It was the weekend of Father’s day in mid June of 2009, and I was at a retreat when the guest speaker whom I had never met came up to me and touched me on the shoulder and looked directly into my eyes and said, “You need to decide what you want, for by this time next year you shall have it.” I had never spoken to her before and she had not known that for the past 5 months I had been searching for a house. WOW!

I had been watching the DVD of The Secret ever since my friend told me about it, and had been wanting my own home. But until these words were spoken to me, my house hunting was blurry and unfocused. So when I got home I wrote on my mirror with a marker all the things I wanted in a home. I took all the best things I had liked from each house I had looked at and began to make a list. Now this was not your average list, like, “3 bed / 2 bath.” I had a list based on some scriptures that I had read. I wanted the upper and lower springs, the vine and the fig, the garden that I didn’t plant, I liked the split level houses because they had lots of square footage. So I wanted 1700-2100 sq ft. I also wanted a smaller front yard with a large back yard. A beautiful view from my windows and great neighbors in a great neighborhood. I also wanted a home that didn’t need too much work but one that I could put my own creative thumbprint on it to make it mine, and I wanted to spent under 200k.

On November 5th my house showed up on the market. I could hardly believe it when I saw the house for the first time. I walked into the back yard and there was a pond with a Koi and a creek that ran through the lower back end of the yard. “My upper and lower springs,” I laughed. Two grape vines and a fig tree. Besides that there are three cherry trees, four apple trees, two plum trees, one pear tree, and forty-two rose bushes. Oh yeah, I had roses on my list too. On the other side of my fence is a huge walnut tree in an open green space where no building could take place, so the view is all mine. The house itself is a split level 1832 square ft 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath, and on a cul-de sac, so my front yard is smaller than the back. To shorten a long story I closed on Jan 12 2010, for 199k.

So I would say to anyone reading my story, if I were able to put my hand on your shoulder and look directly into your eyes and I were to say to you, “Decide what you want for by this time next year you shall have it,” what would your list look like?