When you don't have water.....Blog

The beginning of the first winter storm. We ended up with 10" by day two.

I finally feel ready to blog again. It's kind of like when you know you need to get up and exercise but you just don't feel like it, but once you do it you're like, "That felt so good." Not to mention the fact that when you don't have running water for 5 days you run out of things to do.

I love to journal and write, but I've taken a few months off. Why? Because I just haven't been able to get my thoughts together. Life has taken a very new course for us and I am still trying to catch up to it.

Jarrod wrote a post a couple of months ago on Reconciliation. It was beautiful, and my sentiments, exactly. So I won't be a copy-cat. However, let me just say that when families let down their guard and choose love over pride, God smiles.

I have promised on Facebook to post pics of our new home, our family and tell you the miracles that God has done (is doing) in our family. I'm so glad it's Christmas because I get to show off our home at such a wonderful time of the year. I want to post pics but because we live so high up in the mountains (7000 ft.) we can only get dial-up, yes DIAL-UP, for Internet and just these three pics took about 3 yrs. to upload. Not really. Now, if I go to the ol' library with my nifty flash drive I can post pics easily but that would mean bundling up and driving on the snow-packed roads to get to town. Nah, I'll just tell you about our wonderful home.

Ready for Christmas...Yeah, I love this place.

Well, it's a dream come true, really. In September, after living with family for three months, I "happened" upon this home online. Neither Jarrod or myself had even considered the mountains because of the price of homes as well as not knowing where he would end up working. However, after searching what seemed to be every single residential street in Albuquerque for decent, no GOOD, housing, I took a chance and told Jarrod about my find. So, one day, when we just needed some family time, we took the address and headed to the Sandia Mountains to check this place out. Inside I was saying, "Don't do it. You're gonna fall in love with this place." Then, "I bet the pictures make it look great, but it's gonna be a dump."
We got to Tijeras and stopped at a Western Feed Store to ask for directions because most of these mountain roads are not on a normal map. This very nice teenager pulled out an East Mountain street map, a map that we now own. It took quite some time, but he and Jarrod finally found the street. About 15 minutes later we pulled into the driveway and all five of us gasped and smiled and clapped and shouted! It was so obvious that it was HOME! Two weeks dragged on and we came back to it a couple of times and just prayed for God to bless us with this place...a two-story cabin on 4 acres of wooded land, two beautiful fountains, a covered porch and back deck with a hot tub...We felt like we didn't deserve such a wonderful home, but dared to ask for it anyway. But God was anxious to tell us, "It's yours."

"Welcome Home, Flaming family, Welcome Home"

October 1st we moved in. Ever since moving-in day I have felt like this is my home. It's us. We belong here. The mountains are incredible. The first week we saw a white owl perched on a wire above our driveway; salamanders were growing in the little fountain pond in the front; tons of birds flutter around the fountain to socialize; a cartoon-looking gray squirrel keeps Cookie busy; and at night you can hear coyotes howling in the distance.

Top 5 Things We've Learned about Mountain Living:
1. Cell phones get reception in the strangest places- like by the kitchen sink facing the window, in the middle of my bed if you lean to the right.
2. Unless you want to pay big bucks, good old fashioned "Dial-up" service is quite the rage for Internet use.
3. Cutting your own firewood on your property is free, and hauling it uphill results in weight loss.

4. When people say, "Now, you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, don't you?" they mean it. Time to sell the wimpy truck.
5. Rent before you buy...finding out what is wrong with a house and not having to pay for those repairs makes for a much more profitable transaction later on...

ie: ~Heating your home solely with wood is hard work. Next year we'll have the luxury of cutting wood BEFORE winter.
~Cracked shower base and pipes in upstairs bathroom that leaks into master bedroom, causing sheet rock to sag like a pregnant whale.
~Insulating the crawl space so your toes don't get frostbite when standing in the kitchen (or your heat doesn't escape directly to the great outdoors).
~Extensive repairs on the well that was not properly installed to begin with (I don't understand why people don't do things right the FIRST TIME!!!) so that you don't have to go 5 days without water in 10° snowy weather next winter.

Yes, those are just a few things we've been learning the past three months. Does it change my mind about these beautiful mountains? Not one bit! Inconvenience is endurable when you love where you live and make changes for the next time.

So next time I promise to get down to the good ol' library and upload some pics of our home and new pics of our fam.