Last week I was talking to someone about trying to furnish our house, etc, and he said to me, “Moving is so stressful, and so hard on a marriage.  It is probably the most stressful thing.  Well, after death.”

I almost laughed, because he doesn’t know our history, but yes, I know the truth of all that he was saying.

Trying to find a place to live in Nanaimo was crazy.  I’ve never experienced anything quite like it – there is such variation in what is available at a certain price range.  Many of the people we interacted with (landlords and tenants) felt desperate, and possible ready to take advantage of whoever was around to get what they wanted.

Plus, we look terrible on paper as tenants.  We don’t have a landlord reference since 2011, plus our “employment” and “income” look sketchy and unreliable.

Places turned over really fast – coming up and then being rented out within a day or two, so we had to be really on top of it, and look at so many places.  We had a short list of non-negotiables, and a wishlist.  Early on, I said to Mike that I had a sense we would know the right place because the street name was significant.  When we went to look at a place on Hosanna Way (hosanna is an expression of praise to God), I thought that this was the one!  It looked even better than the pictures, and the landlord seemed kind and reasonable!

We got an email from him a couple hours later saying he wasn’t comfortable taking us as tenants.

I was SO disappointed, but seeing that place gave me some hope to keep looking, as this was by far the nicest place we had seen in the price range – the other places we had looked at all felt like we were settling for much less than what we wanted.

I kept looking, learned a bit about how to better fill out applications, and had a couple places on the horizon that looked hopeful.  We left Nanaimo at the end of May (for a conference and eye appointment) with a place we wanted and a backup, not knowing if we would get accepted to either.

While away, we found out we got accepted to our first choice!  It so obviously filled all our requirements and wants that I decided my sense about the street name was wrong, and I could live on a street called Thalia.

My dad was looking us up on google earth (as he likes to do), and then handed me the computer with a definition on it:

 

In Greek mythology, Thalia was the muse of idyllic poetry and comedy.  She presided over festive meetings, and the word literally means, “blooming.”

 

It felt like God was blessing all the things we have hoped for, for this next season, and reminding us that He is intending these things for us, too.

“Festive meetings!”  That is so us.

Bonus story:  About a month after Beatrix died, we were staying in a friend’s house for a couple months.  I wandered into a bookstore and some boxes of magnetic poetry caught my eye.  Normally, I would think this a frivolous waste of money, but on this day I thought, “This will be fun for Mike and I.  We need some fun.”  So, I bought several packages.

I was so disappointed when I got back to the house and found out that the fridge wasn’t magnetic.  (Seriously, I didn’t know that was a thing?!?  But, none of the fridges in any place we have been in for more than a week have been magnetic.)

Here is the view in our kitchen today: