some good news

The house is as good as ours! We put in the offer yesterday morning and they accepted it with a few slight changes. We accepted the few changes and we are closing on April 29th. Our lease doesn't end until July 31st, so we are leasing back the house to the seller until the middle of June. So, in less than 3 months, we'll be moving into our very first home. I can't believe it. I don't foresee anything happening with our loan, things are going very well but we can't go any farther until we both have officially accepted the offer on the house. I just hope and pray that no one decides to make an offer on it and who is going to, tomorrow is Easter!

It's amazing how fast your life can change in a week. Last Friday I met with Wes to see a house in Old Town to rent. He suggested that I buy one instead and gave me Karmen's information so she could see about getting us a loan. I found out that night that it was possible. Now it's a week later and we are buying a house! I just can't believe what a whirl-wind this whole process has been. We have been SO blessed. There is no way that we could have done this without divine intervention. It just fell right into place and it's worked out better than we ever thought it could be. I need to pass these blessings on, so if anyone needs anything, let me know! Besides, I'm going to need some of your help when we move in 3 months. I'll even buy pizza!

more stress...

I was in tears today over this whole house thing. We had some miscommunication (I won't go into the entire story) and it made me feel terrible. There is a chance we might lose the house because of it, but hopefully it won't come down to that.

To make matters worse, Forest called me earlier tonight and he was stuck with a flat tire. He put on the spare and it was low on air. He drove to a gas station and of course has no money on him so he had to pay a fee to use the ATM just to get a few quarters for air. Sheesh! Yesterday I locked my keys in the car outside of Jennie's apartment. I had just gotten back from speech therapy and Jennie was in Keller at the church. I thankfully didn't lock Grace in the car. It was pouring down rain and we had to sit in the breezeway while Allstate's motor club took an hour to come rescue me. Grace was being so cute and good when she could have easily been really grouchy, especially as that cut into her lunch time. I can't believe I am such a dummy.

So, it's been a long two days. I've worked 20.75 hours in the last two days I'm glad Grace is easy to take care of and makes me laugh or I would have had an even longer two days!

ok, i love it...

Yep, it's official. I am in love with this house. It's in a great location for us (with fantastic neighbors), great price and best of all, it's a very sound house. The rooms are great sizes and laid out fantastic. I especially loved the sky light in the bathroom, very cute. It doesn't need any work, maybe just some landscaping work in the back yard. We are going to get an inspector to look through it, very throughly. I don't want anything to creep up on us once we move in. Things are going to be very tight for us so we can save like crazy. I had some plans to get some furniture in the next few months and I am willing to forgo a dining room table for a little while so we can save, save, save. Maybe with next year's tax refund! Planning to buy this house has completely changed my way of looking at money. Right now I don't really value or cherish the place we live. It's not mine, it's just this dwelling I live in and we are wasting our money on. A house though, it's ours. We are responsible for it and the things that might break in it. There are so many joys and I'm sure a few pains of having our very own place. I can't tell you what my favorite part of this whole thing will be. The huge master bedroom, my own bathroom, the backyard that we can finally get a BBQ for, a great kitchen to cook in, room to have parties, the *garage*! There are so many things we are looking forward to. Forest is going to see it tomorrow morning and give his approval. From there we'll put a bid on it and see what happens. I still don't really know what I am doing, so pray for us! We need all the help we can get!

Here is the house:

am I the only one?

I completely forgot that it's Spring Break! I woke up this morning at 6:45 to get ready as I usually do and then remembered that I'm taking Grace to speech therapy today. Then I remembered the reason WHY I'm taking her, because Jennie will be taking the girls to the Primary Activity today! This also means I don't have to work until 9. I got up an hour earlier than I needed to. Oh well, at least I'm ready to go now and can have a little bit of relaxation time before I go to work today. I'm just glad I realized that now or I probably would have woken everyone up!

Another minor hiccup in forgetting it's Spring Break is that I'm meeting a Realtor today about a that house on Reed. Our financing is pretty much sound (and way way within our budget, thank goodness) and if we love the house we're going to put a bid on it soon. We still have 3 months and a few weeks until we want to move in, which may cause some issues, but we have a few different options for dealing with that. The earliest we can close is in May, depending on what kind of financing we are able to get. I'm so excited, this has all just fallen into place. Even if that isn't the house we end up getting, knowing that we'll be owning our very own house in just a few short months is a feeling that I thought we wouldn't feel for a very long time. I need to be careful with my feelings though, I find myself wanting to pre-decorate this place and I shouldn't do that just in case we lose it or we end up not liking it! I imagine it will only get worse when I actually see it...

Since I don't have to leave for another hour, I'm going to either try to get my husband up (he's so lazy in the morning) or snuggle and chat.

we're sold, are they?

Wes showed me the house this morning and I really love it. It needs a little bit of TLC (namely just new paint) but overall everything else is great. The floors are fantastic, the bathrooms are very well maintained, it's got a great porch for entertaining... I am sold! Now the only problem is praying it stays on the market until our lease ends. Wes is going to talk to them about us putting down the deposit and first month's rent now to save it until the first part of July. We've also talked about buying it, so we are going to be needing a lot of advice if we do something like that. We just got rid of every last bit of our debt too, so that I'm sure helps.

So, Wes gave me the name of a loan agent named Karmen. Some of you may remember her from before the split of the Trophy Club Ward. She was excited to help see if we could even apply for the loan and after running a credit check, we passed! So, that lifts a load from my mind knowing that if we wanted to buy we would be more than set to go ahead with it. We think the house on Main is insanely over priced so if we did BUY a house it would either have to be dropped dramatically in price or we would find another house in Roanoke. There are 4 bedroom homes in the Parks that are cheaper than what they want for that 2 bedroom (without a garage) in Old Town. Crazy!

So, I'm sailing through this pretty well so far and I know it's because we're living the gospel. Heavenly Father is really looking out for us on this one, he's made it more than possible for us to live our dream of finally buying a house. Now I just hope we can afford it down the road! More praying to come, I think...

stress!

There is another house in Old Town Roanoke that is for sale or rent. It would be smarter for us to buy the house, but I am still very worried about the entire thing. I was supposed to go look at it yesterday with Wes, a realtor that is on our Ward, but he found out that the owners had another lease in the works. I was pretty crushed, but figured I had 4 months left to really start worrying about it. McKay and Alexa are begging us to move in with them once our lease ends and as much as I love the Dendy's, I don't want to ruin the good thing we have going! Jennie and I were talking about this last night and no matter how much you get along with someone, strange things can happen when you are living together. A month wouldn't be enough time to worry about, but in the situation that we would be moving in, who knows how long it would take for us to find a house!

So, anyway, I get an e-mail from Wes this morning saying that the lease deal is falling apart and is still on the market. Imagine my glee. It was like a huge weight was lifted from me! Now, I still have no idea if this will be the house we end up getting, as it's still a number of months away until our lease ends, but I got on my knees and thanked Heavenly Father for at least helping me feel better and again for the strength to feel calm during this whole thing. I had a stress stomach ache last night, something I haven't had in a number of years. That is how stressed out I am feeling over this! It's really quite ridiculous!

We're going to look at the house later today. The funny thing is, I want this house so bad but I don't even know if I am going to like it. I sure hope so, or all of this worrying will be over nothing! I am glad Enrichment is tonight, I need something very fun to keep my mind off of things for a while. See some of you tonight!

i'm sick and tired...

Of being sick and tired! I somehow caught the flu that is going around. I guess I was due, I sailed through most of the flu season without so much as a cough. When you get slobbery whacks to the face several times a day, I think your immune system starts building up. I didn't go to work yesterday or today. In the past I've just had allergy problems and not really the flu so I could function decently and not pass the flu germs around, but I feel absolutely terrible. I couldn't even stand up for 5 minutes and help with dinner, I got so pooped. There is no way I could take care of Grace properly and I don't want her getting sick either.

So, I spent the day yesterday sitting and organizing my scrapbook stuff, finally. On Monday I found this fantastic tower that turned out to be a life saver. Everything fit into it except my letter sized paper and stickers. I bought three portable file folders for that and they stack, so everything is pretty and organized into a workable system. I'm happy. Now everything is pretty much being boxed up because Forest is taking over my desk until we move and buy him a new one (or me a new one...hehe). We're still kind of freaking out slightly about moving. Do we buy? Do we rent? Do we have enough money saved up? I don't think we're ready to buy yet and as my parents are probably going to move down here, we would rather wait until they are settled here before we decide where we are going to be permanently. We're, of course, wanting to stay in Roanoke forever! As long as we're not in an apartment anymore...I'll be happy.