I posted my last life update blog on November 15, 2019, so I thought it would be poetic to update you again exactly two years later.
As most of you know, Colton and I have been married for three and a half years and we’ve kinda felt in transition that whole time. We’ve been in limbo, just buying time until we really get to settle in somewhere and make a home for ourselves. My last life update told you about our first year and a half of marriage, full of commutes and fast food but void of friends. Then I got a new job and we were able to move to a much better location, halving our commutes and bringing us closer to our church where we could plug in and make friends.
And we did! We joined a small group and started hanging out with some couples our age and it was great. For like, 4 months, and then Covid hit. I was now working my new job entirely from home. We were now seeing all our new friends only via Zoom. We were close to Austin and all the excitement, but everything was shut down. Our bigger apartment started to feel real cramped real fast. We had no yard to escape to. No walking trails or nice views from our balcony or even a decent parking lot to wander around since the complex is right in the middle of three major highways.
Oh and on top of the global pandemic, Colton lost his job. It was really not a great time for us, but we came up with a plan and knew it would be okay. Colton would finish out his last year of school and then look for his “big boy job” when he graduated in May 2021. We re-signed our apartment lease through December so we had some time for Colton to get a job and figure out our living situation. But the summer came and went with no job offers.
This past summer was perhaps the most depressing over the past year and a half for the two of us. We could see the end of the tunnel of the pandemic. We were vaccinated and starting to get outside and do things again, only for Delta to rear its ugly head. Colton was graduated with a great resume to back him up and yet there seemed to be no interest. And even though we had our apartment through December, the housing market is insane and we knew we needed to get going on that front if we were to have any chance of finding a home for us.
But, praise the Lord, the perfect job finally gave Colton an offer at the beginning of August, with a better salary than we were expecting. Every bit of the interview and onboarding process reinforced for us that this was where he was meant to be. He’s working as a business analyst for a company called CGI. He started his job in September and even though he’s doing mostly just virtual training right now, he absolutely loves it.
The job is in Belton, TX, which is a small town where my parents live, one hour north of Austin. Yes, I know that increases my commute a bit, but luckily I can work two days from home each week with my job, so they’re really willing to work with me on that and I’m very grateful. But we love Belton. It’s small with a lot of local flavor, close to the lake and not too far away from several major Texas cities if we have a hankering for a day trip. It’s where I found my wedding dress. It’s the only city who has my books for sale on their shelves and who have given me a book signing event. It’s where we were meant to be.
So in September we finally attempted to run with the hectic housing market of Texas in 2021. We met our realtor for the first time and had a list of 5 houses we were interested in. Of the 5, two were too expensive, one needed too much work done, and two were pretty close to perfect. We knew if we liked a house we needed to make an offer right away or we would lose it, because houses are going in like 3 days now- it’s insane. So we made offers on our two favorites. A couple days later we found out we lost out on one house because it got offers $30,000 above asking price – in cash. We were devastated. Not because we missed out on one house, but because there’s no way we can compete with that. We can’t offer cash. We can’t make offers that high. We were losing hope that we’d ever find something. And then our realtor called. We got the other house! It had to be some sort of miracle of God that we didn’t have to keep doing this every weekend, trying to keep up with insanely high offers, and getting disappointed when it didn’t work out. We knew it all lined up perfectly because this house was supposed to be our home.
We moved in this past weekend and it’s everything we dreamed it would be (P.S. also this week, my sister-in-law gave birth to our nephew! It’s been a very crazy but blessed time for our family!). We have our first home, in a city we absolutely love. We can start planting roots, joining a church family, finding local restaurants to become regulars at, discovering just the right haircut place, getting a dog! Colton finally has a job that he truly loves that is in his field. I have a great job as well that’s really working with me commuting. Even though the past few years haven’t been amazing every single day, God is still providing. He is still sovereign. And He still has a plan. That would be true whether or not Colton got a job and we found a house. But He is so good and He gave us blessings we did not deserve. We thank Him and praise Him every day for all He’s done for us, and can’t wait to see where He takes us in this next season.
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Keela Dee Subcreations 
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