Andrew for President!

My darling hubby turns 35 today, officially old enough to be our next president! Given a number of circumstances, mainly my husbands request for a low key celebration, we wont be partying hard tonite. Especially with 3 kids down with influenza(although the first culprit is nearly on the mend).

Im off today to find something for him today. Happy Birthday Honey! May you celebrate many more birthdays to come!

The big picture

The big picture is knowing that God is taking care of us, our needs, our housing situation and knows whats best in the long run. But here in the little egress window, I wait and wonder. Its hard looking around and seeing everything that needs to be done here and its easy to think it will never sell, let alone quickly.

But I know this without a shadow of a doubt, That God is good and whatever happens will be used for his purpose and our good. I can trust in that, when the going gets rough. When the lowball guy doesnt even bite at the counteroffer, when i think this wont sell.

So im going to rest in that fact, that God has my back and I dont have to fret or worry.

The process has begun

We got our first official offer today, low yes but we are counteroffering as well. So we will see, God works in amazing ways. This particular offer comes from the guy who did the unexpected walkthru yesterday. Talk bout quick turnaround.

God is good ... all teh time, Im so glad too that he doesnt tire of hearing our prayers as well!

Just a tad bit overwhelming

Our house is officially listed for sale with an agent as of Saturday, we already had one unexpected walk thru yesterday.

I have a hard enough time keeping the house in order under normal circumstances, the added stress of showings is enough to make me certifiably insane (no comments from the peanut gallery please).

I know God will not giveme more than I can handle and I have some unbelievable awesome friends who already have begun to pitch in but i sit here this morning and just look at all i have to do. And i spent hours on saturday decluttering and its like i made little effort. I had a friend yesterday spend some time with some of the kids and it feels like it barely made a dent.Although she did a huge amount! Im so thankful that i have such an awesome friend!

I have already taken at least 8 garbage bags,6 grocery bags,and probably 7 walmart bags full of stuff to the local goodwill type store. And as i go thru the laundry and pack boxes, more stuff is going but you'd think getting rid of that amount of stuff would have made a visable difference, and it really hasnt.

Well thats all for now folks! If you feel led, please pray that our house sells quickly and that the new house we would like to buy is preserved for us.

Rollar Coaster of a day

The ugly house dude cancelled his purchase agreement today. We also found out that he misrepresented himself to the truth in housing inspector as our agent. Yeah thats how he got the report faxed to him, when he was to have gotten it directly from us. We havent even seen the report yet.

So we are back to ground zero in some ways. We already have a realtor lined up that we trust, she had done a workup before we decided to go the ugly house route, so shes ready to list and we already have a lockbox on the door.

I also filled out an online form for another home buying group(turns out to be homevestors, ugly house, from minneapolis). He is going to file a complaint against the guy who was trying to sell our house before he owned it, at the corporate leval for us. He also may do a walk thru tonite, our realtor graciuosly is allowing this and we will finalize with listing with her tommorrow.

In addition to that, my buyers realtor emailed and said he had a long talk with the dishonest investor and will fill me in tommorrow. Curious to what thats all about.

So i dont know when we will move and if our new house will still be there but im asking God to preserve it for us. And I know this without a shadow of a doubt, God has us in the palm of his hand and can use this crazy mess for good!

No news

Not really sure if thats good or bad. We informed the ugly house dude that by having his potential buyers/assignes come thru on wednesday night, that triggers the first 2 day period in which he has to respond. Which depending on how they calculate that is thurs friday, or friday monday. And if i am reading it right, the cancellation 2 day period conincides with the first one.

So either way we should know somthing by monday. He did pull the listing. Which could mean a number of things:hes planning to cancel, he knows hes caught, it was the right thing to do and he thought he better c omply,he sold it to someone already. Who knows ... its hard to not know whats happening right now.

But above all else, God is in control, whatever happens he can use it for his purpose and good , even if that means we cant move right now. Or if we have to wait a bit longer.

Interesting turn of events

The housing inspection went fine and I went off to the grocery store. While i was gone, a realtor and two investors showed up. Andrew graciously allowed them a walkthru(not sure i would have been as gracious), we didnt know they were coming at all.

On top of that , they seemed surprised to find out the ugly house guy didnt own it yet. It turns out he has it listed on the homevestors site already for sale for 115,900. Hes literally buying it from us for 105 and selling it as is, to investors for 115. I honestly didnt think you could do that if you didnt own it, but apparently you can.

I called him today and asked if he was ready to sign off the contingincies and finalize. He hemmed and hawed, said hes trying to get his contractors thru as quickly as he can to finalize numbers. Bogus , hes literally trying to resell it before he owns it to cover his butt.

I dont mind so much that hes making money off the deal, we knew he would. We just figured hed rehab and sell it for 175. What bothers me is the way hes going about it, trying to sell it before he owns it. He better not come back at the end of the month, unable to sell it and back out ... thats plain just not right. Im not sure what our rights in this kind of situation would be, but we are checkign with our buyers realtor to find out.

I doubt the realtor yesterday was supposed to let us know what this guy is doing but we know now. God has our backs!

College R' Us

Andrew got an email from his employer letting him know he cant teach that class after all. Reasoning ... he doesnt have his masters yet , the reason he can teach tech classes is cause of his certifications.

So andrew is pondering whether now is the time to go back for that masters degree. His place of employment offers a reimbursmeent program, so that would defray quite a bit of the cost but still. He had deferred doing his masters right after bacholors cause he knew i wanted to go back as well for my bacholors in nursing.

Not sure how wise it would be to have both parents in college ... i kinda think that might really truly make us insane. But then again there is the benefit of more financial aid if more are in college at the same time. Decisions, decisions.

Its harder for me to justify going back right now, i have no employer offering me money to help go to college, it just is more incurred debt. Sigh ... i will only have two kids at home, so i know its doable at this time but im still not sure. I wanted to start now, since i likely will have to do part time, unless i can get an adult program nites or weekends that works for me, so that i have time to finish before the kids are all in school. Zemirah will start in 5, ezekiel in 3.

Well enough dallying, i must get cleaning, insepctor dude coming over this afternoon, fun fun!

6 + bags

I took 6 medium to large garbage bags plus 2 grocery bags of stuff, mostly clothes got taken to goodwill. I have some suitcases and another garbage bag ready to go already today. I also gave a grocery bag of clothes away to a friend last night and have another half filled to give away.

I am motivated to clear out stuff we dont need ... and we just plain have too much laundry even for a family of 10 people, its crazy. 3/4 of my sectional couch was literally piled high to the top of the couch last night with clean clothes and there was at least another 10 loads in the kitchen yet to do...

The less to pack ... the better! Wanna help?

Season of blessing

Im not sure if this is how God works or not , who am i to put him in a box, but it seems that he works in seasons. Down times, times of mourning, times of blessing, times of contentment. It seems we are in that season of blessing right now.

In addition to the more obvious blessings of my 8 children and fantastic husband, he has blessed us with a really nice 15 passenger van. One that i even enjoy driving since it drives so smooth. He is blessing us with an oppotunity to get out of the city into a smaller town with a fabulous beautiful house and yard. That is huge ... i have been asking and praying for this for at least 5 years. I had almost given up hope ... but God takes that small mustard seed and works with it.

With this house deal, we are getting blessed left and right, I can see Gods hand all over it. From the mortgage person we ended up working with to Andrew deciding to look at 3 bedroom house with tons of extra space to the mortgage rate we are getting that is below the going rate. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

We got news today that Andrew has gotten another class to teach this october, business communications. Thats a significant amount of money we hadnt planned on God is soooo good!

Our auto insurance is going down by 50 bucks A MONTH, just by moving out of the city to another zip and having a garage and driveway. Again Gods hand ...

May we use what he gives us for his glory!

Pitch and purge day

We havent managed to score boxes just yet, need to hit a few grocery stores and connect with people who said they have some, so i declined this pitch and purge day. Partly cause garbage pickup is tommorrow morning, so i figured mondays would be great days to go thru stuff and get rid of things.

Besides running n to and from school, not much else on the adgenda for today outside of the house. Hope to get caught up on laundry and getting the house in order but thats just bout it.

Andrew went back to work today after a week of vacation. He picked a winner of a week to be off, two major snowstorms and got himself a nasty cough and cold. He sounded horrendous this morning but went in anyway.

Thats all for now folks!

Off to home today :)

Okay so its not home just yet ... but I have faith it will be. We are heading to winsted today to sign the final purchase agreement on the house and turn over the earnest money. Then coming back here to finalize the purchase agreement with ugly house dude on selling this one.

We should know by the end of this month if everything is going to finalize. The ugly house dude has until march 31, to get his contractors and inspection done and finalize his price. So keep praying folks! The details are in Gods hands.

We are excited, most of the kids are excited, with occasional bouts of sadness, bout missing this friend or that one. Katarina is probably the one most affected, since she is 12 and in 6th grade but she is also very social, so i dont doubt for a minute that she will have trouble making friends. I am beyond excited, right now all the benefits are overshadowing the things i will miss . But yesterday was tough, telling our favorite kidnergarten teacher we are moving. She cried , as I suspected she would. She literally is one of those people, if I could pack her up and take her with us, I would. She has had everyone from katarina down to elijah and was looking forward to ariana comign in the fall. That makes me sad ...

All in all this move is good, its right, and its what and where our family needs to be.

Thats all for now folks!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

We got the house we wanted, they accepted our offer with a few minor negoitations on which appliances stay, none of which were deal breakers. We let them keep the few they wanted, and we had a deal.

We have the house! God is good ... all the time!

Next step, signing the purchase agreement with the one buying our house (tommorrow) and getting his contractors thru and getting a final number from him by march 31. We could move as early as may 1st!

Ahh the packing will begin ... anyone want to help a darling rambunctious family of 10 pack up their house?

The dominoes are teetering... now we wait for them to fall

We signed a purchase agreement yesterday on the house we want. Its nearly perfect for our needs, almost 2800 sq ft, room enough to make the 2 extra bedrooms we need, tile floors in the kitchen, huge yard, nearly an acre. Both andrew and I fell in love with it.

Now we wait: wait for them to accept our offer, for all the little details to line up, for the ugly house guy to finalize his numbers after inspection, for the contingencys on our end to clear up, etc etc etc. Thats Gods job ... we put the wheels into motion, greasing them and making them come to fruition is his.

If this is the right property, everything will flow, i have faith in that. The dominoes are starting to teeter now and when they fall , they will domino!

God is good ... all the time.

A bit of potpourri but mostly house progress

Busy weekend, between delviering girl scout cookies(still not done) and traveling out to the area we hope to move.

We visited a church, got to view a house and get a good feel for the neighborhoods. And also got to drive by some properties and realize that the yard is really too short or just too populated for our liking. One of the houses appears to back up to a nursery plot .. not great for a family of 8 rambunctious kiddos.

The church was good, the only thing i realized later that seems to be missing, is youth group or somthing for the older kids. But maybe another church will have that and we can just shuttle them over for that part. Very friendly, and i havent felt that welcomed into a church in years.

Got a bit of a feel for the cities, both andrew and I like winsted, so i think thats where we are concentrating our search right now. I didnt like lester prairie as much, cokato was okay, hutch felt almsot too big(even though tis only 13000)

We will go house hunting tommorrow for most of the day, just need to work out some minor details of how to get the kids home from play practice. Im looking forward to it.

Well tahts all for now folks!

My head isnt here

I am having an incredibly hard time focusing on stuff here at home. I cant seem to concentrate long enough to do the dishes or laundry or even paperwork and stuff i need to do for the kids. My head is in the clouds dreaming of our new home, or searching the net for that "perfect home".

Hopefully i can try to refocus some energy on the house today ... i really really need to clean! Most of the kids will be home today due to a conference day, so i have someone to distract the little ones a bit. Although i do have to take the older two to play practice today.

Maybe once we settle some of the details, it will be easier to focus.

Thats all for now folks!

Decisions made

Made the choice to go with the realtor more familiar with the area and the 2nd mortgage guy. I feel good bout my choices but feel bad not using the other people... Need to get over that i guess.

So our list is narrowed down to 6 houses, 4 different citites, all with 4 bedrooms or more, fairly large yard and 2000 sq ft or more and the most important part under 200,000.

This is scary and exciting all at the same time. I also talked to the ugly house guy, who is buying our house, and we are a go to write the purchase agreement whenever we are ready. Thats scary too ...

I want to move, i really do but the things i love bout living here, the things that have made my life here in the cities enjoyable, the things i really will miss are starting to hit me. I havent even dare think bout leaving behind my friends. But just today when i told the dance teacher, who loves my kids, that we are moving, she just bout cried. I am totally dreading telling the kidnergarten teacher who has taught 5 of my 8 kids that we are going.

Its the little things sometimes that catch me, or favorites like gas stations, doctors and therapists. I dread having to find new ones all over.

I am so looking forward to more space, more closets, bigger yard, family area and a garage. So that my hubby's workbench will no longer be in m ybedroom. so that the dog kennel will no longer be in the kitchen and my daughter cradle and crib will no longer be in the dining room and our bedroom reaspectively. I'm looking forward to spreading out a bit more, to exploring a smaller more rural setting, to let the kids have a bit more freedom in riding bikes and going to the park and walking to school.

In the end, God is good ... all the time ... here or there ...

Thats all for now folks!

People pleaser

I have this problem.

While dealing with the house and mortgage stuff, i have dealt with different companies and different people. In the end, i have to choose one mortgage company and one realtor. Here lies the problem, I feel guilty having to tell people that ive been working with that im going with another company or person. I know I know ... I just need to get over it but while i havent committed fully to anyone, i just feel like im breaking my word when I dont go with these people. I have been honest and told them i am working with other people but still.

Sigh ... is there a people pleasers anounymous?

Too many realtors

It seems at first I couldnt find a realtor I liked for the life of me but now i have 3 or more all waiting in the wings so to speak.

I have the one from our church, who i trust, but she lives here and isnt as familiar with the towns we are moving to. I got a contact from a friend of mine to a friend of hers yesterday. I talked to him yesterday, he really has a good pulse on the area and I like that. I also have another lead to a agency with some christian realtors in the area. So lots of choices.

Not sure protocol or if one is better than the other. Or if i should jsut set up the showings myself with the realtors who are selling the properties we want to see.

Andrew took a week of vacation so we can actively house hunt next week. So lots of details to work out, sitters, do we take the little oens with, appts, etc.
Thats all for now folks!

Green Light

We heard back from our mortgage broker yesterday and we are a go on another mortgage. I am beyond excited.

We still need to crunch numbers and work out final details but just knowing we can make this work with the 105 ugly house offer is astounding! God is sooo good ... when he moves ... he moves m ightly.

There is a lesson in learning to wait on his timing not mine. So the active house hunt begins, not that i havent been checking real estate sights daily, often several times a day, but actively viewing houses and figuring out which one will be ours.

We havent heard back from Chicago but maybe thats good, cause God doesnt seem to be moving us that direction. Winsted possibility is still there, the business is in the process of figuring out exactly what they want in the position and money, so we will see.

MJ

Weekend roundup

I had a great time going out Saturday night, didnt get home til 1:30 in the monring. But even being exhausted the next day was worth the laughter and fun and relaxing i got the night before. It was a blast hanging out with my friend and making a new one! Even got a really yummy strawberry daiquiri out of the deal.

Yesterday was filled with a all day church celebration and lots of shopping. We let the kids spent some fo the family christmas money yesterday and they all made some good choices. The only stipulation was that it had to be a nontoy item. So choices varied from sports balls to a boombox to fabric to heroscape pieces.

Andrew got a new guitar yesterday and it plays beautifully. We also ordered his replacement wedding band, his has been missing for nearly two years. I got some much needed clothes, I chose to go to savers to maximize my dollars (read I wanted books :). I still have money left even!

Well thats all for now folks!

Jailbird

Im flying away from home for a night out with one of my good friends and one of her good friends. Im really excited, its been too long since ive been out. Never mind that i have to take the tagalong with, Im still really looking forward to going.

I love my family, I adore and love my husband ... but somtimes I just need that break away from reality for a bit. I come back more refreshed and ready to tackle life!

Changes afoot.

My son said somthign this morning to me that hits too close to home and it seriously upset me. So I have been pondering a lot this morning. While what he said wasnt completely true, it has a ring of truth to it.

So its causing me to rethink some things. I have been planning to institute a schedule anyway, despite my hating structure, but im changing things slightly in what im planning. Ill let you know how this all pans out.

As Dr. Phil would say hows that working for ya? And since what we are doing isnt, ... im determined to find somthing that does.

Thats all for now folks!

A new baby

No IM not pregnant. But our cockatiels have laid their 2nd egg this week and this one didnt crack! So we are off on a new adventure in our family.

Meeting with the realtor went very well yesterday despite the house not being stellar. I felt very at ease with her, she interacted with the little ones and I have confidence that she will give us an accurate picture of this house and what to do with it. Im not necessarily wanting to list it ... but if thats the best option for getting us out and into another ... thats what we will do. Rather than going with the ugly house people that is.

Still havent heard anything from the mortgage guy ... but its only been 2 days, so thats not a biggie.

I actually get to stay home part of the day today ...woohoo ... Im tired of being in the van more than I am home this week.

Dentist appts for two of the kids today ... they managed to get the entire family in in the next week or so, unfortunely over numerous days. Soo more running.

May God fill your day today with joy and peace! Thats all folks!