The Joys of Moving....

I'm pretty excited to say that we have started the wonderful process of packing and moving!  I've had some boxes packed for a while but that was simply for showing purposes. Once we got confirmation of renters and a move-in date for them I stopped packing and keeping the house "show-ready"! Our renters are going to be moving in at the end of July so I knew I had a couple of weeks of being able to go back to "normal" living in our house before it got tore up with boxes and we started moving. I enjoyed not having to worry about it for a little while although I can't say that it still wasn't in the forefront of my mind. Mostly planning and figuring it all out on exactly when we were going to move what and to where, storage or trailer! Come the middle of May I started looking at the calendar and Brandon's work schedule. I realized that moving was going to have to happen a little bit earlier than I thought because of schedules and wanting to have time before the renters move in to clean up.
Today Brandon and a friend are moving our bedroom and livingroom furniture into a storage unit so we will be sleeping in the guest room. We decided to get the storage unit now because they were getting low on units. Brandon also spent the day before packing up a bunch of clothes on his day off.  So the house is officially looks and is in moving transistion!
This coming weekend is designated as my offical packing weekend. It's Memorial Day weekend and I'll have 3 days to get a lot done! From this weekend through the 8-9th of June we will be moving our things into storage and plan to be in the trailer by that weekend of the 9th of June. That will give us time to have everything out and the house cleaned up for the renters by the end of July!

I'm sure this will be me before it's all said & done!

Answered Prayers!!

So last week I posted on facebook a call out to anyone that was able and willing to take in my two outside cats temporarily while we are living in the horse trailer. I stated that Brandon and I would be moving soon and needed to start looking for arrangements for them. Of course everyone wanted to know about the moving part and I didn't really get anywhere with the cats. I have been thinking about what to do with them for a while now but I just kept my faith in God that something would work out for the best for them. Right after I posted the status on facebook, a really good friend of mine, Amber, sent me a text saying that she thought we were selling the house (apparently she hasn't gotten caught up on my blog here!). I then told her that we HAVE had it for sale for the past 6 months now and were about to list it for lease.   
So, she is texting me questions about our house, how many bedrooms, how many baths, etc. She said that she was REALLY wanting an additional room and in our house we have a room that can be used as another bedroom, living room, exercise room, playroom... you name it.  I told her that Brandon and I would talk about it that evening and also have them over to look.  Brandon said that we could try and work something out with them. We were able to talk to them that evening about it and I got a text from her the next day saying they decided that they wanted rent the house! Woo Hoo! She said the only problem was that their lease wasnt up until August sometime. I told her that was okay with us, God has this planned out.  We arent in a huge hurry to move, just needed to know if they wanted it so we would know if we needed to list it.
As of today she has told me that she has notified her landlord that they will be out by July 31st! This will give us plenty of time to get all of our things sorted out. We have to put things in climate control, non climate control and then what will stay with us in the horse trailer. It will be a job.

As I open the Bible to look for a verse that goes along with this post, it opens to Psalm 25 and these verses all jump out at me:

"The Lord always proves faithful and reliable to those who follow the demands of his covenant." Psalm 25:10

"The Lord shows his faithful followers the way they should live. They experience his favor; their decendants inherit the land. The Lord's loyal followers receive his guidance, and he reveals his covenantal demands to them." Psalm 25:12-14

This one really spoke to me for it is an issue I have dealt with during this whole process of waiting for step after step to follow through:
Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for Him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes!" Psalm 37:7


And everyone knows this one:
"For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. 'I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope." Jeremiah 29:11

Lucy

Cotton

My sweet girls will now be able to stay in their familiar home! <3 They were both rescues, Cotton from a neighbor of Amber, where she was weeks old and surrounded by numerous other animals, infested with fleas and eye infections; Lucy was rescued by the public works crew with the city of Oak Ridge North, placed in a box and put on my desk! It had been raining a lot and we were having some minor flooding. She was found by our water plant, holed up trying to weather the storm. She fit in my hand she was so tiny. They took to each other like a mamma taking in her own that had been lost.
We also know that things happen, things change... if for some unknown reason the cats can't stay or Amber & Jarvis aren't able to rent our house, God will work something out.

Where are Yall building???

This question comes to me about as much as the question of when we're going to have kids... maybe more. And it usually follows this question "Have y'all bought any land yet?".  The answer is No and No. We don't know the EXACT location that we are going to build. We are interested in the west side of Walker County. We are not at the step in our plans to purchase any land yet therefore we are holding off on even looking because we do not know how long each step will take. If we would have looked right after we listed the house for sale, counting on it selling, we would have been sorely disappointed along with paying two mortgages if we would have found something we loved and bought it. If we would have found something we loved but didn't buy yet because our house had not sold yet then we took the chance of it not being for sale when the house sold. So, with that being said, I think we have made the right decision in being patient and waiting for a transition with our current house first, especially since it didn't sell! Also, we are not dead set on the west side of Walker County either. When the time comes for us to pick out some land, we will look at everything outside of Montgomery County. The reason that we are not planning on looking at anything in Montgomery County is the fact that it is SO expensive!! We wouldn't be able to afford the amount of land that we'd like in MC as we would in WC. Once we get renters in our house and we get moved into the horse trailer we will then take our time going and looking at land. We are also planning on purchasing our land/home construction in one loan. That is why we haven't just gone out and bought some land. Brandon hasn't decided how much land to buy either, but will be between 7 and 15 acres. We do have house plans drawn up though! We went to a referred architect a year and a half ago and had them drawn up. We thought we were closer to building than we were. We also have a look that we like a lot. We arent sure if we will be able to have the stone or not. Will just have to see when we start getting estimates and costs.

Right now we don't think we will have the stone all the way to the top, possible only around the bottom about 2' up. The rest will be hardiplank. But this is the vision we have in mind for our house. Ours will probably be a little bit longer.

Getting closer!

The horse trailer is ready to be picked up & we got the materials for the roof delivered this morning! Brandon and I are going to have a date night tonight and leave tomorrow morning to go pick up the trailer and on Thursday the crew will be at the house to put a new roof on our house! Yippee!

The roof has been about a 5 week discussion... It was a decision on whether to try and do it ourselves with some help or hire someone to do it. Brandon got three different bids to do it and he also went and priced the materials to do it. We thought it would be best to do it ourselves... we would have plenty of help and Brandon would have the time off and we would save some money. I was anxious to get it scheduled and asked Brandon a couple of times if he had looked at his schedule to see when the best time for him to do it was. Of course there was also getting other guys to schedule it too. One morning he told me he was going to go buy all of the materials for it, that way he'll get it done quicker. His words, not mine and I agreed with him... mentally. So later that morning he called me and was telling me that before he left the house he really sat down and figured up the numbers. He basically told me that he didnt feel like we would save all that much by doing it ourselves with all of the time that would go into it also. I had started to see the roof project becoming very stressful for us so I agreed with him and told him to just call the roofer he felt would be best and get it scheduled. He made contact with the roofer this past Saturday and said he would have the materials delivered this week and agreed to work with Brandon's schedule so that he could be there when they were there. The materials were being delivered before I left for work this morning and Brandon sent me a message later saying that they would be replacing the roof THIS Thursday! Woot Woot!

• Horse trailer repaired & ready to live in - Check!
• Bathrooms painted - Check!
• Roof scheduled - Check!

This past weekend I started packing up things that we dont use every day like the closets in our back two bedrooms. And, our realtor contract on our house expires is coming week so we can re-list it for lease! It's the first day of May and will be the perfect time for people to be moving since it will be summer time and in between school years! It has been a whirlwind of a year between Brandon graduating from fire training last April, getting a job, getting a nephew, and all of the progress on our house! Our blessing are abundant! Praise the Lord!

Our house, Another stressful step in this process!

During the Fall of last year (2011), Brandon's dad started getting busy again and work was coming in. Brandon had started a large land clearing job for his dad in October of 2011. After he went to work for the fire dept he continued working on the clearing job on his days off from the fire dept. Brandon continues to work for his dad on his days off . It is working out pretty good and I know he really enjoys to still be able to work for his dad like we planned on. In September of last year, the second job I was working decided not to renew the security contract. I was out of a regular second job. It was bittersweet because we would not have that extra income but was glad that I would have my weekends back! While Brandon was super busy working, working, and studying for work, I was spending time with family and getting into health & fitness which I will get into later. But we were both very busy it seemed throughout this holiday season. I lost my dear sweet grandpa, my mothers dad, a week before Thanksgiving. It is very hard to lose a loved one even if their health has been down for a while and it wasn't totally unexpected. He will and is greatly missed!

We had decided that logically, the best thing for us to do was to to sell or rent our house before we bought land and built a house in order to avoid having the double mortgage payments. We knew that Brandon had to get hired at a fire department first so that we would have two incomes instead of trying to eliminate one house and gaining another with just one and a half incomes. It was always one thing before the other! So once Brandon got hired with the fire department we were more than ready to list our house on the market to sell. Selling it was our first option. We briefly discussed leasing it but didnt really think that we wanted to deal with renters and everything else that goes along with having a rental house. Brandon started working for the fire dept on November 02, 2011 and we met with a realtor on November the 7th! "Chop! Chop! No time to waste!" LOL I was thinking that we may be hitting it at a good time with us coming up on the end of the year. Some people move kids during that time because it's not in the middle of a semester BUT then again it's also the holiday time and people may not be wanting the expense of moving during this time. So, it began to be a waiting game.... Then the holidays came and went without even one showing. Thank goodness for a few good distractions after the first of the year to keep me from stressing over it! On January 23, 2012 we all welcomed my sweet nephew to this big world!
A few weeks later I got to celebrate my birthday with a skiing vacation in Taos, NM with my family, minus Brandon because he had to work. We had an awesome time! My brother, Chris got to ski for his first time and my dad got to get a little more comfortable on his "ski legs"! Unfortantely the ski boots injured Kathy's legs the first day and she was unable to try again the second day. Still we had a great time! I missed Brandon terribly and was so happy to be home with him.

Mr. Grady has stolen everyone's heart!
Here he is on Valentines Day 2012

Me, Dad, & Chris on our last run of the trip.
It was snowing pretty hard (to us anyway) & thought it was the best run!



I'm not sure if it was in February or March but we got caught off guard one evening when a realtor called and scheduled our very first showing for the house! That kind of lifted our spirits a little bit where the house was concerned. It can really dampen your spirits when you have three full months of NO activity whatsoever... It has definantely been a time of continued support to each other. We would have to help each other stay positive and stay on track with what we have planned. It seemed when Brandon would get discouraged, I'd have to remind him of how close we are to what we are working towards and then there were times that I would get frustrated and impatient with the process and how slow things were progressing and Brandon lifted me up. To this date, we still have only had that one showing that actually came inside and looked at the house. We have had several showings scheduled but once they get to the house they don't come in because they don't care for the area or didn't like dogs and we have one in the yard.
During all of this we did find some spare time to talk about where we would live when we sold the house. A lot of people had asked where we were going to live after they found out that we were not going to build until after we moved out of our house. We had several different options and ultimately decided on living in the living quarters of our horse trailer, next to his parents house. This will definantely be an experience! Now that we made that decision, **insert additonal step here**, we knew we had to have some work done on the trailer before we started living in it full time. On March 10th we delivered it to the dealership in Georgetown, TX. and dropped it off with a list of things to check/repair. They told us it would be at least 4 to 6 weeks before it was ready. That kind of seemed like a long time but it felt good to have a date to look forward to! On our drive to Georgetown with the trailer we had a lot of drive time to visit and talk about our plans. While we were talking we decided to plan on leasing the house instead of selling it, unless we got a buyer with the right price before the contract expired.  He thought that in the long run, leasing this house would be very beneficial for us to have that extra income.  During this same time, Brandon was working with his dad on a job in Montgomery for a couple of days doing some paving. After the job was complete, he had the equipment delivered to our house. He surprised me by telling me that we were going to have our driveway paved! This was super exciting for me! I was just hoping that I'd be able to enjoy it before we moved! He said that it was something he wanted to have done if we were going to have renters living there. I didn't disagree ;-) He also said there were a couple of other things, like the roof & some plumbing, that he wanted to do with the house before we got renters so that we would have peace of mind knowing that these things were in working order. ***Insert addional steps here*** Now that we felt pretty certain that we will be renting the house instead of selling it, we want things to be in good shape so hopefully the renters will see that and take better care of it (HA!). On March 24th, our driveway was paved!! Hallelujah!! It makes the place look so nice! I just love it! Harrell Construction did an awesome job!

Among the things Brandon wanted to do with the house, I decided to do something as well! Not too many of you have been to my house (Mammies house) but the ones that have remember this! In both of the bathrooms was this hideous wallpaper! I'm sure it was great in 1975! So, I decided to paint the walls of the bathrooms. I thought it would be a huge help in attracting prospective renters. This kind of started out as my project that I started on a Saturday that Brandon was working at the fire dept. Well, it is hard to paint one area and have the whole area look good without painting the whole area. So... we decided we had to paint the trim AND cabinets also! This turned into a bigger and more time consuming project than I initially planned. It took several weekends and weeknights. We had to Kilz the walls with the wallpaper, remove drawers & cabinet doors, tape and re-tape, replace the hardware on the cabinets..... We almost got to the point where we wanted to poke our eyes out rather than paint anymore. But, the results were 100% better! It is hard to do one improvement without thinking about doing another improvement. The floors in the bathrooms/kitchen could be replaced, the appliances need updating but you have to stop somewhere right? Check out the progress pictures -