Sale Pending

Tim found a house for us and put together an offer yesterday late afternoon. By noon today we had gotten the call that our offer was accepted as written and we our on our way to buying a house. It has really been an exciting few months. Our house sold in record time and we found the perfect house for us and we are shooting for closing on the same day. Amazing! God really seems to be working in all this. We felt it was His leading that called us back to Ohio and it would sure seem that there is great confirmation of that. We are all eager to move and get settle in our new "old" town. I have just a couple of pictures to share. This one is obviously the front :) It backs up to the Community Park. There is a lot of landscaping and the home it super clean inside. I think we will do very well here. The space is a different than here in the mountains but the square footage might actually be a bit more. It is what is called a quad level. On the left side is the ground floor with a basement under it. The middle section is a split level up to the bedrooms and a split level down to a bonus room area (likely will end up as Tim and my's bedroom). The basement is reached through this bonus area. Then the two car garage is also reached through the bonus area and is actually six steps up from the bonus room to the garage. I really like the seperate spaces and we've found that this type of layout works really well for us. The kids will have the upstairs bedrooms. The back yard is fenced with a deck and several trees, shrubs and the like. It is a great "kid" yard, but I'm going to love it as well. There is already a little garden so I can once again grow some veggies and not worry that the deer will eat them all!! And here is one of the really wondeful aspects of the house....

Yes, I will never again have to drive to the post office to get my mail. I will never have to struggle filling out an online shipping address form because I don't have a street address. My PO Box will be obsolete and I will rejoice greatly. This wondeful mail box will only be shadowed by my great joy in never having to drive my trash to the dumpster again. Someone will bring me my mail and someone will take away my trash. Life doesn't get much better!!

Going on a House Hunt

Tim is currently driving to Ohio (nearly there as of this writing) and has an appointment tomorrow morning to walk through seven or so houses. Yes, he is going to buy a house without me :) With the wonderful invention of the internet however, I feel as though I already have a good idea of the houses he's going to see tomorrow. There are pictures galore available of these homes, so we've narrowed the choices together here. Growing up there, I am familiar with the area and though it has been 20 years or so, I have a general idea of the layout of the houses and the community. There are several good homes and any of them would meet our needs (assuming that upon walking through them Tim doesn't find a missing roof or anything horrid). I hope that by this time tomorrow night, I'll know which house we plan to write an offer for and that by the end of the week, we'll know what our new address will be. I can hardly believe we are already at this next step. It is very exciting. Tim also will be interviewing for work, which is the other reason he will be in town. We trust that God is the one who has led us here and He will continue to provide what we need or close a door... we're welcoming whatever He happens to have for us. Stay tuned :)

Sold

We accepted an offer on the house and are quite happy to have the house officially sold. We still have to get to settlement, but it would seem that there isn't anything that will stop that from happening. Overall the house sold is just about 1 month, which is wonderful in this market. We feel quite blessed by that.

Now things step up a notch in the "moving along" arena. Tim is planning a trip to Ohio (most likely a week from today) and will buy a house and hopefully find a job too. We've been watching several homes since May on some realty sites and have seven good possibilities. Tim has talked to a few mortgage companies and we are in good shape in that regard, so it will be a matter of actually looking at the houses and putting together an offer. Tim is a bit anxious about buying a house without me there (understandably so) but it really does seem best all around to have just him go. I can tell much from the pictures online and after 18 years of marriage, I trust him to make a fine choice. Each possibility has good and bad, so it is really just narrowing things down.

It is nice to not have to stress over keeping the house spotless for awhile. We can soon begin packing more things. We'd already packed several boxes in preparation to sell, so we are already down to bare necessities, but it will all have to get done. We close on October 30th which is about six weeks from now.

I'm home this morning from church with Emma who isn't feeling well. I kept Quin home as well to give the nursery volunteers a break. Emma and Hannah both got haircuts yesterday... Hannah got layers (that look really nice) and Emma got all hers cut off. She's been begging for month to go really short. Last haircut she went with bangs again and a short bob, but still not above her ears. She now has a definate pixie cut. It looks really cute and she loves it. I'm glad she doesn't hate it, 'cause it would take awhile to grow back out. I'll need to take some pictures and post them.

Well, since I'm home this morning, I guess I should do some laundry :)

Things are progressing...

First, I have to share some really great news! Last summer I began searching for a copy of The Big Tidy-Up by Norah Smaridge. I actually have this from my own childhood. It is one of my very favorite books about a girl named Jenny and her horribly messy room. In the end, she cleans her room and all is right with the world.... such a happy story that I can SO relate to! So anyway, my copy (a first edition I learned) had one page that was torn and the binding is very loose. I thought it worth the effort to replace this book as I had done with another favorite childhood book (Peter's Wagon). I found the other on ebay for about $3.00, so I thought surely I'd find some used book seller that had The Big Tidy-Up for a reasonable price. Oh my goodness was I in for a surprise. There were two listed on ebay and both were over $500.00! Evidently I had quite a rare and expensive book on my hands. I immediately removed it from the shelf and put it up for safe keeping. Now before you judge me for keeping good books from the kids, I do take it down and read it to them quite often, but we always read it together. After all, one page is already ripped! And until recently, I thought this was the last copy I'd ever see! Well, tonight I found this! In May of next year, the book is being re-released!! All for only $8.99! I can hardly wait. I will be on the pre-order list. In fact I would have ordered it tonight but since I have no idea where my address will be in May, I thought it best to wait a bit.

Next bit of good news is that we have an offer on the house. We knew it was coming last Friday as there was some verbal negotiations already (the offer is through another agent in the same office) but we actually have it in hand now. It is not the best offer in the world, but in this poor housing market, we have decided to accept it. In the end, it will give us what we need and enable us to get into another house. If all proceeds as planned, we will close the end of October. I'm hopeful that all will go through and we'll be on our way.

School for Jot has been difficult. The district isn't implementing his IEP as it is written and each night seems like another struggle to overcome. We are quite discouraged and even more eager to get out of this district and this state. He isn't getting the services and support that we spent so many hours on last spring trying to get straighten out. It is so frustrating. Hannah is doing quite well in her classes and Emma is progressing along as well, though neither situation is what we would like it to be. At least we have a plan to move on. I only pray that it is better elsewhere. We've tried to do our homework and have talked to several people, so I feel much more informed than when we came here. All that has to be good right? I haven't yet abandoned all hope that a good public school education still exists somewhere. I'm close to that giving up point, but haven't yet crossed that line. A return to homeschooling may yet be in our future. Only time will tell. If we do return to it, at least we'll be in a state that isn't considered the second worst homeschooling state in the nation!

Cool weather is here and the leaves are changing. I love this time of year!

September begins....

School started last week for the oldest three. Hannah is now in 8th grade, Jot is in 4th and Emma has begun 2nd. We managed to get everyone off for the new academic year without any major trouble. School supplies were purchased and thankfully, only two of the five kids needed boat loads of new clothes. Thank the Lord for hand-me-downs. Hannah and Jot, however, being at the top of the hand-me-down chain were in desperate need. I was able to outfit Jot completely for the year (I hope) at Target. Hannah and I spent a good part of last Saturday shopping for her. It went very well though. Five of the first six pairs of jeans she tried on actually fit. I was stunned and amazed! Early this year we went on a hunt for jeans and had to go to five different places before we found anything acceptable. We started on Saturday at Kohl's and found nearly everything she needed in less than an hour. Miracles do still happen. We made some rounds to JoAnns and Target (and Taco Bell) but were home in time for dinner with everything we went out to get. It is a rare thing indeed. Emma needs some new tights and Jot will soon need shoes, but for now we are all set in the clothing for kids department.



Although I haven't mentioned it here, most of you reading this know we are moving. The house has been for sale for a few weeks and even in the bad market, we've had a handful of showings. Today was a second showing and we are quite hopeful that we'll soon get an offer. Tim has made some very good contacts and had a couple of promising phone interviews as well. I'm praying that all the timing of sell the house/get a job/buy a house all works out. It seems unlikely for it all to come together perfectly but God is able I'm certain, so we'll just wait and see what unfolds. We are headed back home to Ohio. So many things have led to the decision and we are finally at a peace about where to go and what to do. Now we wait out the details.


I wanted to share this picture of dirty belly boy. Doesn't he look like a complete wreck in this picture? His milk gut is really getting the better of him. He also has a unique relationship with dirt. If it exists, he will find it and eat it and roll in it and cry when you wash it off. We find ourselves pulling his shirt down quite often throughout the day now. He still is cute though, even if a bit smelly :)

We are enjoying much cooler days here and the nights are getting down right cold. I absolutely love it. I adore the fall and especially here where the leaves are changing and the air is crisp. I'll miss the weather here that is for sure.

We had some friends from church here for Labor Day and enjoyed a beautiful day. It was fun to not have to clean the house because it is so clean already from showings. In fact it has honestly never looked better since we've lived here. Isn't that always the truth? Looks wonderful just in time to leave! We are trying to enjoy it and trying to maintain order throughout the day. I figure if we learn how to keep it spotless while selling it, perhaps we'll get used to it and keep our next house just as nice.