Worth for residency we did some searching online for housing then packed all of our stuff up in an ABF UPack trailer and headed south so we could see places in person. We arrived in the DFW area in early April and started looking for a place to live while friends in Dallas graciously let us take over 2 of the bedrooms in their home for a while. Our belongings were put into another storage unit down here while we looked for a place to live. We finally found a place (some more details on that process available here) and are now living at address #11 in the past 7 years, address #20 in the past almost 14 years of marriage.

As I was writing I noticed I wrote the word "gracious" a lot. Grace. Getting what we don't deserve. We have moved a lot. It hasn't always been our choice but God has abundantly provided in places to live, in food to eat, in friends to share life with, in churches to serve in and to challenge us to grow and so much more. We don't deserve any of it but I can honestly say God has been faithful and so generous.

One day this past week in my GMG Anything study I read Acts 4:32-27. That passage talks about how in the early days of the church no one really considered anything that they owned as theirs but as belonging to the whole of the body of Christ. If there was a need the followers of Christ would do what they needed to do to meet that need. Reading it made me think of how many times over the past 14 years we have been the recipients of that grace. I'm so humbled to think of the number of people who have opened their homes to us and who have shared with us what they had just like the church did in Acts. It is humbling to be on the receiving end of that grace. I have learned a lot about hospitality and giving by being on the receiving end of it. I look forward to being able to be on the giving end of it more in the days, months and years to come.

At the end of this time of remembering I just want to stop and say thanks to God for how He has always taken care of us. I also want to say thank you to countless dear friends who have been His hands and feet and have offered us beds and couches and places on their floors and at their tables over the years for anything from a night to over a month. How grateful we are for each and every one of you and the example of generosity you have been to us. We are so grateful!

Five Minute Friday: Beautiful

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I've never really thought of myself as beautiful. Actually, I probably did. When I was a child there used to be a big round mirror above the kitchen sink that I'm sure my mom would use to check how she looked on the way out the door. At some point after I started doing dishes she took it down because I would take too long doing dishes because I was always looking at myself.

Being a typical American overweight teen I had a really bad self image in my junior high, high school and college days that hasn't necessarily improved that much in the years since. My husband often tells me how beautiful I am but I usually just tell myself that love is blind because I know better and I've looked in the mirror.

I was convicted of that thought pattern this week when I read a blog post a friend re-posted on facebook. My daughters are told often that they look just like me. If I tell them that I am ugly and fat what does that tell them about themselves? What does it imply how I view them?

I want to have God's perspective on me. He says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and His works are wonderful. (Psalm 139:14) There was an old poster in our hallway growing up that said "God don't make no junk." It's true. He made me the way that He made me on purpose.

I know, with some work, I can do some things to improve how I look on the outside but that isn't what really matters. "But let it be the inward adorning and beauty of the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which [is not anxious or wrought up, but] is very precious in the sight of God." (1Peter3:4 AMP) That's the kind of beauty I want. I long to be beautiful in God's eyes.

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Late again but writing for 5 on a Saturday. Join me?

What's Working Wednesday: Salvage Grocery Stores

What's Working Wednesday is my weekly post to showcase something that is working for me or my family at the moment. It may not work for us forever and it may or may not work for you.

It's been a long time since I've done a What's Working Wednesday and I want to get back in the habit. I started looking at my life and wondering: "Is anything working in my life right now??" It was a bit depressing coming to the realization that, um, not much is working well in all the transition of our lives right now. I did come up with one thing though: salvage grocery stores!

Salvage Grocery stores are stores that sell close date, damaged, and overstock food items, often at a discount. I've only recently become familiar with the term but I've shopped at them before and they've definitely helped our grocery budget. When I lived in NY I would often shop at Glenwood Foods in Seneca Falls and Buda's in Syracuse and I would consider both of them  salvage grocery stores to an extent. I even vaguely remember shopping at a bent and dent store in Chattanooga occasionally though I couldn't tell you where it was. Ollies and Big Lots have food sections that might qualify as well.

Since moving to the Metroplex I have found a winner. My friend who lived in Dallas did a lot of her grocery shopping at the Grocery Clearance Center. I went once or twice while we were staying out there and, hoping for one closer to home in Fort Worth, a quick google search took me to Town Talk and on first visit I was in love.

Every visit to Town Talk, or any salvage grocery, is like a treasure hunt. You never know what you are going to find. I've never personally shopped for my own groceries overseas but every visit to a salvage grocery reminds me of stories I've heard from friends who have lived overseas and their excitement over finding Hershey bars or brownie mix on the shelves in their local grocery stores. When found they quickly purchase all they can and set something special aside for an upcoming birthday, squirrel some away and share some with expat friends. For example, on one visit to Town Talk we saw CliffBars for $5 a case. There was a man there in a shirt and tie that cleared the shelf of them, filling his cart because they were a flavor that he really liked. I don't think that I've seen Cliffbars there since.

Salvage grocery stores are also a great places to shop if want to buy specialty foods cheap or if you are on a special diet. I have found lots of gluten free and organic groceries for WAY less than at traditional grocery stores. There are also often international foods and mixes available for cheaper than at your normal Asian market.

Here are a couple of pictures of items I picked up on a recent visit to Town Talk:

A case of 12 8oz mango Noosa yogurts for $2 and 1/2 gallons of 2% organic  cream on top milk for 50 cents each (both were delicious and splurges I could not afford at traditional grocery stores where 1 of those yogurts goes for over $2)

Terra Sweet Potato chips 3/$1, Garden of Eaten Blue Chips 99 cents, Popchips 2/$1

New to the concept of salvage grocery stores? Do a google search to see if there is one in your area or check out this site.

 Find one to check out? Here are a few tips for shopping at a salvage grocery store:

1. Check dates

Decide how comfortable you are with pasta a month past it's expiration date or a case of yogurt that will expire tomorrow. In my experience both of them will be used up before they go bad in my house but you may have a different opinion on that. I once found some Pace Salsa Verde for a great price, it expired the next month so I bought a couple of them, then bought a couple more on a later visit. I finally stopped buying them because they got discolored and they were so far out of date but the store still had them on their shelves 3.5 years later when we moved - yuck!

2. Know your prices

Most things are cheaper but I have found that some things are actually priced more expensively at salvage groceries than at traditional grocery stores.  

3. Don't be married to one brand.

Last time we went there we were hoping to get noosa yogurt but, sadly, there was none. What we did find was Stoneyfield Organic and Chobani yogurts for 99 cents each for 32oz. We're big fans of yogurt around here so we were thankful.

4. Try new things

Because of the cheap prices I am not afraid to try things that I would never pay full price for at a grocery store. I may never buy them again but at least we've tried them once.

5. Treat each visit like an adventure or a treasure hunt

Pretend you're grocery shopping in a foreign land. You never know what you are going to find. If you see something you like buy it because it might not be there next time. Don't get super disappointed if something that you were really hoping would be there isn't. It might be the next time. 

Five Minute Friday: In Between

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We have spent a lot of our life in between. Time in between engagement and marriage, in between the births of each of our children. In between living in one location and setting up a new life in new locations.

Right now we are in between having preschoolers and having teenagers. I love this stage of parenting... everyone is independant, can come up with their own creative things to keep them occupied but they haven't started the busy schedule that is being a teen in this country.

We are also on our LAST WEEKEND of our time in between medical school and residency. Yes, Glenn started orientation a little over 2 weeks ago but he doesn't start on the floors until Monday (6:45am in surgery if you are curious, not as early as I thought he might have to be there for his first day in surgery, maybe they're starting off early). I have loved this in between time. We have made so many fun family memories. We have had so much time with Glenn. It has been great. Sure we didn't get as much school work done as we maybe should have but we had time and experiences together that were priceless - worth much more than "school."

I'm thankful for our in between times. They haven't always been easy but God teaches us a lot in our times of transition. Each stage in our lives has been part of our training for what God has next for us. His schooling isn't always easy but He is always good.

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Linking up with Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday. Join me?

Third Time's the Charm?

On Friday night Caleb asked me, "Mom, what is that quote about third time something?" I told him "Third time's the charm." I know that he was thinking back to that day when we were homeless and living with Brian and Kristina when someone walked into their house while we were out front and took a bunch of stuff and that night, Glenn's birthday morning actually, just before we left Rochester when someone came in to our house while we were sleeping and, walking right past Abigail who wasn't feeling well and slept downstairs that night, took our laptop and Glenn's watch.

The quote may apply to us getting into medical school but I am not really sure that it applies to being robbed from. Friday night we decided to take Rahab with us to the concert on the green because friendly dogs were welcome and we wanted to try to socialize her a bit more. (Side note: I suppose I should blog Rahab's story but that will have to come another day.) When we got home we noticed that some lights were on that we hadn't left on and that sick feeling came. "Oh no, someone was in our house. I wonder how they got in, what they did in there, what all they took." Glenn saw that the back doors were both open (we had deadbolted both of them before leaving) and went immediately to our bedroom and saw that his Macbook Pro that he has just put away before we left since we never leave computers out when we go to sleep or go out anymore after robbery #2 was gone. There was also a pile of other things on our bed that they either decided weren't worth taking or were scared out of the house before they could grab them. We discovered that who ever it was came through a window that they busted the lock on and pushed the frame in.

Oh, yuck. I immediately called 911 and they told me that they'd send an officer over. Glenn texted one of his new intern friends that we had spent the evening at the park with and he and his wife came over to check on us and comfort us. That was nice. It's nice to have friends.

It feels so yucky to have your house broken into. It feels so yucky to have stuff taken from you but it wasn't the first time. That night Glenn posted this to his facebook which pretty much summed up how we were feeling:

"Somethings get easier the more often we go through them and we unfortunately discovered that having our house broken into and being stolen from is one of those things. It still feels like the violation that is and it still hurts. I think that I hurt a little less this time than last time. Though it does bring back painful flashbacks of the other times is also reminds us of God's amazing grace and provision in our lives and that as discussed last night with one of my fellow interns, it is hard to go from God will only bring/allow good into my life to God allows what is best for me and allows that into my life to what is in my life is what is best according to God (it was a more eloquent and deep conversation than this but I'm tired and still a little shocked). God is good and God's grace is sufficient for me (also so thankful for my fellow intern who came and checked on us with his wife. Friends are nice to have. Thanks God for friends.)

Whenever we go through trials we get together and make a list of things we can thank God for in the trial. This time I'm thankful:
* It wasn't the previous night when I was home alone with the kids and Glenn was at his retreat.
* many other things that could have been stolen weren't (maybe they aren't worth much to a thief but they are worth a lot to us)
* Rahab adopted us and she will, Lord willing, be a deterrent in future incidents and we don't have to go looking for a dog
 * We are all safe
* our memories of this past year can't be stolen even though most photographic evidence of it was stolen with the computer. (If a picture is worth a thousand words I better start writing about this past year quickly with all the pictures we lost - that's a lot of thousand words!)
* God is in control and He is good.
* faith filled words from my kids that night including: "God is always near even when you get robbed," "God is good (spoken through tears)" and "we always have Someone to be there with us."
* peace and comfort from the Comforter and God's Word.

I'm not sure what we are supposed to be learning in this third time. Here are a few possibilities:
* I need to back up my photos at least once a month so it's not as likely to ever lose 14 months of photos ever again. Oh it hurts to think about all the pictures from these crazy months of ours that we lost.
* I need to have an eternal perspective on things. The verse we are supposed to memorize this week in my Anything GMG online Bible study is 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 "For our LIGHT and MOMENTARY TROUBLES are achieving for us an ETERNAL GLORY that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen since what is seen is TEMPORARY but what is unseen is ETERNAL." A pretty timely verse, I think. In 100 years I'm not going to miss that laptop or those pictures at all. The only eternal things are the souls of people and the Word of God. I need to focus on those things.
* It has helped to change my perspective on the dog God gave us. Everyone else has been in love with her from day one but I have had a harder time adjusting to having a dog. She is a blessing and fun and I'm thankful for her even though she's mischievous and more work for me.
* God is preparing us for something. We got to hear a missionary speak the day before our break in and in her talk she mentioned being robbed from while on the mission field. I guess we just get to practice having that violated feeling here in the US before we get to experience it elsewhere. I can't think of any missionary friends of mine that haven't been stolen from.

My anxiety has been pretty bad this week. I've been scared to stay home but I've also been scared to leave the house. It's hard when I was initially really hoping we could just stay here all 4 years but I'm not sure if we are safe here. We've made additional precautions for safety and more are in the works and we aren't packing up right now by any means. God has been a great comfort to me this week bringing great songs and scriptures to mind to help me. He is good and does good.

I re-read most of chapter 2 "Content with Circumstances" in Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow out loud the other day. A few quotes jumped out at us:

"Our thought life - not our circumstances - determines whether we are content." 

"Paul instructs us to practice 'these things [in Phil.4].' What things?
* choosing to give our anxieties to God
* choosing to pray specifically
* choosing to be thankful
* choosing to dwell on the positive.
We are to practice substituting prayer for worry, the positive for the negative - and the God of peace will be with us! For the second time in this passage we see that the peace of God follows a choice to obey."

"My prayer has often been, 'God don't let my pain be wasted. Use it to conform me to Your image. Use it to teach me how to be content.'"

During our mystery months I read a book called Sifted: God's Scandalous Response to Satan's Outrageous Demand that I'd picked up for free on my Kindle app. Reading it really made me reconsider my view of trials and my view of God in my trials. Sitting down to try to finish up this blog post God reminded me of it and I thought I'd post a few things that I'd highlighted in it.

"Jesus doesn't reassure Peter that He will not allow this terrible thing to happen-instead, He tells him that He has prayed that his "faith may not fail" and "when you have turned back, [that you would] strengthen your brothers.' This 'sifting' is going to happen, it's going to happen with Jesus' permission, and it's going to happen for a reason." 

I'm reminded that when we decided to live here we were, at the end, deciding between 2 different places. We felt less safe at the other place so we decided to move here. God told us that neither place was right or wrong but that which ever one we chose there would be blessings and trials, there would just be different blessings and trials at each one... I guess this is one of the trials at this house. I guess I am grateful: God revealed to me that there would be trials, just as He told Peter of Satan's demand to sift him. He tells the truth. I can trust Him.

"All of the people and books and music and films you and I love the most are encrusted, like priceless jewels, with pain. Name something that captures your heart that was not formed by pain. It's ironic, of course, that pain repels us more fundamentally than anything else in life but it produces things that are magnetic to us. Why do we live in fear of pain while, at the same time, we find ourselves drawn to its 'produce' in the people and stories of our lives? And why does all great art, and why do all truly great people, seem positively marinated in pain?" 

hmmm... definitely something to think about. I don't like being "marinated in pain" but I do like the end result.

"God is unfailingly kind but only sporadically nice. That's true because the nature of His kindness is radically different from its popular shallow translations. Kindness isn't measured by the act but by its effect. It's hard to diagnose an action as "kind" except in retrospect, when you examine what it has produced in you."  

His perspective is totally different than mine.

"Faith never knows where it is being led but it loves and knows the One who is leading." ~ Oswald Chambers

"Sifting helps us to say good-bye to the inexplicable and unpredictable god of the nursery and say hello to the ferocious, tender, playful, and shrewd Lover that He really is - one glimpse of Him this way, and we are ruined for every other lesser god."

"we wrestle with despair expressly because control has been taken from us."  

OUCH, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. Oh yes, I like control too much. 

"Sifting alone has the power to reduce us to childlikeness, because it brutally wrests control from us and reminds us who is Lord. When control is a distant memory, only then do we understand the lordship of Jesus." "Children who are convinced their parents are strong, caring, and unconditionally for them spend very little time considering their fears."  

Oh, God, give me a childlike faith in You!

I think that I need to re-read that book again. Maybe even read it aloud as a family. We are in another season of sifting. Sifting is "the violent process of separating the useful from the unnecesary - the crushing and sorting of something whole for the purpose of isolating its nourishing core from the trappings that guard it."

"Sifting. Beat. Separate. Reveal."

Oh Lord, third time's the charm? May what is left from Your kind sifting be something that is nourishing to those I come in contact with. Use it for Your glory. I know that further sifting is needed in my heart. I know that, most likely, this is not the last time stuff will be taken from us. Please be at work in my heart that I will trust You more. You are good. You are strong. You are caring. You are unconditionally for me. I love You.

God Provided a Fridge for us

And here's a post about the fridge God provided for us in early May before we left on our most recent road adventure:

When we moved into the house we are renting we knew we were responsible for heating and air conditioning (still not sure what we are doing for either of those yet) and providing our own fridge.

Since we moved in we've been living out of a cooler and ice we've made in the chest freezer that we got from Glenn's grandparents back when Hannah was a baby.

We've been hounding craigslist and local used and new appliance stores for fridges. We ruled out buying new because we bought a new washer in Lowville and it got damaged in our move and doesn't really work right anymore. Also, the cheapest new fridge we could find was about $500 for a really small, basic fridge.

Glenn wanted to buy a fridge newer than 2002 because that is when energy star started and all fridges got more efficient after that time.

We've gone to see more fridges than I'd like to count. Most if the used appliance places were asking $200 & up for their fridges plus $40+ for delivery. Most of them were older than 2002. The cheaper ones were less than 18 cu ft.

Sunday we went to a warehouse full of used appliances and talked with a guy about buying a fridge from him for $250 plus delivery. It was an ok fridge, nothing flashy but it was 2005, supposedly, and about 20 cu ft.

While we were in the parking lot a guy from Craigslist called back about his 5 year old 24 or 26 cu ft fridge. We arranged to go see it after the kids program at church finished up. He had it posted on Craigslist for $200 but he really just wanted it out of his garage because his wife had upgraded their kitchen to stainless steel and told us "I'll let you have it for $75 if you'll just get it out of here."

So, yesterday, we took the seats out of the van, rented an appliance dolly from uhaul, and went picked up our $75 gift from God fridge.

Bonus features of the fridge:
- filtered water dispenser inside the fridge (Glenn really didn't want a through the door dispenser but had always liked the inside the fridge dispenser idea and this fridge has it. I think it's the only one we've looked at that did.)
- the plastic drawers and bins and glass shelves are easy to remove and rearrange
- there's an ice maker. This wasn't a priority for us and I'm not sure if we'll use it but it'll be nice to have if we're having a party.
- it's pretty big. I wanted at least 18 cu ft and God gave us 24 or 26.

Thanks, God, for a new to us fridge for $75. You are so generous!

Five Minute Friday: Friend

Glenn's grandpa complained to me recently that I haven't posted in a long time so I looked at my computer and discovered 2 posts that I wrote but neglected to publish from sometime in the past... here is one.

from 4/26/13

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I'm new here. Being new here is kind of lonely. I have a friend here. I met her back in November at the GMHC. She doesn't live in Fort Worth. She lives in Dallas. She and her family have let us crash at her house for most of this month while we have been looking for a place to live in Fort Worth. She's moving. To India. In early June.

I am so grateful for Melissa and Cristo and their generous hospitality. I'm thankful for my first friends in the DFW area. I hope that we can go to visit them in India sometime during our second year of residency when they are at their hospital and done with language school and I'm glad that we will still be here when they come back for their first furlough. I hope that we can imitate them in many of their choices that they made through residency and beyond. Their faith and the example of their faithfulness to following God's call on their lives is a great challenge and encouragement to us.

So, I'm moving into a house in Fort Worth on Tuesday. Lord willing we will make friends. I have 

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