Living The Dream.... Yet, We Want to Move

This is our
Dream House.

We are living the dream.

The first time we saw this house we were thinking that this house was straight out of Southern Living magazine.

We knew this was the home that we wanted all our children to bring our grandchildren home to visit us at.  And yes, our oldest was only eight months old when we moved in here but we still had that vision.

But now, we have it listed for sale.  It is still our dream home.  It is the home that we still think is amazing and beautiful, full of character and charm, full of room to roam the spacious rooms.  

But our dream is changing... or we think.  I truly am not trusting God to work this out.  I think we need to simplify our life.  A big and old house like this can come with a lot of upkeep and we are raising five children.  We want to pour our time into our children and not into things.  This amazing home is a thing.  I will admit... my heart is not settled on this completely.  I have to go through a mental checklist an remind myself why I am doing this.  

It comes down to this... how can we give our family the best life?  I think that is by simplifying.  I think we need to get rid of a lot of the stuff we are holding on to and cluttering our lives with.  And, I don't think that will happen with just getting rid of the stuff within the walls.  There are many projects we still want to do here and we have been doing projects for the 12 years we have lived here.  We did a temporary remodel of the kitchen years ago on a low budget.  We want to do another remodel.  We want to pull up the deck and concrete that and put stone around the bottom perimeter of the house around the deck area.  We would love to have a carport or garage for our cars and a place to keep the kids bikes and outdoor toys.  And we want to remodel the master bathroom (maybe).  These projects don't have to be done, but they are things we will do if we stay here.  

Our thinking is that if we get a place with more land our children will have room to roam the land and we could have them in a safer area.  We could downsize our square footage and have less to maintain for day to day cleaning.  Our utilities would also be lower.  We also like the idea of the kids being on one level of the home. 

We think this will be a worthy trade off.  I truly believe that simplifying our life this way would be honoring God.  I don't know what God's will or plan for us is, though.  That is what we want.  If we are supposed to stay here then, we will.  If not, I trust that He will work it out.      

'Tis the Season to.... Reevaluate Your Plans

'Tis the season to run craZy... fa la la la la...la la la la!  

'Tis also the season to reevaluate whatever plan one thought might be doable this season.

I had planned on having my kids all do their schooling this week, but I made a decision last night to stop that part of the madness so we can get a little "Christmas spirit" going on around here.  I have to admit all the Christmas festivities that used to get me in the spirit now seem to zap the spirit right out of me.  There is just so much to juggle ...and so much to forget.  I seriously forgot a baby shower Sunday afternoon that was very important to me.  I fully intended to attend it.  I even picked up a portion of the gift on Thursday while we were out attending a Christmas musical production and I picked up the second portion of the gift during a late night run to pick up photos on Friday night.  By Saturday it was all still on my mind.  By Sunday it had totally left my brain.  I was tired and still had a full day ahead and after church I came in, layed down on my couch, and totally forgot I had somewhere to be.  Totally.  

This really bothers me because I know I am going way too much and there is too much going on if I can not remember something like this.  This baby will be my lifelong friend's newest nephew.  His father is the baby we took care of played with in our pre-teen years and was our own personal real life doll.  I had every intention of celebrating this long awaited little one.  The parents have been married for several years before deciding they were ready to start this chapter of their lives.  This for me was something I wanted to be a part of.

Alas, exhaustion took my brain away.  ;)   We have actually been "stepping on toes" with many of the activities we have been declining.  I have declined a lot lately to try to save sanity, but there is only so much you can cut back on.  I am not even going to go through my past week... or the week before, but I will say that by Wednesday I was tired enough to stay home from church while everyone else went.  

Thursday morning I had organized a group to attend a Christmas production at noon about an hour away.  Originally, we were told the date was the previous week, so this now conflicted with and appointment I had scheduled which I had to reschedule later in the day.  So, I got up that morning and drug my kids out the door by 9:30 a.m., made the one hour drive to that town, did a little shopping for an hour in an attempt to find my daughter a warm coat (which is proving to be more difficult that one would expect), arrived at the theater, parked, had a little quick lunch picnic on the lawn, organize my attendees, viewed our showing, took a quick pic (coming soon on another blog post), shuttled my four oldest children off with a friend to take back to another friend's house in our town, and loaded me and my little one in the car for another 2 hour drive to some appointments.  Taking the two year old with me was necessary because my friend could not fit all my kids and her two in her car.  I have got to tell you what I delight it is to stop on the side of a freeway for potty breaks for a potty training little one.  And when I thought I would make a quick stop for gas at a drive thru gas station that little one announced she needed to poop which she was unwillingly to do on her potty in my van (probably a good thing... but I was wanting to hurry), so we had to go in the convenience store, have a potty adventure (because kids love restrooms) and piddle around a bit before getting back on that road.  We proceeded on to our two appointments and headed back home sometime after dark, stopped at a yummy little Mexican restaurant for a dinner for TWO (amazingly weird for me) and got back on the road, Sienna fell asleep around 8:00 p.m., I made phone calls (because it is so weird to be in a quiet car alone), and I arrived home at 9:00 p.m. just in time to say goodnight to my other kiddos.  

I was too tired on Friday and could seriously have cared less what my kids were doing as far as school, so we took the day off... from everything... including a family birthday party out of town that night.  It would have had us getting home at 11:00 p.m..  

Saturday came and it was a back-to-back busy day from the start which is why we did not do the party the night before.  We were out the door by 8:30 a.m. for the kids to sing with our homeschool choir in a nearby town at the county Angel Tree event for less fortunate families.  We were there until almost noon and then, headed back to our town for our annual Christmas festival.  We wandered around there for a couple of hours and Cody took the little ones back to the house.  The two older girls and I walked home and stopped in at my neighbor's Open House Christmas party for an hour.  We came home to find everyone feeling quite happy to be home and we all sat around enjoying that... for about 30 minutes before we had to pile back in the car to head to another Open House type Christmas party for our church youth workers.  We hung out there for about an hour and a half and headed home.  Again, we came in the house, got settled in, glued our rear ends to the couches and almost skipped the rest of the evenings events..... BUT we pulled ourselves up off the couches and headed out, AGAIN to attend the lighted Christmas parade.  I confess we did skip driving across town to participate in our own church ministry activity (serving hot choc and cider and handing out Bibles), but we were tired and we stuck to our normal tradition that we have done for as long as I can remember.  We walked the two blocks from our house to the parade and went to the church by our house that ministers in a similar way.  We were partakers and we were blessed.  We were blessed to have lunch and dinner provided for us on this day.  

Sunday came with the same promise of fullness.  This is the day our Children's Ministry has spent the season preparing for.  This is the day that requires all those Christmas songs they were singing back in September.  ;)  Not only did we have our regular church morning activities and had to be out the door by 9:30 a.m. we were picking up a homeless family to take to church.  Of course, this was a blessing to do.  I confess I do not always think ahead when I am tired.  In church I found myself realizing that I should have planned to provide this family a good lunch after church.  Fortunately, there is an amazing couple at our church that has been wanting to take us out to eat for over a year and they ask us ALL to lunch at a local restaurant.  What a blessing that was to me knowing I should have thought to plan.  My nine year old had to stay at the church the entire day for rehearsals, so she missed out on this and I felt sad for her that she was working away and we were eating out.  Anyway, we all went to eat and then we took the family back to the motel room that is being provided for them temporarily.  Getting a table for 14 in a busy restaurant took quite a while, so we left there about 2:00 p.m..  We headed home, chilled for about an hour, and then, my seven year old son had to be taken to the church for his portion of rehearsals for the play (fortunately my husband ran this errand alone).  We stayed home until about 5:15 p.m. before kicking ourselves back into action.  We loaded up, Cody dropped me at the church to do hair-do duty, he ran to pick up the homeless family so they could attend, and met us back at the church in time for the play at 6:00 p.m..  After the play was over we all went for some fast food and took the little family back to their room for the night and we headed home.  Time to fall into bed!!!  Yipppeeee!!! 

And that brings us to today... no real plan here, but I can say this we need some REST.  Everyone is loafing about aimlessly... yes, aimlessly with little direction.  We had breakfast very late (like brunch time) and at 1:30 p.m. we have yet to have lunch.  That is next on the agenda... really... I promise...  I am lacking in motivation.  So, now it is time to get moving a bit, again.  The new plan is to spread some Christmas cheer around here... do some crafty things, make junky Christmas crafts, make some homemade gifts,do some little kid schooling, and skip the bigger kids schooling stuff and let them help me do the little kids' stuff with them.  

School is out and Plan B is in session because we have another busy week coming up.  Tonight is basketball practice for two of my kids (2 hours), Tuesday is singing with our homeschool choir at two nursing homes and having a Christmas party.  Wednesday my seven year old son has a serious dental appointment where they will be drugging him out pretty hard.  That night we have a Happy Birthday Jesus party at the church for the littler ones and a Youth group party for the older ones.  I think the rest of the week is open, but I am probably just being hopeful. 

Affording the Dream House with a Growing Family

As a family of seven people often wonder how we afford such a big home.  Some rare few will actually ask.  Ha!  The answer:  sacrifice.  It's simple really.... it's always been about financial wisdom and lots of sacrifice.

But I have to start a little further back.... like when I was a child.  My parents were raised poor and they did not want to raise their family poor.  They made some financial mistakes early in their marriage, had to get a consolidation loan, and they actually learned from that lesson.  They taught me and my brother by example how to manage money wisely.  Basically, we were taught exactly what Dave Ramsey teaches, so if you need in depth advise you might want to read some of his books, etc..  The main principle is don't spend what you don't have to spend and live withing YOUR means.  If you can't afford to buy snacks at the convenience store then, don't do it.  Simple.

So, back to the house.... I met my husband when we were both 19.  I was working at McDonald's and shortly after we started seeing each other I got a waitressing job.  I started building a house on my parent's property.  It was a cottage style house and was about the size of a small apartment (24'x26' with a 6' porch across the whole front).  I paid my car insurance, gas, and such expenses, and kept out about $20 each weekend for spending money and I put everything else back into the building fund.  It took three years to complete the house, but when it was done it was completely paid for.  I moved in  and shortly after became engaged to Cody and I lived there a year alone until we married and he moved in.  We lived there for several years and then, decided to purchase our own land and have the house moved. 

We had a plan to add on to the house, but my dad had emergency heart surgery and we decided that it would be best to sell the house and land and move.  We had our first child while living there at which point I stopped working outside the home.  That brought us to the location we are at today.  We sold the house and land for $40,000 and paid off the remaining balance on our land and put $30,000 cash down on our home.  Our home was foreclosure home that had been used as a rent house for few years with some damage that needed repaired.  We took the advice of our realtor and financed the house for 30 years to make sure we did not get in a financial bind.  I am so glad we listened to her because we had no idea what the utilities would be like in a 3500 square feet home that was over 100 years old.  Remember the other house was only 624 square feet of living space.  The 30 year loan allowed us to have payments really low and pay extra when we could.  A whole lot of income tax return money went towards extra payments when most of our friends were taking extravagant vacations.  We still went of vacations, but we chose frugal options and we had as much fun as anyone else was.

At some point I convinced my husband we were throwing money away on finance charges on our mortgage by showing him the statements showing how much had gone to finance charges.  This was the moment my husband got on board with frugal living.  We set a goal at that point to pay off the house in three years and we did it.  Mostly we paid an extra $10-100 on payments (which makes a huge difference) and started putting most of our income tax report into our mortgage.  We paid the house off in the 11th year of a 30 year mortgage!!!!!!

This was an amazing feat because of several reasons:

• I am a stay-at-home mom.
• My husband was a teacher.
• My husband quit his job at one point to try another career then, returned to teaching. 
• My husband went back to school to get his Masters degree.
• We added four more children to the family (and lost two).
• I had wrist surgery and Cody had surgery for staph infection.  There were probably other medical expenses, but I don't remember really.   ;)
•  After three years of applying for administration jobs Cody got an Assistant Principal job shortly before we paid off the mortgage.
• We also have been doing renovations since we moved in this house... some big, some small.  Some were as simple as a can of paint while others included adding a fireplace or finishing out the walls of half the upstairs.  We have replaced flooring at points where you could see the dirt ground below even.  Been we have chose wisely where to spend our money and where we could cut cost.
• And we continued to vacation a couple times a year.  {Hallelujah!!}

 So, it has all been sacrifice.  And I believe with all my heart that God honors sacrifice and He has filled in all the gaps.  When the numbers on paper did not make sense God made a way for all of our heart's desires.  He has taken care of us for that I am certain.