You know when there is something that you feel you need to talk about but it just seems too awkward... like the elephant in the corner?...
.
Well, there has been an elephant in the corner of my mind since our 4th anniversary. I have found out that the elephants name is Blessings. Blessings has actually been living in my mind since I was born, but he has been doubling in size lately. There have been times in my life when I was pretty sure Blessings had died... but be would always re-appear.
I don't write about Blessings today to make you jealous of him or for you to compare your blessings to my Blessings... I merely have felt the need to make him known just so I won't forget about him when I think he has died.
I have a tendency of joking about serious things....but the rest is not a joke.
While we were at the Alderwood mall on the morning of our 4th anniversary Jake received a phone call from his friend/fellow agent. Jake actually started his career in insurance because this friend offered him a job...and things progressed from there.
After a year of long hours and hard work Jake was able to become his own agent and have his own office. The only office space left available in Pierce county was the Tacoma office. Tacoma is so large that is has 7 different districts. A majority of those districts I avoid for my own well being. Since Jake's agency opened in November 2008, we have seriously contemplated moving to Tacoma because the traffic was becoming to be too much.
We met in the middle. That's when we moved into this house in May 2009. We just moved closer to the freeway (really close!) That cut our commute time from 50 minutes to 30. For the past 15 months I have wished that someday we could move back to where we were. I didn't wish for the commute back, but I wished to have the miles and miles of sidewalks and safer streets for raising a family.
We have tried to justify that commute but inevitably we would find ourselves searching in Tacoma... because that's where work was.
Then that phone call came on our anniversary. The agent Jake used to work for had resigned and his office space was available. If Jake moved his agency to that office, he could have all of his old customers back and be less than 20 minutes from our old neighborhood. Its hard to describe what a blessing this was. The Tacoma offices' lease was up in April 2011 and it would become too expensive to renew, so Jake had been in search of a new office anyway. Plus, most of the office spaces Jake was interested in, were farther away from home.
After talking it over with his staff, they made the move last week. Of course there are a million kinks and things to work out, but what a blessing it has been.
And if we rewind to 3 years ago: Jake and I had just bought a townhouse in Payson Utah. We had only been living there for about 2 months when we made the 14 hour trek up to Washington to visit his family. It was July. It was green, beautiful, and not a thousand degrees like Utah was. I immediately wanted to move to Washington.
But what about the townhouse we just bought? What about the construction business he and his friend had? What would Jake do for a living in Washington? Something inside of me didn't worry about the answer to those questions. We called our real estate agent while we were still in Washington and had her put our house on the market. We had an offer before we were even home. Once we got back to Utah we had accepted a different offer and I was packing my bags. About a month and a half later the house closed and we were driving a Penske truck across Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Once we were in Washington Jake started up his own construction company and had a remodeling job right away (luckily it was one his dad referred to him).
From nail bags to laptops. 3 months later Jake was in a shirt and tie selling insurance. Miracles happen. Little did we know, the construction industry and housing markets tanked within months of our move. If that was the only major blessing we would have ever experienced, I still would have considered my life extremely blessed.
Ever since we moved to Washington we have been in search of a house. Luckily (due to the lack of experience in Jake's new line of work) we have not been able to qualify for a loan. We did not realize that this was a blessing until lately. Of course we knew that the housing prices were coming down.... but that's why we wanted to buy a house then. They have steadily decreased and are lower than we ever imagined. It will still be some time before we can buy a home, but at least we aren't stuck in a house with negative equity....and the fact that Jake's office just moved.
But the biggest blessing of all is our little Everett. I am not emotionally capable, nor do I have the words, to describe what a blessing he is. I am amazed at all we have been blessed with.
Plus, Everett slept the entire time I was writing this. Another blessing.
I don't write about Blessings today to make you jealous of him or for you to compare your blessings to my Blessings... I merely have felt the need to make him known just so I won't forget about him when I think he has died.
I have a tendency of joking about serious things....but the rest is not a joke.
While we were at the Alderwood mall on the morning of our 4th anniversary Jake received a phone call from his friend/fellow agent. Jake actually started his career in insurance because this friend offered him a job...and things progressed from there.
After a year of long hours and hard work Jake was able to become his own agent and have his own office. The only office space left available in Pierce county was the Tacoma office. Tacoma is so large that is has 7 different districts. A majority of those districts I avoid for my own well being. Since Jake's agency opened in November 2008, we have seriously contemplated moving to Tacoma because the traffic was becoming to be too much.
We met in the middle. That's when we moved into this house in May 2009. We just moved closer to the freeway (really close!) That cut our commute time from 50 minutes to 30. For the past 15 months I have wished that someday we could move back to where we were. I didn't wish for the commute back, but I wished to have the miles and miles of sidewalks and safer streets for raising a family.
We have tried to justify that commute but inevitably we would find ourselves searching in Tacoma... because that's where work was.
Then that phone call came on our anniversary. The agent Jake used to work for had resigned and his office space was available. If Jake moved his agency to that office, he could have all of his old customers back and be less than 20 minutes from our old neighborhood. Its hard to describe what a blessing this was. The Tacoma offices' lease was up in April 2011 and it would become too expensive to renew, so Jake had been in search of a new office anyway. Plus, most of the office spaces Jake was interested in, were farther away from home.
After talking it over with his staff, they made the move last week. Of course there are a million kinks and things to work out, but what a blessing it has been.
And if we rewind to 3 years ago: Jake and I had just bought a townhouse in Payson Utah. We had only been living there for about 2 months when we made the 14 hour trek up to Washington to visit his family. It was July. It was green, beautiful, and not a thousand degrees like Utah was. I immediately wanted to move to Washington.
But what about the townhouse we just bought? What about the construction business he and his friend had? What would Jake do for a living in Washington? Something inside of me didn't worry about the answer to those questions. We called our real estate agent while we were still in Washington and had her put our house on the market. We had an offer before we were even home. Once we got back to Utah we had accepted a different offer and I was packing my bags. About a month and a half later the house closed and we were driving a Penske truck across Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Once we were in Washington Jake started up his own construction company and had a remodeling job right away (luckily it was one his dad referred to him).
From nail bags to laptops. 3 months later Jake was in a shirt and tie selling insurance. Miracles happen. Little did we know, the construction industry and housing markets tanked within months of our move. If that was the only major blessing we would have ever experienced, I still would have considered my life extremely blessed.
Ever since we moved to Washington we have been in search of a house. Luckily (due to the lack of experience in Jake's new line of work) we have not been able to qualify for a loan. We did not realize that this was a blessing until lately. Of course we knew that the housing prices were coming down.... but that's why we wanted to buy a house then. They have steadily decreased and are lower than we ever imagined. It will still be some time before we can buy a home, but at least we aren't stuck in a house with negative equity....and the fact that Jake's office just moved.
But the biggest blessing of all is our little Everett. I am not emotionally capable, nor do I have the words, to describe what a blessing he is. I am amazed at all we have been blessed with.
Plus, Everett slept the entire time I was writing this. Another blessing.