new home owners!

I could be awarded “Worst Blogger of 2010” at this point, though I am trying to change my ways. Please bear with me as the past month has been a swirling whirlpool. Big news: This afternoon at 1:00 on the dot, Mark and I signed our names over thirty times to CLOSE ON OUR NEW HOUSE. That’s right, beginning March 1, 2010 Mark and Ginny Evans reside at 2337 Walker Avenue. That’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Can you believe it?? I can’t. So whereas I had become pretty adept at spinning too many plates (jobs, writing, Young Life, etc.) they just about came crashing down these past few weeks as we approached this most fateful day. And even now, as I sit in the airport in Raleigh, NC waiting to fly to Chicago (a whole other story), the relief is washing over me like a cool shower after a long summer run. It’s beautiful. For the first time in a week, it’s even sunny outside.

We closed with an attorney named Steve who looks like a skinny Santa Claus with a shorter beard and when he walked out to the waiting room where Mark, the owners, our realtor and theirs, were waiting, I thought he was someone there to fix the roof. He wore jeans and a camouflage fleece vest, has a giant gap between his two teeth and sort of stared at us with this bewildered look on his face. He used expressions including “wild ass guess” and “you can sign this, we’re just killin’ trees.” Made us laugh a lot and explained the ins and outs of the documents we signed. All told, we sat there for about fifty minutes and walked out of the office on Knollwood with a set of keys to our new bungalow!

Flying out of Raleigh (1 ½ hours away) at 5:30, we had to beat it out of there, but decided to detour to our NEW HOME, find a bottle of champagne at the front door, unlock the doors, cross the threshold for the first time (I was carried) and run through every room screaming. It was a moment to remember and now we’re home-owners. You are welcome to come visit! Yes, you!

As we have approached this day, furiously packing boxes and cleaning out the freezer, buying large expensive appliances and changing our address on important documents, there has been a small bit of sadness at leaving 519 Lockland Ave. And though there have been times I was so mad at the broken sink for the eleventh time, the flying June bugs, and the thin walls, neighbors pumping the bass I could have spit, we have loved that little apartment. So long as it isn’t ever condemned, I will treasure some day taking my kids to see the 700 square feet where Dad and I once lived for 11 months when we were first married… the yellow scaffolding and crumbling porch, the sloping driveway halved by stones and the great maple in the sideyard that turns firey orange in October.

That said, 2337 Walker, here come the Evans. Please make room for us and open your arms because the life that you are about to witness is going to be something else.