Painting Blessings

i'm officially halfway thru my painting project. and while it was very overwhelming before i began and still occassionally blows my mind, i've been tremendously blessed by all of the help i've received from friends and family.

God's really blessed me abundantly with so many awesome friends and family i'm really blown away by how blessed i am. i'm really humbled by how God constantly provides all things and none of it is by my doing or abilities.

ways i've been blessed thru the course of this project:
- God provided friends that are a 100x better than i am in visualizing how my place will look with furniture and new colors...i'm pretty horrible at picturing how things will look and i'm really not very good with colors/designing. in fact, many of my friends have spent hours with me just sitting in my empty place discussing colors and placement of furniture. many times i'm just sit and listen as they discuss amongst themselves the best layout and design for my place (which i totally love b/c i'm not good at it nor enjoy it...i'm more of a "tell me how it's supposed to look and i'll do it" person)

- God has blessed me with friends that have lots of experience with this painting process, and i feel totally comfortable with trusting them to help me make decisions that i know nothing about. without their help and advice, i would have spent way more hours and taken even more trips to home depot. (i've already been to home depot 7 times i think in the past 2 weeks...imagine how many more times i would've had to go if i was doing this just by myself)

- i'm also very bad at math and calculating things, but God also blessed me with friends that are good with numbers and are able to draw out floor layouts with dimensions.

- i've also been blessed to have friends that are willing to share and let me borrow the tools they have so that i don't need to buy/rent my own. i've borrowed: 5 different types ladders, 3 fans, several paint brushes and rollers, an assortment of tools, a miter saw, painting stools, flood lamp...and the list keeps growing!

- i've been totally overwhelmned by the amount of time, energy and love that has been shown to me thru the help my friends have given me over the past 2 weekends. we've logged about 24 hours of physical labor...and in 80 degree heat! i'm constantly amazed and humbled by their sacrifice of time and effort to help me out. there's no way i would've been able to do this on my own. thank you, stacey, cassie, michele, steph, vera, anne, jada, brittany, kelly, mary, kevin and wentina!!!

- i'm really excited for next weekend b/c my whole family (my parents, aunty and grandma) is coming up to help me finish painting. when they told me they wanted to come and help, i was amazed b/c it was totally unexpected! i never imagined they would come all the way from hawaii just to help me out for a weekend. i'm again blessed to have family that demonstrates their love for me...and i didn't even mention my sister that has been there every single day i've painted.

yes, i've definitely been blessed by this whole experience and it's only halfway thru! man, i totally don't deserve all of this...it's only by His grace! THANK YOU!

some pics from our first weekend priming:





scary ladder to climb and paint on!

I'm Officially a New Home Owner!

as of July 15, 2005 i'm officially a new home owner! wow, i can't believe it!

yes, i really did mean to document my home buying experience, but it was such a crazy process that i didn't really get a chance to blog about it much. it started off being a slow process. i looked at maybe 20 places or so and it came to the point where i started to get really depressed b/c i wasn't seeing anything i liked and b/c houses were being sold so quickly i didn't get a chance to even look at it.

but then i saw this place. it too had a quick deadline to buy and i basically saw it on saturday, and had to make a decision by that night whether or not i wanted to place an offer for it. i decided to go for it, so i placed and offer. the offers were reviewed on sunday night and i was told that i was outbid, but they asked me if i wanted to be the back-up in case the first buyer backed out...so i said sure.

i figured it was pretty much in God's hands, and 3 days later i was told that the first buyer couldn't qualify for their loan so i had first dibs on the place if i still wanted it. PRAISE GOD! so the next week i had the inspection. there was a problem with the heater and so we requested it be fixed and we actually found out there were other problems with the heater in my building. this caused me a lot of stress and worry, but i eventually realized that i had to just let it be in God's hands, and about 3 days later i found out that the owner actually installed new heaters instead of repairing it for me (which was what i wanted since i was worried the repair would be a quick fix for a bigger problem) and i also found out that the other problems we had heard about weren't a problem in my place just in the other buildings nearby. PRAISE GOD AGAIN! then came the financing part which i wasn't worried about, but i was nervous about the big investment. i was also concerned that i hadn't locked down my interest rate before it started to go up, but when i checked with my mortgage broker i found out that he did lock it from the first time i talked to him...PRAISE GOD AGAIN AND AGAIN!

it was really a whirlwind of events, and now that i look back on it all i think God really knew what was best for me. it's funny b/c it was the most stressful couple of weeks with so many big decisions to be made, but God knew that the best thing for me was to keep it moving and just keep having me trust Him...and that's all i could really do. i'm in awe of the whole experience. i was also blessed with great friends who helped me focus on what was important when things became really crazy, and God really used them to help me focus on Him.

anyways, now that i'm a home owner i'm realizing there's definite signs of my "transformation" into a home owner...here are some of the signs i've discovered so far...

you must be a new home owner if...
- you start going to home depot or lowes a lot (2 times a week or more)
- your conversations seem to focus a lot more around home buying/remodeling/financing
- you start carrying around paint samples and/or start really noticing other people's home furnishings and room colors
- you carry around lists (either written down or in your head) of things you need/want to buy for your new place

here are a couple of pics of my new place: