Dad and Mom (Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah) got married 73 years ago on the 4th of July. I think of July 4 as Independence Day in the USA, but first and foremost, I think of Dad and Mom. Now it is a time for reflection and gratitude. They were not perfect and suffered significant trauma in their lives, but none of us kids ever doubted that they loved God, they loved us, and they frequently made big sacrifices for each and every one of us. I miss them a lot. Here they are in front of Grandma Jenkins house. It could not have been too much after they got married.
Lorena and I are spending the long, USA 250th anniversary weekend just hanging out together and packing to move to Texas. It is has started off in spectacular way–not so much because we are doing anything out of the ordinary, but because we have been reminded in many very obvious ways that we are blessed by God. And it is not because we are good or deserve anything, but because He is good, loves us. We are going to eat good food, pack some boxes, watch a few videos, and give thanks to God for all He has done for us and our nation.
Lorena and I plan to spend most of the weekend packing and throwing away stuff to get ready for the move at the end of July. We have downsized an amount I never would have imagined possible already and have decided to do a ton more. The goal is to get all of our worldly goods into a 26 foot moving truck, the Honda CRV, and Christian’s Acura sedan. Granted, there is not much room in those last two vehicles, but every bit helps. We are donating all our beds and frames (who knows whether they will take the mattresses, but we will throw them away if they are not accepted), a bunch of end tables, all the patio furniture, table lamps, the sofa and recliner from the living room, and anything else we think we do not need or want for the new house. We are gifting a bunch of large planters and a metal garage rack to our neighbors. Hopefully, we will have most of the packing done by the end of next week.
As we are packing things and working our way through the or checklists for the sale of the house and the move to Texas, it has dawned on Lorena and I that there is some likelihood we might never return to Virginia. Maybe we will pass through on a trip to somewhere else, but we have no real reason to return. It has been a lovely place to live. The people and culture in this part of Virginia seem genuinely nice and welcoming. Maybe if I were younger it might be different, but our plans are mostly to spend as much time as we can with Lorena’s mother, Conchita and our children. The kids both currently live in New York City and Grandma Conchita is in Mexico. Beyond that, our main destination will hopefully be to Oregon to visit my siblings and friends. This is not a sad thing. We love Virginia, but are happy to be moving on to the next thing, God willing.
I made it to Psalms in my current read through the Bible. Psalms 1:1-2 says “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” I am starting to have a new understanding of the the times and a sense for my place in the world. I hope I am not too far off base or too cynical about the world or both. It does not seem like an accident that this Psalm follows the book of Job where Job’s friends were, in some sense, speaking for God and completely missing their responsibility–well not completely, they did sit in silence and mourn with him for seven days. The thing, though, that seems obvious to me that somehow evaded my understanding before that Job captures very well and the verses above spells our specifically is that our allegiance is to the Lord and the Lord alone. I take two things from that–my job relative to those around me, especially my friends and fellow travelers, is to show charity to them and not speak them like I am speaking for the Lord.
The other thing is that no one is good, no not one. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. I feel very much estranged from the institutional church in general and the institutional church where I was a member in particular. I have no doubt there are Christ followers in at least some of those churches, but it feels like most church culture, no matter the denomination, is driven by the spirit of Job’s friends. Psalms 1:1-2 says to stay away from that and obey the Lord. The problem is my awareness of my own sin coupled with the knowledge that fellowship is essential when it is available. Is our culture such a fellowship desert that we are all essential in the same boat as Elijah when he thought he was the only one? Of course he was not the only one and neither am I. I just am more and more aware that there are no institutions that will alleviate these feelings. Maybe that applies to the church, especially, but it certainly also applies to government, academia, business, and society at large.
I am not sure what I am supposed to do about this, but it feels correct to me and good that it has been brought to my attention. I guess the thing to do is just keep reading and praying. One thing for which I am eternally grateful is a wife who does that with me.
Our current plan is to move into one of our apartments down in Mexico while the house in Texas is under construction, God willing. Renters were supposed to have moved into the unit shown in this image yesterday. It is a spectacular apartment with an absolutely beautiful view. The renters are signed up for a 4-6 month contract. If they finish their work in Monterrey in four months, something that almost certainly will not happen, we will move in there so Lynn can have a free hand in the other areas of the apartment that are not finished. If not, Lynn will have a space for us on the floor above this one with an even more spectacular view and a balcony. He will be working on that while we are living there. That is not ideal, but we can work it out.
I would like to say we worked really hard in preparation for the move, but it really does not seem real yet. I went through two boxes of compact disks and video tapes (old), throwing out about half and packing half for the move. We are going to do the same tomorrow. We slept in a little, drove into town to get a few things at Costco and a refrigerator water filter at Home Depot, returned home and did the packing, then just chilled. I even drank 100 ml of 1800 Tequila (Jose Cuervo brand) for celebration of the offer–I had to skip all my normal snacks to fit that into my diet budget. All in all, it was a good day. Just spending the day with Lorena reminded me that I have a spectacular wife.
Today is the day Lorena and I start the big push to make our move to Texas. There are a lot of moving parts to this and we are cognizant of the fact that all we have is an offer. The buyer had a lender pre-approval letter, but we still have to go through the house inspection and the appraisal to have confidence the sale will actually close. The inspection is on Tuesday.
The main thing we will do to get ready is pack everything but the minimal things we need to live for the next few weeks. On my short list of other stuff I can do now is the following:
Figure out how to get help to load the truck. We need professional movers to assure everything fits and rides nicely.
Find a place to rent a truck.
Find a short term rental in Texas so we can spend just a few months there to get the house started and get some doctoring done.
Make a list of things to cancel when we leave.
Currently, the game plan is to stay in Texas only long enough to do some doctoring (annual health and semi-annual dental checkups and eye checkup), then move to our apartment in Mexico. We were planning to take our car there, but have decided to just buy something cheap and economical when we get there that we can use for the business in Mexico after we move into the house in Texas.
We accepted an offer on our house here in Virginia today. We were euphoric for a bit, then relieved, because the market is not so good for sellers for our kind of house and price range, now we are kind of wiped out, but excited to get start with the move. I have talked to the insurance agent, made arrangements for movers to come out and give us estimates, and started looking for apartments where we can hole up long enough for the house to get built. God willing, we will be living in Texas by the end of July.
I am almost six months in on my weight loss and health improvement program. I am averaging about a pound a week so far. My intermediate goal is to get to 199 lbs and my end goal is somewhere between 170 lbs. and 180 lbs depending on how I feel when I get there. That final weight seems very high, but every place I look tells me the same thing–I need to plan on weighing a good bit more than when I was 30 years old to stay healthy. I am writing this post as a help to stay on course to get to 199 because this last five pounds seems to be taking a lot longer than what came before although the graph says that is not so.
