Welcome to Everhaven!

Let me tell you a little about Everhaven.  Everhaven is the name I was inspired to give to our home.  I always wanted a home with a name, like "Southfork" (yep, I grew up watching Dallas!), only more romantic sounding.  Last year when circumstances led us to this house, which we own free and clear, I felt comfortable in the permanency of our situation enough to give the property a name.  Our house is quite small and cozy, with a generous yard and large trees lining the very front which gives it sort of a cottage-y feeling.  I started looking at names that might be associated with a cottage, which often contain the name of a flower or plant of some kind, like "Rose Hill" or "Wildwoods."  Nothing I was coming up with seemed to fit, I wanted a name that had spiritual significance so I had come up with the "haven" part and I just needed something to put in front of it.  Feeling like I had hit a wall I finally turned to my almost constant source of answers - Google!
;) 

I googled "spiritual names" which took me to baby name sites but I decided to give it a shot.  On one site, Ever was listed as a name meaning "always" and given that we had come to this house seeking a port in the storm of mortgage woes that was ravaging the country, the name seemed to fit our need and intention for our home perfectly = always a haven.  When our time here comes to a close, may it be a haven for the next dwellers here as well. 

As I continue to work on this blog, the story of how we came to live here will be told as well as the story of our remodeling adventures.  I plan to put the back story mostly on the "About Us" page, but I give a very brief summary in the description of our blog which is found on the right hand side of each page.  We lost two, yes two, homes in 2008 and 2009.  One was due to mortgage servicing fraud and the fallout of that, the other was due to our landlord going broke and giving our rental back to his bank.  Seeing the craziness going on around us in the housing market, we chose to do something a little different by cashing in my husband's IRA and buying an affordable house with cash.  We were looking for a place to take shelter from and wait out the storm of housing problems.  It needed lots of TLC, but it has good bones and with no mortgage payment we figured we can afford to do the work to rehabilitate it while we also rehabilitate our lives and our credit in the aftermath of having gone through the nightmare of mortgage servicing fraud, which also resulted in bankruptcy.

We've survived these hardships, which have been transformative in more ways than I can recount here, with the help of many friends, family, and of course our faith (please see the "Acknowledgements & Inspirations" page).  One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  I turned to that verse many years ago when we were going through the struggle of infertility and had decided to build our family through foster and adoptive parenting.  It gave me hope then and it continues to give me hope, as we went through losing our homes and as we face the journey ahead of fixing up this house and making it our Everhaven.

Thank you for reading and may you be showered with blessings!  Until next time...