3rd Times Charm (hopefully ;-) )

Funny that the last post I made on here was about us getting ready to list our home for sale by owner - 13 months ago.  Now here we are living with Ryan's parents for almost a week now and waiting for our home to be finished 8/31/2013.  If you would have asked me about 4 months ago that we'd be in this position right now I don't know that I would have believed you.  That's because 4 months ago we hadn't sold our home yet and I was starting to get a little depressed about that and the fact that we hadn't heard anything about our possible move to North Dakota.
We found out in July 2012 that Ryan was going to take a job for a promotion that required us to move temporarily for 14-16 months starting this April.  This month that is.  At first we were actually excited about the adventure but as time went on it started to seem like it wasn't going to happen and I got frustrated that we had still not heard anything.  We basically put our lives on hold because of this news.
But God evidently knew better than I did that something much better was planned for us.  I just needed to be patient and to trust in Him.
This trust didn't come easy.  It came with a lot of prayer, tears, maybe a little depression, and finally relinquishing control over to God with the sale of our home and with our future of growing our family. We decided we were going to live life like we are staying in Spring Hill until we heard otherwise.  We decided to list our home with a realtor and before I could even think about that we got a phone call from the agent that represents Prairie Ridge subdivision where we have our lot reserved.  Turns out our lot reservation had expired and we were working to get it renewed and he wanted to check and make sure we were still interested in building there.  By the end of the conversation I knew he was the guy to sell our home for us.  He was very motivated because he knew that once he sold our house we would be buying a house in his subdivision.  So for him it was a win win and he was even willing to discount his commission to make the money work for us.  So by the last week in January we were up and running on the MLS!!  And during this time we finally heard that the North Dakota project was not going to use Ryan after all!!  What awesome news!   And confirmation of our steps of faith in living our lives like we already knew this news.  God is good!
After 3 days we had a showing that resulting in a 2nd showing and then an offer.  We accepted it - despite our feelings about where it left us compared to what we paid for our house originally - but we had an offer and our home was sold.  This peace about our situation was worth the not so super offer.
So we started packing and had our inspection which resulted in us putting in a Radon kit and we made it through the appraisal.  But 35 days into the 60 day closing period we were hit with a bomb - a denial for our buyers.  I immediately just ached and cried and did not even know what to think!  What are we going to do?  We just put $10,000 down on our lot to have our builder start building our home while we waited til closing.  And now no deal and we have to re-stage our home that I had just taken curtains down and photos/art off the walls.  I decided to take a break and I prayed- cried out to God.  As much as I was angry and confused I prayed aloud through tears for God to give me answers to give me a peace about what was happening and to help me to trust that He had a better plan for us.  And later that evening I had felt God's peace about the whole situation and was ready to move on and get our house back on the market.  This was a Friday.  By Monday we got our canceled contract from the buyers and we were back active on the MLS.  This was Monday March 4th.  We had several showings and a second showing to someone who liked our home but had a home to sell.  Then Spring break came along and we thought we'd get no traffic but it was the beginning of our craziest week yet!
The week of my birthday March 24th-29th we had a showing everyday and a couple days we had 2 showings.  By Thursday we had gotten an offer that we countered and then Friday morning we got another offer that was too good to pass up.
The buyer wanted our house in 2 weeks and was paying cash for the home!  We could not believe it!  I just knew God had a plan for us and it felt so good to trust Him through the process and to really sit back and watch Him work.  Friday March 29th was also the same day we got to see our baby and hear the heartbeat for the first time.  We were 7 weeks pregnant and got the best news the same day about our house!  We were in for a crazy week ahead, but this time it was going to be final.  This was the deal.  And with this deal we came out $6K ahead of our original offer and we are only 2 weeks off our original time line to be moved out.   God is so good!  It feels so good to trust Him and to look back and see how He orchestrated this whole thing perfectly.  Teaching me to trust Him and accept His peace during the process.  Especially since I am pregnant and the last thing I needed would have been the stress of what are we going to do because our buyer fell through.
So now we wait.  We wait as they will hopefully start digging our house this weekend or early next week.  Wait as we can't wait to know what we are having!   Both the girls want a baby brother but we have said that God is the one that decides which is best for us.  Its hard not to say we are kinda pulling for a boy.  Because that would certainly be the last piece to fall into place for us.  But either way all we really want is a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.  Can't wait to find out!!
I think that's about it for now.  Hopefully my next update won't be so long from now!!

For Sale By Owner

Well most everything is done that needs to get done to officially put our house on the market.  I still need to get with a title company - most likely Miami County Title.  That's who we closed with originally and the folder that housed our mortgage papers read "Jesus is the Answer!" - so I figured we can't go wrong there.
This weekend I hope to take some more photos of our master bedroom and the backyard/deck for my website.  We have listed on Craigs List and will be putting a sign in our yard this weekend too.  We hope to have an open house at some point this month.  Just not sure when yet!  I am completely trusting God with this one.  While I am anxious to move into the next chapter of our life - I want it to be right and in God's timing.

Click to view my home listing

Day 1- Designing to Sell Our House

It was something that we figured would be inevitable one day even when we first built our house.  But at the same time while living here I always thought it was a long way off.  But now its here.  Its time to think about selling our house and getting a bigger one.  We are out-growing our house and are feeling the growing pains.  We want to have another kid at some point in the next year or 2 so we would need at least 1 more bedroom and more storage.  Right now no place to put clothes and toys that the kids grow out of.  So last week we started looking around Spring Hill for houses.  We kind of have an idea of what we want but a lot of things have to fall into place before we can make it happen.  First off we have been consulting God for wisdom in how best to go about this.  We know we need more space but we don't want to get carried away and get in over our head with things that we "want" but don't necessarily need.
Some things in our favor are the low interest rates.  We can get a lot more house for not much more than we are paying now on our house simply because the interest rates are lower.  However, the opposite side is that means we may not get out of our house what we would need to when we sell it so we can have a down payment on the next one.  Another thing in our favor is that Ryan is working close to home and will hopefully be around more as a result so we can start getting our house ready to sell.
So today I went and picked some paint colors at home depot so we can paint our Great Room, Entry, and upstairs hallway.  We will also be re-painting our master bathroom a nice neutral.  We figured not everyone would like our purple we have on the walls now.  Then I went and got some bathroom accessories to match on clearance/sale at Target - in the event after we paint that we would be showing it I'd like to have nice matching soap pumps- towels- rugs etc- which we do not have right now.  Something I always thought wasn't a priority because nobody sees our bathroom.  Well now people will want to go in and out of it so I am going to make it look nice.
We won't start painting til after the first of November until our new church building is done.  This would mean Ryan would be free on the weekend and we could hopefully knock it out in a Fri, Sat, Sun.- weekend project with the help of family- and sending the girls to Gram-ee's over the weekend.  But until we can paint Ryan started today on power washing our deck so that it looks like we have a cedar deck again!  Its amazing what a little water pressure will do to 5 1/2 year old wood that has been sitting outside.  Then we will be sealing it or staining it soon.
We also will be storing a lot of stuff so as to make the house not look so full and cluttered.  And I know that toys should not be visible if at all possible when showing.  This will be difficult because I stay at home and toys are out ALL day long.  But we are hoping that with a couple open houses that maybe we can narrow the window of when I would have to show it.  I would need plenty of notice before showing so I can clean!
We plan to start off selling it FOR SALE BY OWNER and seeing what happens.  Then our next option is to do a trade with a builder that we like and see what price we can come to on the house we want to build.  We'll see.  We will just trust God that if this is supposed to happen that He will lay it all out for us and open doors where we need them.  We figure what's the harm in trying?  The stuff we do to our house will only make it nicer and were things we had planned on doing at some point and in a way now they are ACTUALLY getting done!

So stay tuned for updates on our Design-to-Sell our house!  Its exciting but at the same time I feel totally at the mercy of what God would have us to do.  We want to be good stewards for what he has blessed us with.  Ultimately I would like for this next house to be "it" for us and that we could grow old in it and not have to move again.