I Hate Roller Coasters

Actually, I enjoy riding roller coasters at amusement parks. There's something in the thrill of going up slowly and then falling at crazy fast speeds. However, riding this particular roller coaster is not my favorite. How many ups and downs can there possibly be in a year? God has a plan.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. 

Plans to give you hope and a future." 

Jeremiah 29:11

Let's start at the beginning. Sitting at my Thirty One booth at the Swift County Fair in August, we decided to start looking at houses in the Appleton/Milan area. Why look at houses when there is nothing wrong with our house? Well, Appleton has always seemed more like "home" to me, as that is where I grew up. Appleton is where church is, so that is another big reason. Our home in Madison is very nice and we have done a ton of work to it, but it is just a little too small for what we want when we have a family. So, why not look and move before we have a family?

We saw a house posted for sale by the owner. We went and looked at it and loved it! We put in an offer and they accepted it-contingent on the sale of our home. We quickly posted our house for sale by owner as well. I like this part of the roller coaster. Things are going well, and it is an exciting time. A short time later, the sellers informed us they went with a different couple's same offer, except they didn't have to sell a house first. So, they could close sooner than us. There goes our shot at that cute little house in Appleton. What's God's plan now?

On the first day of school, the choir director and I are walking outside to transfer some new curriculum from his car to mine. We walk out the door and I say, "What the heck?!" I notice my car has been hit pretty significantly. There is no note and nobody in the office knew what happened. I talk to our technology person and he starts looking through camera footage. Meanwhile, I take the vehicle to Tofte Auto. The damages keep adding up. Because it was over $4,000 worth of damage, I have to file a police report. So, I go to the Sheriff's office and do that. The camera footage is emailed to me. Who is that driving? Everything's good, we figure it out and Equinox gets fixed.

Throughout September, we continue looking at houses in the Appleton/Milan area. Nothing really stands out. But that's okay. We aren't in a huge hurry to move. We continue showing our house in Madison and hope it sells. A week after my car got hit, Gary and I were driving in to the Lac qui Parle County Fair. If you are familiar with the fair, we were driving South in front of the building where WD Tours' booth is. Someone started backing out as we were driving by them. 2nd vehicle taken to Tofte's in two weeks.

October: We find a gorgeous house in Milan and negotiate with the seller. We agree on an offer and sign the purchase agreement. That same day, my grandpa goes in for a minor surgery and has complications. I never thought I would watch someone I love leave this earthly life and enter Heaven. After all, my grandparents aren't "that old" yet. But there I found myself in the St. Cloud Hospital watching him do just that. I got the phone call that he was being taken by ambulance from Willmar because it was too foggy for the helicopter to take him. At the time, I was busy at LqPV with homecoming festivities. As the student council advisor and band director, homecoming week is a crazy time. I left and trusted the band to the choir director, and I knew the dance would go off without a hitch in the hands of the chaperones. After taking our dog to the kennel, we were off to St. Cloud. Some of my extended family was there when we arrived and some came throughout the night and early the next morning. It's crazy how fast that weekend went. We left without an important member of the family and some things will never be the same. God has a plan.

The day of his visitation, we listed our house with a realtor. Hopefully we get more showings now!

At the funeral, my dad spoke. His speech was centered around the theme of "God Has a Plan". Isn't it so true that He always has a plan, but we might not understand what it is at a given point in time?

November and December seem to go quickly. Our realtor shows our house a number of times. How come we aren't getting any offers?! God has a plan.

December: There are what seems to be never ending questions at school about our band trip to Disney. Why aren't you flying, why are you using that bus company, since when do bus companies book the St. Louis Arch and Grand Ole Opry tickets, why are they booking the hotel and not you? Because that's what a good tour company does (and no there is not a "booking fee" for doing this-we paid no extra for these "services"). The questions seemed never ending. At this point, I wasn't confident we would ever get to Disney World. I hate this roller coaster.

January: We FINALLY get offers on our house! Yes, multiple offers. This is the fun part of a roller coaster, and we are in control. One was a cash offer for higher than asking price. They did not want an inspection. Actually, they never even stepped foot in our house! The showing was a video walkthrough. The buyer wanted us to owner finance part of her cash offer. The whole situation seemed kind of sketchy to us and the realtor. So, we go back to the lower, financed offer. We negotiate and accept an offer!

So, we can start getting the appraisal and inspection done on the house we are purchasing in Milan. As we are going through the inspection, it is clear the house is significantly older than it was listed at. We were told it was built in 2005. The furnace was clearly older than that. We get out to the garage and the inspector says, "These garage door openers say 1995". The more he looked through the house, the clearer it was that it was not built in 2005. There was significant water damage on most of the windows. Do we still want this house? Let's try to renegotiate with the seller.

At this point, we had been trying to start a family for quite some time. We were so excited to find out in early January that we were finally going to be parents! It's amazing how much one could plan, save pins on Pinterest, add things to my "Favorites" on Etsy, and grow more and more in love each day with a baby we hadn't even seen yet. We quickly realize this baby is going to be born the end of September-prime homecoming preparation time. How is that going to work out? God has a plan.

January 20th: as I am sitting at Nancy's funeral (dear friend, neighbor growing up, basically a third grandma to me, piano teacher), I could feel something wasn't right. I remember thinking to myself during the song "How Great Thou Art", something isn't right. Is it just this song bringing back emotions from my grandpas funeral? Music has a funny way of doing that. That must be it. Everything's okay.

We go to the luncheon after the funeral and walk back to our house. Something still doesn't seem right. When we get home, we only have about an hour before we have to head to Marshall to attend an honor band some of my students participated in. That hour was a blur because it was clear we had a miscarriage.

What now? Do I need to go to the ER? Do we call our parents? We went to Marshall. I remember running in to a former co-worker from Edgerton and we started chatting. Of course the question of "How are you doing?" came up. It took everything in my power not to break down and tell her right there. Our parents didn't even know yet, so I couldn't tell someone else could I? To be honest, I have no idea how that concert went. My mind was racing. I remember looking things up online the whole way home. Do I really need to go to the doctor? 

The next morning, I didn't want to go to church. How could a God who loves me so much do this? Doesn't He understand I've always dreamed of being a mom? It seems like everyone I know is having kids. Anyone who knows me knows I always have everything planned out. This whole 'not having a plan work out thing' was not working for me. I call the hospital. They ask several questions and decided I do not need to go in to the ER. I'll see a family doctor tomorrow.

Not even an hour later, I get a text from one of my best friends. "I have something to tell you" is all it said. I asked what it was. When she said, "Well, do you really want me to text it?" I just broke in to tears because I knew what it was. She calls via video chat and knows instantly something is wrong. So, we tell her. She didn't want to tell us her news then...they are expecting! Of course I am happy for them, but really God? Why now? A couple weeks later she finds out the due date...September 26...the exact same as ours. WHY?! I hate this roller coaster.

I go to the clinic. They measure every level possible. My numbers are not going down as fast as they thought. Maybe it wasn't a miscarriage? {Insert a ray of light here}. Nope, after two more visits, it was confirmed we had a miscarriage. The bill from these tests certainly didn't help. Having to pay a significant amount of money just to find out you lost a baby stinks!

The next day, our realtor calls to let us know that the buyers of our house have pulled their offer. WHAT?! They were not willing to share why at all. There were some bogus reasons (like trim was not put up on a corner of a boxed in wall that we added). I remember hanging up with our realtor, throwing my phone on the floor and crying out "WHY?!" Is anything ever going to go right? How could this be part of the plan?

February: Appleton Building Center goes out to check the windows of the house in Milan. To fix the windows properly, all the siding would need to be taken off. Total estimate: $32,000-$40,000. We can't afford that, so we signed a cancellation of purchase agreement. I am told I will be granted tenure at the end of the year. That's great!

March: Now I'm not being hired back next year? I start looking for another job. I even debate looking outside of the education field. At the time, there was no band position posted within a two hour radius of home. Why didn't I accept the job I applied for the day after I interviewed for my current job? Because I knew my entire life I wanted to teach here. This is what I wanted, wasn't it? Why don't they want me here anymore? What did I do? Haven't I done literally everything (and more) that I've been asked to do? How can I fix something if nobody will tell me what I'm doing wrong? Does the chain of command even exist anymore? Is everyone really out to get me? No, they really aren't. God has a plan.

At the end of March, I take 19 students and 5 adults to Disney World. What an incredible trip! I knew all of the fundraising and hard work payed off when I asked parents what their child said was their favorite part of the trip. When they told the parents the music workshop was their favorite, I knew it was worth all of the questions and frustrations that led up to the trip. I can't wait to take more students again!

We get back from the trip of a lifetime, but wait...now I have my job again? Yay! But how can I trust again? I have no idea. As we know, trust is so hard to gain and so easy to lose. I just had to trust once again that God knows what He's doing. Lac qui Parle is where I've always wanted, and still want to be, so I trust God has a plan.

In March, we hear there is an elderly widow in Milan looking to sell her home. It's not listed with a realtor, so we connect with her. We found another house! Here we are on the fun part of the roller coaster. 

April: We have a number of showings before and after Easter. Someone is going to buy our house, right? I wish I would have kept track of how many showings we have had since we listed our home. It seems to go in streaks. For weeks at a time, there are no showings at all. And then all of a sudden there is 4-5 in a couple weeks. After 9 showings and every single one said something about the minor water in the basement, we decide to bite the bullet and get the basement waterproofed.

We bring in a local contractor, and he doesn't think a sump pump alone will fix it. So, we bring in the big guns and have Safe Basements out of Litchfield come out. We create a plan of adding drain tile, a trench line and a sump pump. $7,200 later our basement is much dryer than before. Maybe someone will buy it now?

April 12: Gary hits a deer and we are told the truck is totaled. Keep in mind we just bought this truck in October. A few days later, we find out it is not actually totaled. However, there is quite a bit of damage. We don't get the truck back until the beginning of May. 3rd vehicle taken to Tofte's this year.

May: Bring on the showings! Wait, why aren't we getting more showings? We finally accept an offer! We contact our lender and have them start working on a new file for the purchase of our home in Milan. I give them my card to pay for an appraisal. They check our credit, "Hey, your credit went up by 30 points!" How is that even possible? The only thing that changed was we stopped doing paperwork to buy a house. Things seem to be going well and we are on a fun ride.

May brings so much joy with graduation season. It's so fun to see the students getting excited and nervous for what's to come. This semester, I was fortunate to have two service students in my room third hour. One particularly stands out to me. She's going to Northern State University (where I went). We talk quite often about college, life, friends, high school drama, etc. It's so comforting to have students confide in you and trust your advice.

May 30: I receive a call from our realtor. Long story short, the buyers' realtor is convincing them and their lender that our home will not appraise for the price they are paying. Well-why didn't you negotiate that before?! And how do you know this without actually getting it appraised? Our realtor has no doubt it will appraise for the price. After all, we did just put in $7,200 worth of water proofing in the basement.

May 31: Teacher work day. I wait and see if there is any update from our realtor. No call. Is no news good news? I doubt it because I'm assuming it means she is connecting with everyone and anyone about how to fix this situation. Tonight we celebrate my dad's retirement from LqPV. No, he is not actually retiring from teaching, just from LqPV. I drove our truck today and Gary drove my Equinox because I had some patio furniture to bring out for dad's party. Shortly after the party gets started, Gary calls and said someone hit him. I didn't believe him right away because he's known for calling and joking about hitting a deer. Nope, he wasn't joking. Someone turned right out of the left turn lane and turned into my vehicle. Monday will make the 4th trip to Tofte's this year.

At the end of our workday, my service student brings in a gift from her and her family. It's a beautiful wall hanging that says "Amazing Grace". In the card, they wrote something along the lines how it reminded them of how I handled this year...with "Amazing Grace". {Cue the tears}. If they only knew how much that meant...thank you!

June 1: I go to the Como Zoo, Minnesota Capitol and US Bank Stadium with WD Tours. While on the Stadium Tour, the realtor calls. This can't be good. I text Gary and tell him that if he can call her to do that because our tour just started. Because the buyers' realtor has talked to the lender, the lender is now not willing to order their appraisal. They want us to pay for the appraisal of our own home. If not, they will not be buying our house. What do we do? So far we haven't done anything and don't know if we want to pay $500 or whatever cost for an appraisal on our home. Do we just do it so we know for sure what it appraises for? What's the plan? This roller coaster ride is sure getting old.

I held it together on the bus ride home, but I got in the car and just started crying. I once again found myself asking WHY?! I was mad about our house, mad that we just paid $500 to have the house we were going to purchase appraised, mad that we are not pregnant yet. As usual, I had Praise FM radio on. About halfway home, they said this prayer: "Lord, please be with those who are asking the question 'Why' right now. Help them to know and trust that you always have a bigger and better plan in mind. Give them peace and comfort knowing you are always on their side no matter what life throws their way." How crazy is that?! If that's not God I don't know what is.

As I write this, I am thinking about how busy summer is going to be. Today is my only open Saturday until July 14. The weekends are crazy! I'll be playing the National Anthem at a Twins game with some students, going to Hawaii, lake time, and a bachelorette party. Then it's an open weekend, followed by taking my cousin to camp, a wedding and then we're in to August with the county fair, state fair and school. Even though the weekends will be crazy busy, the week days should be okay. 

For now, we are working on enjoying this roller coaster called Life. I'm really hoping the roller coaster can turn more in to the small little dragon kind of roller coaster that's for kids at the fair, and less like the Wild Thing at Valleyfair. Just when I think the ride is over, there's another twist and turn. So for now, I'm going to buckle up, enjoy the ride and trust in God's plan and His timing.