Move along, now…

Well, we did it! It’s been a little over a month and I still can’t believe that we have sold our beach house and are awaiting a new house in Georgia to be built. It is amazing to me that so much can happen in such a short period of time. It’s been a rough ride, for sure, but one that will end up being good. The journey will be worth it.

I have been pretty emotional about leaving my happy place – a place that we have loved for so long now. Panama City Beach – oh, how I love you. But, the things that I so loved about the beach started to somehow slip down the list and I realized that the most important things to me should be moved up to the top. When you live at the beach, you slowly quit feeling like you are at the beach. Does that make sense? We found ourselves living a life that wasn’t as exciting or fun anymore. We quit daydreaming about being on the beach or riding on the boat. We stopped getting excited. We haven’t really been on a true vacation in four years. I know, I know – COVID messed us all up. But it taught me that being at the beach full time was not what I wanted. Our dreams were for me to retire and be at the beach house every other week. We would be sharing our time in PCB with time in Atlanta near our family. Even though Larry’s kids and grandkids live further away, we would still be six hours closer to them too.

It was the perfect plan until it wasn’t. I retired January 1, 2020. Can you imagine a worse time to retire? If only I knew then what we all know now…

Last fall, I started to feel very homesick and missed our family and friends. I talked to Larry about finding a small house in Georgia to buy and keeping the beach house so that we could live out our dream of being at the beach every other week instead of the full time beach living that COVID had thrown us into.

We prayed that we would find the house of our dreams in Georgia and headed out to look. We didn’t tell anybody. Larry had found a house plan on Zillow that was being built in the area that we decided we wanted to live so we set out to take a look at it. The house was one that we both loved but that particular builder doesn’t let the buyer pick out any of the things that go into the interior house design. Such as countertops – they must be granite and that wasn’t in my plan. I am a not a very picky person and my design style tends to be ‘less is more’ which I didn’t think would be a problem. After all, butcher block is way cheaper than granite. And, I love quartz and we were very willing to pay for it. He just wouldn’t let us. Anyway, on with the story. We decided that wasn’t the house for us and that we needed to find a custom builder.

In February, 2022, we found one. He promised we could build the house of our dreams and that I could pick out every single thing that I wanted. We had a prayer to make sure we were doing what the Lord wanted us to do, hired the custom builder, bought house plans, and planned on living in our motor home at the beach until the first of next year. On May 9, 2022, we sold our beach house and moved to a camp ground in Panacea, Florida. We were very excited and full of hopes and dreams.

After we had our design plan meeting with the builder’s wife, all of those plans fell through. The so called “custom builder” took our house plans and threw them out the window and told us that our plans were only a guide. He had taken all of the things we loved so much about the house out and we realized that he was planning to build a house that we would not have recognized in the end. Thank the good Lord, who watches over us every single minute, that we found out before he broke ground that so many things were wrong with that plan. We were able to part ways with that guy and get our deposit back in full. THANK YOU, LORD.

However, that threw us in a tail spin to find a new builder and some land. And, as you all know, the housing market is not the best for a buyer right now and there was no land to be found. Even if we would have found a couple of acres to buy, the whole process of permitting takes 90 days and that would have put us well into next spring before we would have been able to move in. SO, we started looking at houses that were on the market. No luck. None. We found two houses that we were not at all happy with.

But, the Lord had a plan for us.

After we fired the “custom builder” and we found ourselves trying to find a house, we remembered the little neighborhood that had the dream house that we had looked at while it was being framed up. We contacted our real estate agent and found out that there were two houses left in the neighborhood to be sold but we would have to be under contract within 48 hours and close before the last day of June. It was now May 23. On top of that, not only could we not pick out any of the things that were going to be put in the house, we now could not even pick out colors of the things that are going to be put in the house. UGH! But, there was no other choices in the area that we wanted to live in.

Moving along…we decided to go ahead and buy the house because we can change out the things we don’t want. It was cheaper than the “custom built” home that we were going to buy and the interior design plan is one we can live with for a little while and we both love the exterior. We are set to close on the house on June 29.

God is good. We are both thankful that he had a plan for us.

Since then, we have sold our motor home and are living between Larry’s mom’s house and my brother’s house. We are homeless but we have each other and Lola and we have a lot to be thankful for. We can’t wait to get into our own place again and we look forward to getting things like we want them. For now, we are back to day dreaming about vacations and going to the beach. As a matter of fact, we leave tomorrow morning for Tybee Island, Georgia! Yes, there are other beaches to see. How did we forget that?

Thank you, Lord, for protecting us from a house that would have ended up being a disaster. Thank you, Lord, for helping us find another one – and it must be the one you had planned for us the entire time. Thank you, Lord, that we have each other and Lola. Thank you, Lord, for getting us back home and closer to our family.

Until next time…