Sleepless Nights and Cabin Dreams

It was 2:00 a.m. and my obsessive thoughts about the cabin on Lake George I had found earlier online, kept swirling in my head. I had been tossing and turning all night, wondering if this was a wish we should keep dreaming about, or an opportunity to actually pursue. I finally came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I did something about it. So I logged on to Zillow and signed us up for a tour the following day. There. Now I can sleep, I thought. I was restless for another hour before I finally drifted off.

I woke on Sunday morning to my phone ringing. It was a realtor named Brian, who had been connected to me through my tour request. Tom came into the room just as the conversation was getting started so I put Brian on speaker. We listened to some specifics about the property and decided on the best time for the tour. It would be at 3:00.

After church, we came back to Birch Villa for dinner. The smaller gang this week decided we would fend for ourselves, so our family had a mini-repeat of the previous week’s picnic for Seth and Maddie’s sake–pork chops, potato casserole, roasted broccoli, watermelon and dinner rolls. We then said goodbye to Mary, who was headed back to the Twin Cities, and everyone except Ollie and Seth piled into the car for the 38-minute drive to Lake George.

More on our visit to the cabin below, but first…

We were gone longer than expected and Ollie was not a happy camper for much of the time. Suffice it to say, Seth was ready to escape when we returned home, so he hopped on his bike for his first Minnesota ride of the year. A short time later, he called Tom, completely upset. He had hit a pothole, the front fork of his bike had cracked in two causing his front wheel to separate from the rest of the bike, and since he is not proficient in unicycling, he crashed to the ground. Tom and Maddie went to pick him up with the car.

With road rash on his shoulder, arm and elbow, and a busted bicycle, he lumbered into the cabin, feeling as if the world was against him. Still, he had quite a story to tell as he showed everyone the broken bike. He hoped he might be able to get it repaired the next day in Bemidji.

Back to the cabin visit…

If I was excited after seeing pictures of this cabin online, we were even more excited after seeing the place in person. I was in love the moment I saw the view of the lake from the between the tall pines and birch trees. Although there were some incomplete projects in the home (the elderly couple who had lived there had recently moved to assisted living due to dementia and other health concerns, and their POA/children wanted to sell the home “As Is”), these details did not deter us. We wondered if our dream might actually become a reality.

Brian told us that the sellers had “multiples” (more than one bid coming in), and that they wanted all offers in by the noon the next day. That night, after much discussion with each other and our kids, then calling my siblings and Tom’s mom for their input, Tom and I texted Brian and said we wanted to put in our bid. We arranged to meet him at the Walker Coffee Company the next morning at 9:30 a.m.

Before turning in for the night, Tom and I prayed together. We asked for God’s guidance, His blessing, and for peace of mind no matter the outcome. We knew if it was meant to be, everything would fall into place.

For the second night in a row, I could not sleep. I could picture us in that cabin so clearly. And yet, I didn’t want to get my hopes up, only to have them dashed the next day.