The middle of January we met with a mortgage company to discuss our loan options. He told us what we needed to do in order to be able to get a loan. He also told us that it would take about 4 to 6 months to be able to do what we needed to do. So our plan was that by May/June we would be ready to find a house, get a loan and move. The main thing that we needed to do was get dh's credit score up at least 10 points. We are still dealing with the aftermaths of his ex never refinancing the house and then always being 3 months behind on payments. We first realized this was going on when dh went to buy a car and the salesman comes back and says your credit is bad because you aren't making your house payments on time. We then realized that his name was still on the loan and that for the past 10 years his ex never refinanced. The house for the past year has been paid off so slowly his score is improving as that disaster gets further in the past.
Yesterday, I decided to check his score to see how far we had gotten by taking care of a few things that he suggested. In a month and a half, his score has jumped 60 points. I was shocked. Mainly because the guy at the mortgage company said 4 to 6 months.
So what does this mean.
(1) We could go get approved for the loan we want right now. Now let me say that our budget is very low. The mortgage company was like here is what you have to do so that we can get you approved for a $90,000 to $100,000 loan. Both dh and I looked at him and said, "Nope. We are only looking at about $70,000 $80,000 at the most." Yes we do understand what kind of house that will get us. I am looking for an older home that has character and that I can fix up the way I want.
We have found a few houses in our price range and have slowly been picking through them. We go on Thursday afternoon to look at our first house. I have fallen in love with the neighborhood and the outside of the house. Now all I have to do is see the inside. The problem of course is I don't want to buy the first house we see.
(2) We do not have much time as we thought to be ready to move. That means that I need to step it up in going through every room and closet and getting rid of stuff that is not going with us. I need to step it up in making the minor repairs that we were going to make. I need to set it up in painting the rooms that we were going to paint.
The process that we thought would not happen until May/June has the potential to happen now.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Maniac Monday
There is no other way to describe Monday other than maniac. Our hardest thing is trying to recover from the weekend.
Well even though we had a very relaxing day yesterday due to church being cancelled today has certainly lived up to it's name of Maniac Monday.
K wanted cereal for breakfast this morning and fixed herself a big bowl of Trix. For some reason she thought it would be a good idea to move the coffee table with the bowl on it. Next thing I hear is her voice from the living room saying, "Well I need another bowl of Trix." The whole bowl was on the floor. I had to wash the slip covers as well as clean the carpet. Needless to say I was not happy and now there is no more food allowed in the living room. I explained to her that with trying to sell the house things like this just could not happen. She isn't happy right now but she made the decision to move the table with the bowl on it. Actions lead to consequences - such is life.
Once she recovered from her melt down, she started working on her schoolwork. We are still struggling with a start time. I would love for her to start by 9:00 so that she would be finished by 1:00. However, something always comes up. This morning between dealing with the milk spill and Scott needing help it was once again a late start to the school day. I really need to work on this. I have so many things to do around here getting ready to sell the house and move and I don't have time to do much during the day if we are spending all afternoon doing schoolwork.
After we finished schoolwork, we traveled to Walmart to get dh something for Valentine's day. I stood there with all the other people trying to decide what to get. He is having to watch what he eats so my typical gift of his favorite candy was out of the question. K saw these little cakes that the bakery had on display and suggested we get him a cake. After some discussion, we agreed to make our own heart-shaped cakes. Before we left for Walmart, dh had called to say that he would be home very late which actually worked great for us because it gave us time to get everything done.
They aren't professional looking but we were proud of our little hearts. It's the thought that counts right??
As far as my list of things that need to be done this week. Here is where I am:
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - Valentine's Day -must get something for dh and kids
Wed - Church - have lesson prepared
Thurs - nothing
Fri - Homeschool Group Valentines Party - must have valentines done (Have purchased them just waiting on list of names)
Sat - Youth Bowling Trip - send out reminders on Facebook, call bowling alley to confirm and make sure church van has gas.
Well even though we had a very relaxing day yesterday due to church being cancelled today has certainly lived up to it's name of Maniac Monday.
K wanted cereal for breakfast this morning and fixed herself a big bowl of Trix. For some reason she thought it would be a good idea to move the coffee table with the bowl on it. Next thing I hear is her voice from the living room saying, "Well I need another bowl of Trix." The whole bowl was on the floor. I had to wash the slip covers as well as clean the carpet. Needless to say I was not happy and now there is no more food allowed in the living room. I explained to her that with trying to sell the house things like this just could not happen. She isn't happy right now but she made the decision to move the table with the bowl on it. Actions lead to consequences - such is life.
Once she recovered from her melt down, she started working on her schoolwork. We are still struggling with a start time. I would love for her to start by 9:00 so that she would be finished by 1:00. However, something always comes up. This morning between dealing with the milk spill and Scott needing help it was once again a late start to the school day. I really need to work on this. I have so many things to do around here getting ready to sell the house and move and I don't have time to do much during the day if we are spending all afternoon doing schoolwork.
After we finished schoolwork, we traveled to Walmart to get dh something for Valentine's day. I stood there with all the other people trying to decide what to get. He is having to watch what he eats so my typical gift of his favorite candy was out of the question. K saw these little cakes that the bakery had on display and suggested we get him a cake. After some discussion, we agreed to make our own heart-shaped cakes. Before we left for Walmart, dh had called to say that he would be home very late which actually worked great for us because it gave us time to get everything done.
They aren't professional looking but we were proud of our little hearts. It's the thought that counts right??
As far as my list of things that need to be done this week. Here is where I am:
Tuesday - Valentine's Day -
Wed - Church - have lesson prepared
Thurs - nothing
Fri - Homeschool Group Valentines Party - must have valentines done (Have purchased them just waiting on list of names)
Sat - Youth Bowling Trip - send out reminders on Facebook, call bowling alley to confirm and make sure church van has gas.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Set-up Sunday
I want to try and write at least something every day from now on. Every post needs a Title, right? So I have decided to come up with a name for each day and that will be the topic for the day each week. We will see how it goes.
What a night? I think I have been through hurricanes that didn't have that much wind. I ended up spending most of the night on the couch because it is quieter out in the living room. Before we all went to bed it had started snowing and by morning the roads had a dusting with ice underneath.
At 8:00 this morning I received a text message saying that church was cancelled. We normally eat dinner at my mom's house after church so I called my mom and the decision was that we would just stay home and enjoy a quiet day at home.
I didn't wake K up I thought I would let her sleep. She was quite confused when she came downstairs. However, her confusion quickly turned to excitement when she looked outside and saw the snow. She wasn't long heading out the door. She did manage to find a spot with enough snow to make a small snowman.
She was very proud of him with his toothpick arms.
We spent the day just relaxing and watching movies. I did my usual Sunday night routine of getting things ready for the week. The first thing I do is look at the calendar and write down everything that is going on this week and what I have to do for each event.
This week:
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - Valentine's Day - must get something for dh and kids
Wed - Church - have lesson prepared
Thurs - nothing
Fri - Homeschool Group Valentines Party - must have valentines done
Sat - Youth Bowling Trip - send out reminders on Facebook, call bowling alley to confirm and make sure church van has gas.
Of course, as you can see my list just includes outside activities. Homeschool, laundry, packing, going through 15 years of accumulated "stuff" and other household duties are a given and I do not add them to the list.
Also on Sunday, I sit down and work on schooling for the coming week. I write out a very vague lesson plan. I do not like to take the time to write out a detailed lesson plan because something always happens and then we are either behind or K gets the concept quicker than I thought and she gets ahead of what I had planned. If she gets ahead then she thinks that she can skip a day - Wrong. So I write out general tasks for the week and don't let her see it. I use Homeschool Tracker Plus to record all of our work.
On Sunday, I will enter what I want her to get done on Monday. I print out a sheet and that is what is waiting for her in the morning on her desk. It is in the order of her workboxes. On a lot of subjects it is still very general for example it may just say - "Unit 4 Section 3" and not give page numbers. She then knows that she works until I say she is done. I try to make sure that we spend at least 30 minutes a day on the major core subjects - Math, Language Arts, History and Science.
Since we didn't eat dinner at my mom's it was up to me to fix a great Sunday meal. We decided that we would eat a lite lunch and then have an early dinner. I must say it was delicious. We had pork chops, garlic/herb potatoes, stuffing and peas.
It was a very relaxing Sunday. Yes, there were at least twenty things that I should have been doing but sometimes we all need days like this where we can just relax, talk and enjoy being home as a family.
What a night? I think I have been through hurricanes that didn't have that much wind. I ended up spending most of the night on the couch because it is quieter out in the living room. Before we all went to bed it had started snowing and by morning the roads had a dusting with ice underneath.
At 8:00 this morning I received a text message saying that church was cancelled. We normally eat dinner at my mom's house after church so I called my mom and the decision was that we would just stay home and enjoy a quiet day at home.
I didn't wake K up I thought I would let her sleep. She was quite confused when she came downstairs. However, her confusion quickly turned to excitement when she looked outside and saw the snow. She wasn't long heading out the door. She did manage to find a spot with enough snow to make a small snowman.
She was very proud of him with his toothpick arms.
We spent the day just relaxing and watching movies. I did my usual Sunday night routine of getting things ready for the week. The first thing I do is look at the calendar and write down everything that is going on this week and what I have to do for each event.
This week:
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - Valentine's Day - must get something for dh and kids
Wed - Church - have lesson prepared
Thurs - nothing
Fri - Homeschool Group Valentines Party - must have valentines done
Sat - Youth Bowling Trip - send out reminders on Facebook, call bowling alley to confirm and make sure church van has gas.
Of course, as you can see my list just includes outside activities. Homeschool, laundry, packing, going through 15 years of accumulated "stuff" and other household duties are a given and I do not add them to the list.
Also on Sunday, I sit down and work on schooling for the coming week. I write out a very vague lesson plan. I do not like to take the time to write out a detailed lesson plan because something always happens and then we are either behind or K gets the concept quicker than I thought and she gets ahead of what I had planned. If she gets ahead then she thinks that she can skip a day - Wrong. So I write out general tasks for the week and don't let her see it. I use Homeschool Tracker Plus to record all of our work.
On Sunday, I will enter what I want her to get done on Monday. I print out a sheet and that is what is waiting for her in the morning on her desk. It is in the order of her workboxes. On a lot of subjects it is still very general for example it may just say - "Unit 4 Section 3" and not give page numbers. She then knows that she works until I say she is done. I try to make sure that we spend at least 30 minutes a day on the major core subjects - Math, Language Arts, History and Science.
Since we didn't eat dinner at my mom's it was up to me to fix a great Sunday meal. We decided that we would eat a lite lunch and then have an early dinner. I must say it was delicious. We had pork chops, garlic/herb potatoes, stuffing and peas.
It was a very relaxing Sunday. Yes, there were at least twenty things that I should have been doing but sometimes we all need days like this where we can just relax, talk and enjoy being home as a family.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Moving!!
The big news right now is we are planning to move. This was not an easy decision and one that I have fought for a long time. I can honestly say that now I feel like God is leading us in that direction. We are moving closer to dh work. Right now he is traveling 2 hours one way 6 days a week. You can imagine the gas money.
We have put this whole thing in God's hands. We have met with a mortgage company and we have to get dh's credit cards paid down in order to get the loan we want. We should be able to do that within 6 months. We have already started searching for places so that we are prepared when the loan is approved.
It also means getting our current house ready to go on the market. Now let me explain what that means. It means cleaning out 15 years worth of clutter. It means repainting a lot of rooms and cleaning. This is the house that my ex and I bought. Once he left I kinda lost interest in anything having to do with this house. I took down all the decorations because they were things that he and I had purchased and it was a constant reminder. I have long gotten over that hurt but have yet to redecorate. Bobby doesn't feel like this is his house because he wasn't involved in picking it out and so he is not interested in any repairs. So you can imagine that in the 6 years we have been together and the 3 years we have been married not much has been accomplished around here. If we have a weekend free, we go do stuff instead of work on the house.
So I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have gone through K's old bedroom and am currently working on fixing that up into a guest room/homeschool room/office.
My goal is to post before and after pictures so that I/everyone can see the progress.
We have put this whole thing in God's hands. We have met with a mortgage company and we have to get dh's credit cards paid down in order to get the loan we want. We should be able to do that within 6 months. We have already started searching for places so that we are prepared when the loan is approved.
It also means getting our current house ready to go on the market. Now let me explain what that means. It means cleaning out 15 years worth of clutter. It means repainting a lot of rooms and cleaning. This is the house that my ex and I bought. Once he left I kinda lost interest in anything having to do with this house. I took down all the decorations because they were things that he and I had purchased and it was a constant reminder. I have long gotten over that hurt but have yet to redecorate. Bobby doesn't feel like this is his house because he wasn't involved in picking it out and so he is not interested in any repairs. So you can imagine that in the 6 years we have been together and the 3 years we have been married not much has been accomplished around here. If we have a weekend free, we go do stuff instead of work on the house.
So I have a lot of work ahead of me. I have gone through K's old bedroom and am currently working on fixing that up into a guest room/homeschool room/office.
My goal is to post before and after pictures so that I/everyone can see the progress.
Fresh Start Retake
Welcome to our blog. I have deleted everything and basically am re-starting from scratch. When I sat down to read previous posts there was no flow, no rhyme or reason. I had blogged about ideas that never took place and it did not give a true picture of our life.
So here we are at a fresh start. My goal is to blog regularly about things that are going on in our life right now. We have a lot going on right now and I really want to document it all. I want a way to look back months down the road and see how God has answered each of our prayers and led us on this path that we are currently on.
So here we are at a fresh start. My goal is to blog regularly about things that are going on in our life right now. We have a lot going on right now and I really want to document it all. I want a way to look back months down the road and see how God has answered each of our prayers and led us on this path that we are currently on.
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