The Great Move of 2008

Last Tuesday was a big day for us. We closed on 2.5 acres in Granbury, Texas. Why? We're moving, or at least that's the plan.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back in December we started talking about leaving Austin. With my new job I can pretty much work anywhere in the world and Amy can always get a job as a teacher. We talked about moving BACK to the Houston area, and as much as we miss our family and friends, it didn't feel like home. (Truth be told, when we moved back from Hawaii in 1997, our plan had always been to move back to Houston to get our feet on the ground and then go "home", where ever that ended up being. 10 years later we moved to Austin.)

Then, during a "piping" session on the back porch with Granddaddy and Uncle Lance, the prospect of Fort Worth came up. Interesting. My company has a pretty big office there and it is growing. We also have family in the area (Lance and Elise and family). After some chats with Amy and some prayer, we modified the idea just a bit and started to think about Granbury - only 30 miles SW of Fort Worth.

In 2002, we walked a raw piece of earth for the first time in a development called Grand Harbor right on Lake Granbury. There was no house and it was far away from home (Houston at the time) and we were on our way to Kansas for Spring Break so we congratulated Granddaddy on his new purchase and hit the road.

By the Summer of 2003, he had sold that property and had purchased two lots right on the water with a nice little 3 bedroom cabin already built. 2003 was an interesting year because it was our 10-year anniversary, it was the year we stopped going to the "Heart of My Heart" ranch in Round Top, Texas for family gatherings (opting for Granbury instead), and it was the year we both lost our maternal grandmothers within a span of a few weeks.

It was 700 miles from our front porch to Iola, KS, where Grandma Weseloh lived. It was 700 miles from our front porch to Perryton, TX, where Grandma Barclay lived. We drove 2 round trips for each grandmother that summer - one to say goodbye, and one to attend the funeral. In the case of Grandma Barclay, we were pulling into the driveway after saying goodbye when we got the call that the end was nearing. So we did laundry and turned right back around.

For both funerals, we used Granbury as a stopping off point - to gather ourselves before returning to Houston and the real world. It was a chance to sit on the back porch, watching and listening to the lake, and to reflect and mourn.

For me, the Summer of 2003 cemented Granbury in my heart as the closest thing to home that I'd known.

Now, five years later, we're moving there. A few weeks after we started to talk about and look at land for sale, my company started commenting on how they would really like for me to live closer to an office. I wasn't about to move to California, so it looked like God was nudging us closer to Fort Worth.

We looked at one piece of land literally across the street from Grandmommy and Granddaddy's lake house that had a great view of the lake, but people had already bought it and started building shortly thereafter. Then we looked at a piece of land that was down the street, but still within walking distance.

The land reminded me at first of the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. You know the one I'm talking about. We walked that land up and down for an entire weekend. It was about 500 or so feet wide and only 160 feet deep. It sloped from north to south. The more we walked it, the more we fell in love with this land that just needed a little love and attention.

Then, we stumbled upon a stock pond in the back corner of the lot. It was surrounded by trees, so it was not easily noticed from the street. We had been driving past the lot for five years, and it had been for sale for much of that time - and we never knew there was a pond back there.

The pond drains down the backside of the lot, down a ravine lined with natural stone that had been placed there years ago to control the erosion. If you stop and listen, you can hear the water running underneath the stones as it makes it's way to the lake, and ultimately to the Brazos River - right through Sugar Land, TX.

It took about two months to nail down a deal with the seller, but we did. It culminated last Tuesday and this weekend we worked on our land for the first time. We could have probably paid somebody to move some rocks around to prevent erosion on the front of the lot, but it felt good to work the land.

This Friday is a big day for us as well. We're putting our house our house here in Pflugerville on the market. It's a leap of faith, really. Faith that we'll start building in Granbury in the next month or so. Faith that our house will sell before we want to move into the new house. Faith that Amy will find a teaching job in Granbury. Faith that I will continue to have a successful and rewarding career with my current company. Faith that we'll find a good church family in Granbury. Faith that Granbury is where God wants us to be. Faith...

I met a man last week. He is 67 years old and "retired". He used to have the biggest window washing company in Austin until he sold it to retire. Now he cleans windows on his own when the right job finds him. He works at HEB to be around people. He has his own photography business and wants to move into videography...

He came by the house last week to give me a quote on the windows. He told me that in the few years he's been doing this since for the stager we worked with that he's done hundreds of homes and they have all sold. We talked for a good hour - he was such a godly and gracious man that I just listened to him. At the end before we parted ways, he told me that he was going to take $50 off the price on one condition:

"That you call me when your house sells. Then I'll know I can take it off my prayer list."