New House and New JOB!!!

June was a weird month for us.  It was one of those periods in life where everything seems to happen by accident at exactly the right time and in exactly the right order!  For our entire married life, we've sort of been "on hold" waiting for me to graduate.  Everything was talked about in terms of future plans and we were afraid of making anything too permanent before I finished my degree.  This summer, however, it was like the puzzle pieces finally just fell together by themselves and we have definitely seen the Lord's hand in our lives.

After I'd graduated and we got home from Vegas, we knew the next step was job and house hunting.  I put in my application for a few high school positions and kept my eyes open for the one I really wanted at Franklin.  We started checking out house listings and couldn't really make up our minds on a price range, let alone a house!  We weren't sure how much house to buy; we were hoping for me to get a job but not sure, and not sure if we wanted to become dependent on two incomes.  It was really confusing and we had a dark week or two when all we felt was confusion and discouragement on both the house and job front.

Then things started happening really quickly.  The job at Franklin was posted, which I quickly applied for, and Jake stumbled across a listing for a house for rent.  We weren't really looking to rent but something prompted him to call.  He found out that this family had been trying to sell the house for a year and needed to rent it right away until they could sell.  We met with the lady a few days later and she agreed to take the house off the market and give us a year to decide if we want to buy it. 

It was a perfect situation.  We were leery about buying until we knew if I'd have a job, but really wanted a place of our own, and this house is wonderful!  I will post pics in a few days (I hope).  It's only 13 years old and is a three bed, two bath home on 1/2 acre in town.  We live in a quiet little neighborhood and have a great new ward.  The best part is that the lot goes right back to the river, so we have an incredible view! (And yes, we put up a fence first thing.  Totally useless, because my kids love the front yard and rarely go in back!)

We signed the lease and started moving that weekend.  I got called for an interview at Century High and decided I'd better take it, but I was still confused since I really felt like I was supposed to work at Franklin.  At the last minute, the Century interview was postponed, and I was called for a Franklin interview the next day!  Long story short, I interviewed at Franklin, got the job teaching 8th grade English, and ended up canceling my interview at Century.  I interviewed once and got the job-I have a 100% interview success rate :)

It was a huge relief for us.  All summer long I've had this image in my mind of Heavenly Father putting together the massive puzzle that is our life, and every time something crazy happened, it's almost like I can see him picking up a piece and putting it exactly where it goes.  We really felt like the house was right for us but would have made us really tight on Jake's income alone, so when I got hired, everything made sense  We are grateful that we followed the promptings we both received and are loving our new life!