When I sat down to write last night, I closed my eyes and let my breath go deep and slow. I often do this when I’m “fishing”…trying to find just the right story to tell you today. This is the last day of 2020. Lord, what a year it has been. We know where we’ve been. We know where we are now. And, we hope we have a good idea where we’re going in the coming 365 days.

We’ve all been here before, resting on the cusp of a New Year…hope this one will be better than the last. Or as good as. Or totally different. We have different hopes and dreams. We see ourselves through different lenses, yet we truly have more in common than we have differences. Well, beyond ideological, of course. In that, we have a lot of healing to do, I’m afraid.

As I rest on this ledge, preparing to dive into yet another year, I take inventory of how different it all could have been. In 2011, Mr. Virgo and I found ourselves at a crossroads of sorts. We managed to get through the Great Recession of 2008 when we lost half of our portfolio. We were blessed we didn’t lose more, but even after three years, jobs weren’t all that stable. We had already had our travel adventure where we lived in Pagosa Springs for a year, and the Denver Metro area for two more. We hated Denver and it was wearing us out. We wanted to go home, so we moved back to the house I had built on the Western Slope a decade before.

It took a while to get a job. It was summer and we hadn’t had a vacation for years. We made an executive decision…repair the landscaping and take a trip to West Virginia to meet what was left of my family. Oh, I loved it so much…and my desire to move back home was stronger than ever. Mr. Virgo and I had a dream of owning a Bed & Breakfast as our “retirement job” and properties in the Mountain State were so much more affordable than Colorado. While we were visiting, we started looking at suitable properties to convert.

The historical area of Parkersburg is called the Julia-Anne Square. Stately Victorian mansions line the streets steeped with history and drama of days gone by. We were particularly smitten by a certain house and we felt it might be perfect…but it wasn’t on the market. The following summer, when I made a trip to West Virginia alone, lo and behold…the “Purple House” was on the market…and at a price that seemed incredibly doable.

Then, two things happened. First, my realtor friend Geni took me to see it and….lands, did it need work! LOTS of work. The fact that it was filled with the current owner’s tchotchkes from floor to ceiling and the walls were covered in a stark green and white English Ivy print wallpaper was pretty overwhelming. The bigger disappointment was when Mr. Virgo divulged…he really didn’t want to move back East. He grew up in Philadelphia. He lived the majority of his adult life on the East Coast, primarily Florida. He just couldn’t face going back to the humidity and heat that is a West Virginia summer.

I was so disappointed. But it was one of those compromises you make when you’re married. It wasn’t till sometime after his untimely and sudden death in early 2013 that I realized God takes things away from us for a reason. If we had bought the big Victorian house, renovated it, and opened it as a B&B, I would have been left running all of that on my own while juggling my own grief. I wouldn’t have been free to buy that little camper and head off to the wilderness and backroads of Colorado for the three months that changed the course of my life.

So, when I opened my eyes last night, and turned on my iPad to write, I opened Facebook and the very first thing that popped up was…a video tour of the “Purple House”! It’s on the market again and the current owners have done a tremendous job fixing it up inside. I leaned back,took a deep breath, and hit play. I watched the story of “What My Life Could Have Been” play out on the screen. I looked at those stairs and thought, “Wow, those would be killer now…for me AND for Mr. FixIt.” The house is still really cool…and looks SO much better without all that hideous wallpaper. I’ve gotta say…those purple carpets upstairs have to go, as well as the blue living room.

I can look at this house now and say, “This is what could have been. But I am so incredibly grateful for what I have.” Mr. FixIt and I have birthed a new life together that is happy and fun and challenging (in all the right ways) and adventurous and so easygoing. We have five acres to play on and a camper to travel in and a life to love in. I love my life.

I thought I’d share the tour with you, so you can see where I might have been, had things gone differently ten years ago. The house itself is worth the share. 

You can see the video HERE.  

You can see the Realtor’s Listing HERE.  

I hope you have a safe and healthy evening planned. Here’s to celebrating the end of the world’s longest year and hoping for the very best for 2021!!! Thank you all so much for being here with me for yet another year. Writing this blog is sort of like the “Letters from Home” that my grandma used to send us every week. Full of my stories, my hope, my faith, and most of all…my heart. I am grateful for each and every one of you!

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“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.””

Hebrews 13:5 NIV