Disregard the Last Post!

We ARE the owners of that house pictured below! :) A little more convincing and the owner finally agreed to pay for the necessary repairs on the house. We are so happy and so very relieved. Now it's time to do some serious packing and get things ready to move!

Still Without A Home

Well, the house in the picture at the bottom of the post below? Not our house. The inspection uncovered a lot of problems, which we expected with a 1973 house. Some of them we were prepared to take care of ourselves, others were big and needed to be handled before we could even accept the house. Unfortunately, the owner refused to fix the requested problems. So, we are out our option fee, the money for the inspection, and a home. And once again, we are quite homeless. Please pray we find a place soon!!! For now, we will be looking in the yellow pages for an apartment since we have to be out of our current house in less than 3 weeks. Do you ever wish you could go back in time and choose things differently???

Times are Changing

It's hard to believe that in just a few weeks, we will no longer be living in this house; it is all I've known since Bill and I started our little family. We've brought each of our children home from the hospital to this house. I thought last night about Christmas mornings, where they parade down the stairs and their little eyes light up as they come to the landing halfway down the staircase and are suddenly able to see into the den at the lit up Christmas tree and all of the goodies that Santa had left for them. I think about all of the birthday parties we've had in our backyard, especially over the last couple of years since Bill completed our deck. I think about the playset that my dad and Bill put together as quickly as they could before Alex's 2nd birthday. I think about when we built our garden box in the backyard and planted our seeds. I think about all of the times that the kids have awoken during the night, and we'd hear the pitter patter of their little feet coming down the hall towards our room. I think of my sweet little birds who make a nest of my hanging geranium year after year and how much I love to look out at them while I stand at the kitchen window. I think of all of the lovely updates we've done to the house, both inside and out. And most of all, I think about good friends and neighbors who live so close by and how wonderful and convenient it is to be able to get together at the last minute and to borrow needed recipe ingredients (or cake boards ;) ).

It has been a sad experience selling our house. But the time had come and we look forward to the next phase of our lives. We will still regularly see our friends and of course, we will make new friends within our new neighborhood. And just as we have done with this one, we will form wonderful memories in our new home. There will be birthday parties, get-togethers, a playset, a garden, etc. in the new house just like in our current one.

And speaking of our new home, if all goes well with the inspection today, here it is:

Coming Up For Air...

Life has been busy, crazy, hectic, stressful, and a bit over-whelming for our family this last month or more. For years now we have talked about selling our house and moving closer to Bill's work, family and church. It's not that we are all that far away from it all, but it is enough to make us think twice before participating in a church event, or making a quick trip to Granny and Paw-Paw's house.

In the Fall/Winter time frame we were seeing so many houses on the market that were in the location we wanted to live and were a nice improvement on our current house size. But we weren't ready to move at that point. So now, with it being a so-called "buyer's market", we decided to go for it. We worked really hard in March and beginning of April to get our house ready, and on my birthday it went on the market. For that first week, we had a showing every day. I'm sure many of you out there have been through it.... The quick, complete house cleaning every morning, grabbing kids and dog and racing out the door to go hang out at a park for several hours while the house is being shown, preventing the kids from hanging any of their artwork about the house, keeping the kids out of the house as much as possible to keep it neat and only allowing one toy out at a time to keep the mess under control. I wasn't exactly enjoying the whole process, but I never dreamed that after only ten days on the market, we'd get an offer. So just like that, our house was sold. But we haven't found a house yet. We are wondering if it really is a blessing that our house sold so quickly!

But the Lord works in mysterious ways. When we have seen a house we like, we've found out an offer was just placed on it that same day. We've put offers on two houses so far, and in both cases, others had also put offers on them that were higher than we could go. God was making it very clear to us that these were not the houses for us, even if we thought so. We are actually preparing to put an offer on a different house today, one that we've looked at many times and has sat on the market for awhile now. We have been aprehensive about this house, and yet loved it at the same time. I feel that God has been leading us back to it through all of our house-hunting. It will be interesting to see if it actually works out. In the meantime, we are just praying that by our closing date (less than 3 weeks away!!!!), we'll have some where to go - house or apartment, just as long as it's not a cozy spot under a bridge! ;)

And through all of this craziness, life is moving on. Baseball has continued to take much of our time. We're still trying to keep up with our school work, though not as well as I'd like. And today is Bill's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEETHEART!!!! We're doing our best to make it fun and special, despite everything else we have going on. And tomorrow is Alex's birthday. So I also have a party to plan (just a small one this year ;) ) and a cake to bake.

I know it's all going to work out in the end. But getting through it has been and will continue to be hard. I'm just trying to keep my faith in God and know that He is in control.