Wednesday, March 26, 2008

No news- other than a boy turns 6!

We have made it 1/2 through the first week of spring break. That's right- they get 2 weeks, not 1. We also made it through the big day yesterday, of Tyler turning 6. He had one friend over, we went to lunch, bowled, had ice cream and then they played. Nothing over the top, but he loved every minute of it. We have a rule in our house, every other year they can have a bigger party, and on the off year they can have something smaller, with a friend or two. It seems to have worked out well. They understand it and never seem to mind. Enough with all of these parents who end up spending hundred of $$ on the birthday party alone, not to mention the gifts.

Nothing new on the house. Still waiting on ours to sell, but that's about it. They break ground on the new house in a few weeks. We get to go to the design studio in a few weeks. That will be very fun, at least I think it will. I told Matt we could do a test experiment and have people vote on the different choices we have to put in the house, and see what kind of house our family and friends would pick for us. Then I realized I might have 5 readers, so it probably isn't worth it. I think the DYI channel does something like this, called Blog Cabin.

Matt leaves Monday for Washington DC. He goes every year, and really enjoys it. So it is mom and the boys for the week. We will do some fun things, and I will work some, for the sanity! :)

For some reason I am simply shocked that it is almost April! Times seems to go by so quickly. We are 6 weeks away from going on a work trip to Durango, just Matt and I. We are 2 months out from heading to Puerto Vallarta for 5 days! That also means the boys are out of school in 2 months. Then we head into summer. Where does the time go?

Monday, March 17, 2008

Battle of the Mind

I have spent the last week working around the clock to get our house on the market. Cleaning, reorganizing, painting...and now it's on the market. We have already had 2 showings, with one a good possibility.

I said in my previous post that God has always blessed us when it comes to real estate. We have almost doubled our down payment, by making money from the sale of previous homes. Selling houses is an easy thing for us to do, since we have done it too many times to count!

So I found myself today fighting off thoughts that were of no good to me. Thoughts of "what if it doesn't sell?" and others like that. The good news is that I caught myself. The ridiculous thing is that I was having them at all. Maybe I could have that thought in 4 months if we have no offers or showings, but now? All of this, even after we showed the house twice when it was only on the market 1 day. One of the showings put us on their short list.

So my question today is why the mind is so hard to control? Why, when I am firm in my faith and belief that God will provide and take care of it all, do I find myself having absurd thoughts? When I really think about it, I truly do not doubt God and His power. I know He is my provider. I believe in tithing, sowing and reaping, faith...so why do these thoughts come? How do I stop them?

A side note: my husband is swamped. But as soon as he has time, we will get the new blog up and going about the house. Until then you can read here for any updates. It will be 4 weeks before they start digging. We don't get to go to the design studio for a month, so things will be pretty quiet regarding the house for a while. But I will post more...I have a boy turning 6, 2 weeks of spring break coming up...stories for sure!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Decision at Last!

It has been almost a month, to the day, that we went and looked at home to build. The area we looked at is called Banning Lewis Ranch. You can actually go to their website and check it out for yourselves. It took forever to get the appraisal scheduled. It took even longer to get it back and then make a decision...

There are so many things to think about. We have never built a house before. Ranch style homes are very different for me. The school for the boys weighed heavily on us. The major issues about the house we are in now are very real, and there is nothing we can do to fix them. Increasing our mortgage a little bit is a little nerve wracking. Signing a contract to build with our current house not being sold is very scary.

So....we signed papers today to go ahead and build!!! We are both excited about it. The boys are more excited than we are! We met the general for the house, nice guy. We will go in to the design studio in the next week or two and pick all of the "things" out for the house. That will be a lot of fun. We have a time frame of November 12th, at the latest. It could easily be sooner, depending on weather. It is definitely not a done deal, as our contract with the builder is contingent upon our current house selling. I am not worried at all. God has always blessed us when it comes to houses. But, if it doesn't sell by a certain time, they do have the right to cancel the contract, we get our earnest money back, and all is good.

We will be getting the new blog up and running. It will become a joint effort between Matt and I. I will be doing most of the writing and he will be doing links, pictures, all of the technical stuff I have no clue how to do. You can join us for this journey!

The big decision right now is this:
We will have a stone on one of the walkways in the neighborhood since we are building in the first phase. We get to pick what we want it to say. We have 2 lines, with 20 characters on each. Any suggestions? I am thinking:

Grin and "Barrett"
Matt, Deann and Boys

Please give us your thoughts. We really have no idea.