Vandalism Retrospective

We don't normally talk about negative stuff here at Live Simple.  Even though the title to this blog post infers something negative, that's not the way this blog post is going to unfold.

It was three years ago on Halloween that our straw house's windows were vandalized.  We learned about it three years ago today when Goatherder went to check on the place and discovered the extensive damage.

Three years ago today we were both in somewhat of a state of shock about the vandalism.  As Goatherder was describing the details of the vandalism to us we remember saying "Well, something positive will come out of it."  However, at the time, it was quite literally impossible to see how it was going to turn into a positive experience.

As chance would have it, we had already planned a trip to Rimrock only a mere few days later.  As we drove south, our thoughts and conversations were dominated by what had happened to our house there.  We sold the place on contract back in February 2006 and the buyer defaulted on the contract during the summer of 2009.  That's how we got the place back.  Now we were both dismayed that we had a vandalized house on our hands with no real idea of what to do about it.

That's how the story began three years ago today.  What transpired in the days and weeks ahead actually changed our lives.  The whole story of those changes would be far too long to retell here.  Essentially, our initial fear and loathing was transformed to gratitude and glee.  Yes, we worked for weeks to mitigate the damages and find creative ways to protect the place from future such incidents.  Yes, it was long, arduous and taxing work to say the least.

However, as the days turned into weeks which turned into almost two months, we began to see an entirely new future for ourselves that simply wouldn't have evolved unless the place had been vandalized!

We arrived back in Idaho Falls just before New Year's Even 2009 and promptly started this blog.  As time and the ensuing chapters of our lives have unfolded, we can now look back to those sad and perplexing moments three years ago and realize the juvenile vandal did us a great favor.  It's highly unlikely we would have our current Snowbird lifestyle had that damage not occurred.  Chances are very high we would have resold the place in November 2009 to a guy named Adam so indeed wanted to purchase the place.  Because of the fact we were forced to spend so much time staying onsite to fix up the place once again, we rediscovered our many awesome and enduring friendships there, as well as our love of "all things Arizona" during the Snowbird Season.

It's always difficult to see how something positive can come out of something negative but that's almost always the way it happens.  It's our challenge to have Faith and Believe that the positive outcome will eventually makes it way into our lives.

We're sure looking forward to heading south soon.  You can bet we will be talking often during that journey about those events of three years ago.