"bragging"

Dad called me yesterday. "So, are we bragging?" he asked.

I thought back. Did he think that twitpic of lunch gathered from my garden was bragging? Maybe it was. But Dad would be more likely to call a picture of cheesecake from the CF bragging.

"The house on Bragg St?" he asked again. Aha. And then he made a great dad-joke about how we should be bragging on God for his provision for us.

It's true, though, dad-jokes aside. While it's not like I want to leave Seattle, it does seem like this whole move is very well-planned (and not by me), and that gives me confidence.

Here are some things I'm thankful for:

1) A hardworking, intelligent, capable, caring husband who
2) had two job offers within one week, both of them above-average opportunities (and who, had he continued looking, was certain to receive more offers - he was turning down second interviews! and in today's economy!)
3) The timing. Because Jack had jury duty, we had to rush our second interview at Taylor, but if we hadn't, then we would have had to deal with the tempting offer of a fellowship in Laos without having seen Taylor in person yet. Yep, I'm thankful for jury duty.
4) The house on Bragg St. While Jack was interviewing, I called a woman whose name had been given to me by the department. She was willing to have lunch with me and answer my questions about life in Upland. It just so happened that when I called her, she was visiting with a friend at a house on Bragg St. So I met her there. And took a look inside the house, which was for sale. We didn't want to buy a house, but I looked anyway, and took a flyer. The current renter mentioned that he thought the owner might be open to continuing to rent, rather than sell. I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around, looking at houses. Nothing to rent.

So we tried to contact the owner of the Bragg St house, but heard nothing. Just as we were about to pre-qualify for a loan to begin the process of finding a house to buy, he called back, and now we have a move-in date and 1800 square feet to rent, the only house I actually saw the insides of while we were there.

5)And real estate is cheap in Upland, y'all.

And one more thing: there isn't a grocery store or an apartment complex or a movie theater, but there is at least a decent coffeeshop with a smattering of organic offerings. So there's that.