Traci and I are so fortunate to have each other, our health, our family, our business, a bad -to-the-bone hot rod, and a bunch of other stuff. Spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with my best friend is the most important thing to us. Our business (facilitated by God) provides the mechanism for us to be together all the time.
The one thing Traci and I haven’t had for several years is a house with walls. We own two houses next to one another and both houses have flooded twice in the last three years. We nearly had our house rebuilt after the first flood, only to be flooded by a hurricane with our name “Harvey”.
The first one was depressing and difficult but the second one took the wind out of our sails!
We continually prayed about what our plans should be. Should we rebuild again? Do we tear down the houses and build a new house higher above ground? Do we dump it all and relocate? Every time we thought we had a plan, something changed our minds.
Because of the lack of direction, Traci encouraged me to finish the car and pursue the dream, which, as you see, we did.
While we were pursuing the ProMod dream, Traci continued to look at property, houses, plans, etc. and nothing made sense. About 6 weeks ago, a massive amount of wooded acreage in our neighborhood directly behind our house and just down the road was clear cut by a developer to put 100 plus homes right next to our little ranchette homes. The developments are going to dump traffic into our one lane streets and direct more water runoff into our already inadequate infrastructure.
This was the last straw. You see, we bought our place on 8 acres because it was the country. We didn’t even have a Walmart thin 15 miles of our house. Now it is one of the fastest growing areas in the greater Houston area. Good for us to sell but not our kind of living!
About the same time that we felt like our plans weren’t working, a house appeared on the real estate site that Traci frequented. She showed it to me and I liked it but it was really out of our price range. We kind of forgot about it and about a week later, the price dropped significantly. Traci showed it to me again and we decided to look at it.
It was in Livingston, Texas about 3 miles from the lake. We drove to Livingston the next day to meet the realtor. When we drove through the gates, Traci and I knew this was it!
We decided that this house fit us well enough to warrant selling all of our other properties and consolidating everything. Traci had been trying to get me to simplify for a long time and it has finally happened, I understand now!
We only told a few people about it because we weren’t sure if we could do it.
We immediately called realtors to start listing our property. Meanwhile, we made an offer on the house and the owner accepted it. Then the loan process began and we waded our way through that mess.
I am happy to tell you that as I write this, we are sitting in our RV on the property and as of this morning, we are the owners of a beautiful home on 27 acres of partially wooded property with a large shop, a 4 acre lake, good access to highways for the race rig, and a pool. Finally, my Sunshine has walls in her house.
The picture of her and I is actually a selfie (yes, that is right) that we took while I was carrying her across the threshold (yes, that is right too) of our forever home! Now comes the hard part. Selling all of our properties, consolidating all of my tools, hobbies, etc. and moving them to Livingston!
The moral of the story is:
1. Trust in God. He will not let you down.
2. Things happen in God’s time, not yours
3. Miracles still happen!
4. Nothing is impossible with God!
5. A 58 year old guy can still carry a “Hot” red head across the threshold
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