What I Believe [video]

Been home for a little over a week now.  Loving all of it.  The friends, the family, the people I’ve missed for a year.  The people surprised to see me.  The people surprised to see me because they thought I’d already come and gone.  All of it.  I go back Friday.  The me stuck here doesn’t want to go back.  I figured I’d get homesick once I came home.  The me that loves the closeness and family and comfortable and familiar wants to stay.  But the me that dreams bigger dreams than even I could think of….she’ll be ready to go back on Friday.  She’ll have said her hellos and goodbyes and given the hugs and laughs and conversations she needed and wanted to and she’ll be ready to get back to the life she’s been building.  In the meantime, some tidbits:

I think we found a place.  Perhaps I’m naive, but I readily put my trust in Matthew to find a place that is suitable for the both of us and will make me very happy.  I technically found this place, but I didn’t call them until the day before I had to fly out for the homeland, so I had to send Matthew on a shopping errand – an apartment-shopping errand.  On paper, this place was perfect: central heat and a/c, a bedroom – an actual bedroom, not a space that the bed shares with the livingroom – but a bedroom, a dishwasher, a real kitchen with actual cabinets instead of just a hutch, a real bathroom, NO visible bug problems, gated parking, secure (keyed) entry only, a courtyard with grills, a pool, no lead paint or pipes.  In short, a real apartment – that allows dogs. 

Matt went to see it Saturday morning and turns out…in real life…the place is more than perfect.  He called me (which he never does) and said, "All I can say is ‘WOW.’  Call me back as soon as you can so we can talk about it.  I don’t want to forget anything."  As it so happens, there’s a park right across the street where we can take the dog to play and run, the building is sprayed twice monthly to keep bugs and pests away, the water/sewer/trash bill is divided among all the residents equally and averages out to about $20 a month, and it’s surrounded by nothing but other beautiful, well-landscaped, well-taken-care-of buildings.  MUCH better than the 80 year old roach motel we’ve been living in.  (We’ve also affectionately nicknamed it "The Hell Hole.")  The only drawbacks are that the electric and gas bills are paid by each resident (utilities are included in our rent where we are now), and I have an additional $50 per month rent for the dog.  Oh, and the rent is roughly $300 more than where we are now.

But let’s talk commitment for a second.  Matt makes less money than I do and he said, "I’m willing to cutback on whatever I have to to live there.  It’s too nice not to."  And that’s all I need to know.  Cutbacks are small and temporary.  I’ll drop some of my cable amenities and get discounts for various reasons with my car insurance.  I’ll buy a toaster oven so I use less energy (the oven is gas) when I’m only cooking for myself.  I’m already going to replace all the lightbulbs with the energy-saving flourescents when I move in (Wal*Mart had them for $.74 a piece!).  I won’t run my a/c when I’m gone all day.  It doesn’t get unbearably hot and cools down quickly (and that’s in the hottest months of the year anyway).  I babysit for a friend.  I had worried that she’d forget about me because I told her I couldn’t sit all summer long due to vacationing.  She calls almost every weekend asking if I’m in town and if so, would I want to come hang out with the kid.  That job isn’t going anywhere.  It’ll be right there, waiting for me…and at a low end of $50 a pop, 2-3 weekends out of the month is a pretty nice hookup.

Cutbacks are temporary because I’ll have my credit bills (I didn’t get my new laptop for free!) paid off by October, at the latest.  Also, it’s likely the union will push for another 3% raise for us to start being paid out in January 2008.  In addition, once I get my tax refund check next spring (thank God for only one W-2!), I’ll probably be able to claim one more exemption, thereby raising my monthly salary just a wee bit more.  The only worry I have is that we won’t get the apartments we want.  See, each unit is different and they charge different prices for different units.  The lowest one they have listed right now is pretty much my ceiling.  Same for Matt – especially for Matt. 

But I know that God will provide.  Y’all have read me long enough to know what I believe, and in all the apartment searching I’ve done since the beginning of April, I always kept coming back around to this place.  It’s at our ceiling.  Yes.  But it’s also exactly the type of place we’ve been looking for and praying for.  And there’s no other place like it that meets our requirements (mainly to allow us to keep Oliver).  No other apartments this nice are this affordable for us and fit what we need.  And on that note, the following video is a brief clip from a sermon that the late Dr. S.M. Lockridge presented.  The video itself has been updated with artistic and revolutionary images and the soundtrack behind Dr. Lockridge is very urban and modern.  This video describes, perfectly, the basis for my entire belief system.

Meet My King:

In case the video isn’t actually there.