A cute little pink house

Our house is back on the market after lots of hard work recently by Doug and friends from a partnering church in Dallas. On Friday, I found this picture in my inbox. You do notice the shutters, right? Several friends put them up as a final finishing touch. It all came back to me. I really liked this house when we bought it. The shutters came off when we endured the major unexpected bathroom remodel in the first months of our "ownership". They had been stashed safely in the shed for five years.

Now a little trip down memory lane ... I was pregnant with Zach when we closed on the house in January 2005 while Sam had just turned 1 the month before. Because of the bathroom damage we found upon arrival, our moving in was delayed until March. Without the help of Doug's dad and his wife, we would have been totally up a creek without a paddle. Our church pitched in with a workday to help paint everything but the bathroom and get us in faster. I can recall many men who graciously showed up to complete specific jobs in those early months. Amazing community stuff when you feel more grateful than deserving. Then the end of May came and Zach arrived! And, yes, I did say this was 2005 ... Katrina turned our life really upside down at the end of that August. Mind you, our house was high and dry through the storm. Two trees crisscrossed on our roof causing damage but honestly their cover kept the water damage to a minimum. A new roof arrived in October and we felt God's grace in the midst of so much yuck all around our city. We were happy when 2006 rolled around. It had been quite a year.

So as I look at this picture of our cute little pink house with the green shutters, I'm reminded that it served us well in the midst of its own neglect and survival-mode as we focused our attention on hurricane relief/recovery and raising our little ones. Finally, it (mostly) looks like what we envisioned it could become when we became the proud owners five years ago. Just in time for new owners to fix it the way they want it. Wink.