Chocolate Castles as wel

Last night was the first night in our new place. Of course, we are still without furniture, but thank the Lord, air mattresses have come along way since we first “”camped out” in a new house before furniture is delivered. We are the proud owners of a house in an over 55 community. We like to think of ourselves as being one of the “”youngsters who will bring down the average age of the community”. In reaiity, I have already seen some who make me look like the matriarch, guess I had better catch up on the latest plastic surgery technology. Some of the women here are walking around with frozen smiles,due to the amount of Botox on their faces, with eyes that look like they couldn’t
Close if they had to. But, this little Southern girl is going to let my hair blow in the breeze, as we drive our cute little golf cart around, allowing the wrinkles around my eyes to flap in the wind, just like the wrinkles in my neck.
Yes, we got a golf cart and named it Wally. I told Randy that since he had let me name all our cars in the past,with girl names, I would let him have this one and he came up with Wally. I liked some of the suggestions I had shared with him, such as Tad, or Oliver, but he just rolled his eyes and said, it’s name is Wally, no more discussion. So as soon as Wally arrives this afternoon, we will be on our first little trip around the community. It is street legal, so we will probably drive it out the gate and over to Starbucks. This opens up a whole new world to us. We have already been invited to our first social here in the community tomorrow night to go with 5 other couples to dinner and an oldies concert. (I’m not sure if we are the oldies who will be singing or if they have a group that will be singing songs from the past, guess we will find that out tomorrow night.) Then Tues evening, we are invited to go to Bible Study which is led by a pastor who comes here every Tuesdy night.
Everyone has been texting or calling and asking how the move is going. We so appreciate everyone who has been keeping tabs on us these past two months, as we zigzagged our way across the county. Since I haven’t had a stove or oven for 2 months, I have not cooked. That will be the first thing I do next Wednesday when our appliances are delivered. Randy will think he has died and gone to Heaven when I set something other than microwave mac & cheese in front of him.
There have been so many times these last two months of how God has showed His faithfulness to us. One Story I just have to share is this. We had set a budget for how much we wanted to spend remodeling the new place. We had a certain amount set aside for all new flooring. Two or three bids were as much as $5000 over what we had felt we should spend on floors. Wanting to be good stewards of God’s money, we had obtained several bids. Each one high then the last bid. We have been staying in an Airbnb for the last 3 weeks, close to our new place so we could go back and forth. The casita where we were staying is behind the large house of a dear lady who owns her own construction business. when we were sitting outside visiting with her one evening, werelayed that we were having trouble finding someone to purchase floors from,with installation, at a decent price, Diana says, “Trudy, remember I told you that I have my own construction company. Let me send one of the guys out to look at the house and give you a bid.” He came yesterday, called last night and his bid was $5 under the budget we had set aside for floors. He has been installing floors since 1969 and is sending his men out Monday to install the new flooring. All this to say, that we have felt God’s provision and faithfulness in not only leading us here, but who else but God would provide a casita, owned by a women who had her own construction company. She is also being so kind to send one of her guys out to remove the tub from the master bath.
Randy picked up some money a man had dropped the other day, and as we were sitting there enjoying our coffee, the man stops by our table and gives Randy a Starbucks gift card to tell him thanks for picking up his money and returning it to him. We have had strangers stop 3 times, offering to help us load large boxes into our car in the Home Depot parking lot. So yes, we are embracing the kindness which we know is a gift from the Lord. From our air mattress each night, we will continue to stop and thank God for the blessings He pours on us daily. This is truly becoming Home Sweet Home, very quickly.