On Friday I went after work and got the keys to MY house.
Today started early with Miz and me hitting the road for some serious house preparations; cleaning supplies, appliances, and all kinds of odds and ends.
We don't have any appliances, but in this great little community we've got all you have to do is ask and stuff starts falling out of the sky. We've got free dishwasher, and a dryer just waiting for us to pick them up. We're getting a good deal on a stove from a friend. So our first mission of the day was a refrigerator, and a washer. We drove all over Sacramento looking at used appliance stores. The first place was a tiny little warehouse with NO prices on anything, and a woman following you around screeching super ridiculous prices at you! We found one waaaaay out on Auburn that looked very promising. Reasonable prices, good customer service, a good warranty... I was feeling pretty good until I opened up a fridge to have a look - and a cockroach came crawling towards me!! Eeeeeew! Well... That was it for used appliances for me. There's no way I'm taking the chance of a roach infestation! We hightailed it outta that place quickly!
After being turned down for credit at Lowe's I was freaking out a little bit (okay, a LOT a bit...) about what were going to do to keep our food cold and our clothes clean! I sat and worked and re-worked money figures for about an hour. I gave up after the acid in my stomach started being a bit uncomfortable and went to pack.
That was when something pretty miraculous happened. Kelly (my pseudo-dad's widow, and someone I consider extended family they just haven't invented a name for yet) texted me to ask if we'd gotten a fridge yet. I told her that we hadn't but I was working on making some kind of magic happen. She asked if she could help with the magic, and I told her that I would LOVE some help! (I am SO not too proud to accept help from people who love me!) So... I was thinking she'd send a Lowe's gift card for $100 or so - which we would have been SO grateful for! But that's not what she had in mind... She said that she would pay for our fridge up to $1000 - and whatever we didn't spend on the fridge she would just be sending us in the mail.
Then she called and told me how proud she was of me, how proud Troy (pseudo-dad) would be of me, and how much he loved me... And how he would have wanted to help me have nice (roach free) things. :) And lots of other great stuff that made me cry (in a really nice way).
So our fridge is taken care of. And a ton of other stuff I just won't have to stress over now. I am simply amazed. When I start to think about it words fail me and I get a little choked up. I am very grateful.
Bobby and I headed over there this evening to start cleaning and prepping the house to be lived in. It's lots of hard work but I am so ecstatic because it is OUR hard work - by us and for us.
I will post pictures of our (mostly Bobby's) handywork when we're close to finished!
