Blessings From Home

Moving Along

Things are really moving along for us. My husband's 401K check came in. That is what we're using to help us pay for closing. We had to cancel his account and get all the money out. It was a last resort for us. He's starting it up again in September. We just decided that it was more important to buy a home right now. The check ended up being 5,000 dollars more than what we thought which is such a blessing. With that money we will be able to make some of the repairs and fixing up that we were wanting to do, but thought we would have to wait for a while.

We were going to go ahead and use it all and put in central heat and air, but have decided instead to go with several smaller projects. We don't want to use it all, though. We want to make sure we have some in savings for just in case. Here's a partial list of some of the things we're going to do.

~Paint throughout the house

~Fix leaky toilet in Master bathroom

~Put in shower in Master bathroom, just a plain ole tub in there now.

~New shower head in other bathroom

~New flooring in both bathrooms

~New dishwasher in kitchen. There's a hole already cut for one, but there's no dishwasher there.

~Above the stove microwave to maximize space in the kitchen

~New chest freezer, something we've been needing for a long time.

~Possibly a new refrigerator, ours is about to kick the bucket.

~A computer. We have a laptop right now, but could really use a desk top for the kids and homeschool.

Some are neccesary, but some are just because we want them, which will be nice since we'll be in a house that is finally ours. Some of these may not happen for a while, but it's nice to have a wish list. And there may be other things that we will decide to do. I know I would really like to do some work in the yard and get it ready for a garden next year.

We're not scheduled to close until next Thursday, but since we're good friends with the people who own the house, and since my hubby has the whole week next week off from work, they're allowing us to go ahead and start working on the house now, so that we can go ahead and move in next week, while hubby is off. Isn't that sweet!

So I called and got all the utilities turned on and we'll start cleaning and working this afternoon. Before we move in we have to...

~Trim the bushes in the front. They're nearly blocking the stairs to the front door. And they really attract bees, which is okay, except when you brush past them and the bees start attacking.

~A deep and thorough cleaning. It's not completely filthy, but it definately needs a good scrubbing.

~The people who owned the house left a lot of their stuff their, and told us to do what we wanted to do with it. Sell it or trash it. So we need to move all the appliances-an old fridge and stove, a washer and dryer, and all the other little things they left out of the way until we have a yard sale.

~Take the carpet and tack strips out of the hallway and front bedrooms. There is nice wood floors underneath that need a little refinishing.

And that's about it. Then we'll move in. I'm going to make sure and take lots of pictures of before we even get started, so we can see the progress we've made.

Hubby will be home for lunch soon, so I better run. More updates later when I have a chance.

Blessings, sara

We got a counter offer and accepted it!

I got a call from the realtor this morning and she told me that the seller counter offered. Our original offer was fairly low, hoping that if she didn't accept it that when she countered it, that it would stay low. The original price of the house was 49,900. Our offer was 45,000, and seller pays 3% of closing costs which would have been about $1350. The seller counter offered 47,500 and seller pays 3% closing costs which would increase to $1425.

Although it would've been nice for her to have accepted our offer, what we settled on was a great price too. The house is wonderful, and although it needs some work, it will be perfect for our growing family. For those who don't remember, the house is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in town, but with a huge backyard and a privacy fence. I posted a while back with pictures that you can see here.

So in less than a month we will be moving again to our very own home! What a blessing! I'm looking forward to so many things besides the fact it will really be ours....things like painting and decorating the rooms for the kids and the new little one to come, fixing things up and making the home ours, and using all the wonderful storage we will finally have! Oh, and best of all there will be plenty of air conditioning to keep this hot mama cooled off. Praise the Lord!

I'm so thankful that this month will stay busy. Between re-packing, vacation bible school, father's day, a weekend trip to Texas to visit family, and catching up on schoolwork for everyone, the month will be over before we know it, and we will be moving in!

Blessings, sara

Met with seller today

Today we got a chance to meet with the seller of the house we're looking at to buy. She was so nice and kept everything very honest with us. Told us what was wrong and why, showed us all the details we didn't see. She said she really wants to see us get the house. We shared our homeschooling stories too. She homeschooled for 8 years, but her husband left and she had to go to work.

So we've started the homebuying process, we're praying to be able to move in there by June sometime. I'll update more as we know. I'm so thrilled to be able to buy a home of our very own. The Lord is really blessing us.

Sara 

Pictures of the House

I thought I'd share pictures of the house that we'll be making an offer on tomorrow. It's the one I mentioned a few posts ago that we were considering to buy to fix up until we can afford a home in the country. The thing is, though, that this house turned out to be much more than what we thought it was.

These pictures are the ones from the real estate site, so they're not the best, but I'll describe things as best as I can.

Here is the front of the house:

The bushes are overtaking the front of the house and need to be taken down and replaced with something a bit smaller and then filled in with some colorful flowers. The little window covers will probably go, or be replaced. There is a second door that needs to be taken out, and then we would put new siding on the house, and maybe put in new windows throughout the house. What you don't see here is there is a carport on the left with a side entrance into the house through the laundry room.

Here is the formal living room and dining room:

There isn't much needed in this room, except maybe a fresh coat of paint. One thing this house doesn't have is central heat and air. It has window units and floor furnaces, one of which is in this room. I would like to get central heat and air put in and maybe a wood stove put in the den. The door to the left leads into the kitchen, and there is a door on the right that isn't visible that leads to the hallway and the bedrooms.

Here is the den:

The den is my favorite room in the house. I love the wood paneling. That same type of wood is on the ceiling as well. This is where the second floor furnace is and where I would like to put a wood stove. The flooring needs to be replaced, probably wood floors. Not pictured is a large built in cabinet with tons of storage.  There are 3 doors from this room. The one you see leads into the hallway and to the bedrooms. There is one to the right that leads into the kitchen, and one behind where the picture is being taken from that leads into the laundry room.

The laundry room is not pictured, but it has lots of built ins and storage as does the whole house. It also has a workbench. There are 2 doors from the laundry room, one that leads out to the carport, and one that leads out to the amazing backyard.

The backyard is also not pictured, which amazes me because I think it is one of the major selling point of the whole house. It is huge. It has so many things. There is a outdoor woodburning oven for grilling and cooking. It has a basketball goal and a slab. It has a wooden privacy fence all the way around. It has large gardening plots already layed out, and it has a little patio with beautiful ivy growing all around it. There are flowers growing everywhere already, several types of roses, honeysuckle growing wild all along the fence line. We also think that someone has buried a shelter, because there is a large round hill in the middle of the backyard.

Here is the kitchen:

The kitchen is small, but seems to have a lot of storage and a nice amount of cabinet space. There will probably be a lot of updates here. New flooring, believe it or not, somebody put down contact paper. Fresh paint. There is a hole already cut for a dishwasher, and we will eventually buy new appliances. There is a pantry behind where the picture is being taken from. And there are 3 doors from this room. There is one pictured on the left that leads into the master bedroom. There is one behind that leads to the living/dining room, and one to the right that leads into the den.

Here is the master bedroom and master bath:

The master bedroom is small, but has a lot of storage. There is that unnecessary second door that leads outside. Behind where the picture is being taken on the right is a huge closet and a large set of cabinets. To the left is the master bath.

The master bath is not too bad. I believe the tile is original and the paint too. There is a tub that is not pictured. Not sure what all we will do in here. Maybe paint, but the original tile will probably stay. We will definately put in a shower though.

Here is one of the three other bedrooms:

All of the bedrooms are quite similar, same sized closets, same size room, all of which are not large, but not too small either. In one room there is a large bookshelf. They all need new carpet and fresh paint.  

Not pictured is the hallway or the second bath. The hallway has got a huge built in cedar cabinet with a closet and several huge drawers. There  is also a regular closet as well.

The second bathroom is a good size with lots of cabinets and it already has a shower. The floor needs to be replaced and probably needs fresh paint.

And that's about it. It seems to be a perfect fit for our family. There's plenty of room and plenty of storage. The backyard may not be big enough for goats but it will at least be big enough for some chickens which are legal in this town. I think goats are legal as well, but not sure if we'll do that or not. But best of all, the house is well below our price range, which should make our payments about 350-400 dollars a month. We're paying 450 a month now for rent, and this house isn't half as nice as that one. We are continuing to pray over this and feel as if this is where the Lord wants us for now. We will be able to live here for several years, fixing it up as we have the cash to do so, and then sell it for a little profit and buy a home in the country, Lord willing.  

Thanks for taking a tour with me of what will hopefully be our new home soon.

Blessings, sara 

House Hunting

     Yesterday, while making my rounds online, I went to another real estate website, Remax, and found a house for sale that looked promising. It is a mobile home, but it's got just about everything we're looking for in a home. It's in our price range, it has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, it has 2 acres of land with it, just what we were wanting, and it has a few different outbuildings for different things, one of which will make a nice goat shelter. It's out in the country, but not too terribly far out of town. And what's best, is my husband really loves it! We went and looked at it yesterday afternoon. He is a picky guy and is very slow to like anything. If there's something wrong, then he'll find it. But, except for the fact that it's a mobile home instead of a brick house like he had originally wanted, he really loved the place. And it's also right next to a very nice Mennonite family that we already are aquainted with. Here's a few pictures...

Front of the house

Back of the house

Kitchen/Dining Room (Not loving the blue walls, lol)

Family Room (That's a shadow on the carpet)

There aren't any good pictures of the outside buildings or of the bedrooms and mudroom.

It's not what I would call my dream home, but it's probably the closest thing I've seen to it. We wouldn't be able to have a huge farm, by any means, but a small scale farm with some goats,  rabbits, chickens, a nice big garden, and some fruit trees will fit in quite nicely out there.

We're taking my parents out there with us to look at it either today or tomorrow, and if it all looks good, we will make our offer. I know in my mind that it's still possible for things to not go through, so I'm trying my best to not get my hopes up yet. But it's hard to not get excited about owning our own home again. We're just trying to pray that the Lord's will be done and whatever His plans for us are followed as best as we can.

I'll update as I have more information.

Blessings, sara

A Wonderful Quote

On my many searches through the world wide web, I have found so many wonderful things(and some not so wonderful), but recently I found this quote and it truly spoke to my heart.

" If home is where your heart is, then that's where your homestead is, too. Too many prospective homesteaders think they have to move, or worse, have to move to some relatively wild and unsettled location. For some, this is because they don't have a very realistic picture of what modern homesteading is really all about. Others simply fail to see the opportunities that lie untapped in their own backyards .... there are homesteaders in just about any location you could think of: not only in deep forests and on mountain slopes, ... but on suburban lots, small town tracts, and even in the tiny yards of large cities. ... Some people grow sprouts in a closet and mushrooms under the kitchen sink. they bake their own bread from home-ground wheat and sew at least some of their own clothes. They are at least partially self-sufficient without so much as a square inch of land. "

      ~ Country Wisdom: The Art of Successful Homesteading by the editors of Countryside magazine.

Can you homestead in the city?

I was wondering if some of you would mind sharing with me your thoughts on homesteading in the city?

Planting is something I realize you can do anywhere, but I was wondering if there were any of you "cityfolks" with farm animals in your backyards? I know first things first, you have to check city ordinances. Here where I live, you can have things from goats all the way to chickens, no rooster ofcourse, for a permit fee of only 10 dollars/year.

Some things have come up and we may be buying a house instead of renting, but we'll be buying in town for right now, which means we'll probably be living in town for a while. And I'm just wondering if it's possible to raise something like chickens and goats on a small piece of land the size of your backyard.

Just Thinking

I've been thinking (stand back, there may be smoke coming out of my ears). You know when you lay in bed thinking so much about so many things that you can't sleep. Well, last night was one of those nights. I was up until 1am just laying there thinking.

So many things are changing in our lives, big changes. We just bought a car, going from 2 cars to 1.

We'll be moving within the next 3 months, to where is not for certain yet, but we know we'll be moving, our rent is just too high.  We're fairly sure that we'll be able to move into that little farmhouse out by my family's land, but it's going to need some work before we can move in. We'll be talking to the old friend of the family's who owns the house this week sometime to discuss the whole thing. Right now, the house is pretty messy and in need of a good cleaning and also just some fixing up...patching, painting, tightening a few loose screws, etc.

Also, if we move in there, the kids will all have to share a room. The house is quite small and we will have to downsize considerably in all areas of our home. All this sounds like almost too much, but the truth is we want it. We want to move into a smaller house so that we can all be closer, and we want to downsize, so that we can live a simpler life. And we want to live out in the country and raise farm animals and wake to the roosters crowing in the morning. We want to work hard to live as much of a self sustaining life as we can.

I keep hearing things like a recession is coming and tough times ahead, and I believe that it's true. And it scares me. I know that I have the Lord on my side and I'm not scared at that part, what scares me is that I'm not prepared enough for the if and when hard times do hit, and what we'll do until the Lord comes again.

Deanna got me thinking yesterday about stockpiling and what we should spend our tax refund on. Now, I'm not in need of a backhoe anytime soon, but the need to stock up on food and put our money towards things that will help us sustain ourselves, such as seeds for growing, on fencing needs so that we can have more farm animals for milk and meat. These are all things that I'm going to be looking towards doing this year. I want to be prepared for whatever comes our way.

We'll be paying a small rent for a while, but nothing compared to what we're paying now. In fact, it will probably only be 1/3 of what we're paying now. How nice that will be!

Something else on my mind is that, although I've been homeschooling my oldest son for this whole school year, I'm a little nervous at the prospect of HSing more than one child. I see so many of you homeschooling 4-5 at a time, and I just can't imagine how you do it. I'm sure it's a lot like having another baby, you don't know how you'll do it, but when the time comes you just do it.

I have so many thoughts and goals in mind for myself and my family and I realize it's time to really start working towards those goals, in whatever way I can.

That's enough mumbling from me. I could probably keep typing all day about my goals and dreams, but it's time to start making them happen.

More Housing adventures

Well, I'm not sure if any of you have been keeping up with our housing ups and downs, but if you are things have yet again changed. I've realized that I'm wanting things to happen in my own time and not His. Once I realized this, I just set back and said Lord, I'm ready to go wherever you want us, if it's here, then that's fine, if it's not, that's okay too. So many things I think are going to work out and don't. We've found a couple of houses, rental and otherwise, and for some reason each one has fallen through. The housing grant is also not going to happen for us right now, and as bummed out as I am with that, I realize that it's in the Lord's hands and he has other plans for us right now.

Tomorrow we go and talk to a guy about a 4 bed/2 bath trailer in the country. We got to go today and look at the land, it has 1-1/2 acres with it, and looked in the windows of the trailer. The rent is very reasonable and will be 200 dollars less a month than what we're paying now, that alone makes it very favorable. I will say that my first reaction was it's a junk yard, because all we could see was stuff laying all over in the yard, and 2 goats in the front yard (from the neighbor's house), but once we got up there, the trailer was very nice. And the guy said he would be cleaning up the junk and putting skirting on the trailer. He said he just bought this property and it was left like this. It also has a really nice chicken coop with the fencing already. It has a barn and I guess what I would call a hay barn.

I'm really excited about this place. I'm hoping this is the one, but I've learned not to totally get my hopes up. Best of all my husband really liked the place and he is still kind of leary about living in the country. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow and if you wouldn't mind saying a little prayer for us, I would really appreciate it. This will not be a permanent home, but it will be a start to our dream. Blessings,

Sara

New to Gardening

A Quick Prayer Request

Friends, we may have found a home. We were driving around and out of nowhere this home, this beautiful home of our dreams appeared. A perfect sized home, not too big or too large with just enough land (4 acres)  and a nicely sized barn. I feel the Lord has led us to this home, but it will take a miracle to make this home ours. My husband and I both felt that we must try for this home as it just seemed so right for us. My parents have agreed to co-sign for us, which may help us, but the house is mighty highly priced and we can't afford a large payment. Please pray for the Lord's will in this, and to give me peace about it, as I fear that I will be gravely dissapointed if we aren't able to buy it. Thank you so much. And I apologize for this housing rollercoaster. So many things change day to day, minute to minute.

Blessings,

Sara

A Great New Site to Check Out

You have got to check this site out! It is really a great site about urban homesteading and self sufficiency. Here's their main page...

Path To Freedom

and here's a link to a video that they made about making your own solar oven out of a pizza box! Too cool!

Pizza Box Oven 

Possible Housing Oppurtunity

I know I posted recently about our financial situation and us looking for a new permanent house in the near future and I've been praying heavily over this for the past few weeks. I'm ready to hold off as long as the Lord wants me to. But through my praying I have been keeping my eyes opened to oppurtunities that the Lord may bring to my attention and it seems as if there are 2 houses, both on 5 acres (just as we wanted) in an area that we would love to live in that have come up for sale. Our market is very bad here as there have been two major factories that have shut down, or will be shutting down in the next few months. Near every other house is for sale on any given street, so my husband and I have discussed the idea of finding a possible lease to own, or at least until our credit is good enough to get a mortgage. Both of these houses seem to fit the requirements we would need and now we just need to see if this is a door the Lord is ready to open for us. Because we are both so tired of throwing away hubby's hard earned money on a rent house. If this doesn't turn out, that's okay but if it comes to mind please say a quick prayer about this. One of the houses has a cherry orchard and grapevines. The other one I don't know quite as much about, but I do know the people who are selling it are previous landlords of ours who know what good renters we are. I'll be calling about both houses tomorrow...we'll see what happens.

Love and Thanks,

Sara

Buying a home after bankruptcy

Two years ago this month my husband and I had to file bankruptcy. It was something that we hated to do, but at the time found it necessary. We had a business failure, numerous medical bills piling up, a mortgage, and a van we thought we had to buy, and the company my husband worked for 10 years for was about to shut down. So we decided to give it all up and start over. And that's what we did. We lost our home, our van, and a lot of bad debt. We sold a lot of our belongings and moved in with my parents with our three kids for about 6 months. We literally started all over.

Since then, we've managed to stay on top of our bills, always paying them on time, we've managed to buy a used van with cash. We had another car that was given to us when my grandma passed away. And we've managed to buy a brand new washer/dryer, dishwasher, and couch/loveseat with cash that we saved. We haven't accrued any more debt except for rent and utilities. We also have my student loans that we were not allowed to put in the bankruptcy that we pay for monthly.

We've been renting for a year and a half now and I think we're finally ready to start making the move towards buying a home. Our rent for this lovely house is quite high, and I'm sure we could get a mortgage payment for a lot less, and actually have our money going towards something we can one day call our own instead of paying for something that although is providing a roof over our head, will never be ours.

So I've been doing some research on the steps needed to take for buying a home after filing bankruptcy and here's what I've found so far.

~They suggest that you wait until 2 years after you have been discharged from your bankruptcy to apply for a mortgage. Now although we filed in October of 2005, we were not discharged until April of 2006. As it turns out, our lease for this house is up in April of 2008, exactly 2 years since our discharge. You can try for a mortgage sooner than that, but they say it is a little bit harder.

~They suggest paying all your bills, utilities, and rent on time. We've got that down.

~They suggest trying to save back some money. This is something we are working on. But in addition to saving back whatever we can, we have a couple of big checks coming up by the first of next year. One is a small annuity payment, that we usually use to help buy Christmas and pay bills, but we won't be spending near anything what we used to spend on Christmas, and should have most of it bought by the time the check comes in, and we will be making most of our gifts, and we will have our bills paid on time and won't need to catch up like we used to. The other is our tax return, which we also used to have to have to catch up on bills, but won't have to as we are set on paying our bills on time. I'm ready to be as frugal as I can in every area that I can from groceries to gifts to bills to make this dream happen for us.

~They also suggest building up your credit in any way you can. Now although buying a car, washer/dryer, couch/loveseat, and dishwasher with cash was nice, it did nothing for our credit. My student loan helps our credit very little. And we don't care to load up credit cards with debt and be back in the same boat we were in. So my plan on this is one of two things...a) get a prepaid credit card, or b)get a regular credit card and use only for gas and pay it off every month. Now, I'm leaning towards the first, as I don't like to have the temptation of a credit card looming over me, but from what I understand the prepaid credit cards don't do very much for your credit either. This is going to have to be something we need to continue to pray over.

~Praying is something that is always the best thing to do in any situation. We are praying for guidance through this. We don't want to rush into anything and find ourselves making the same mistakes. We would love to find a home in the country with around 5 acres so that we can raise our children in peace and teach them ( and learn right alongside them) all the ins and outs of running a homestead. We've always lived in town and although it has it's perks, there's no contest to living in the country for me. I know the responsibilites that comes along with a homestead and am prepared to make that sacrifice, as is my husband.

The next 6 months we will be making some changes in our lives. We're ready to simplify our lives as much as we can (right now through my mission clean and declutter). We're ready to get by on as little as we can so that we can have our dream ( even if it means cooking a lot from scratch, no eating out, and beans 2 or more times a week). We're ready to take the steps needed so that we can buy a home, the right way. From time to time, I'll update on our homestead dreams and how they're coming along. Thanks for stopping by.

Love,

Sara

Do you beat your tomato plants?

Now bear with me, all this is new to me. I have two fairly large tomato plants growing in pots my back door. I noticed that they were flowering, but then the flowers looked like they were dying. So wondering if this was normal, I called my mother and she said she didn't know for sure, but she remembered overhearing her grandma talking about beating her plants?! I thought she was nuts, but she said it helps with pollination or something. So is she nuts or what? Also, my leaves are drying out. I water my plants whenever they feel dry, and spray the leaves down usually daily. Is there anything I can do? Here's some pictures and there's also a picture of my strawberry plant in my old wash tub. I'm not sure why, but I've not gotten any more berries since I transplanted them into there? The plant looks healthy. I feel so dumb when it comes to gardening and all, but we all have to start somewhere, huh?

The Home Buying Process

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this fact in previous entries, but in October of 2005 my husband and I filed bankruptcy. We gave up our home, our new car, and a lot of bad debt. We were given a chance to start over. We moved in with my folks for a short time and then went from there to an apartment in a bad part of town. I was so miserable. From there we moved into a rent house, which is where we're living now. The house is okay, but our landlords are not very nice. Every time something goes wrong, they blame us and chew us out for whatever it might have been. Besides all that, I feel that we are throwing our money away renting, because we will never attain anything from it except for a roof over our heads for a few months, but nothing long term. So after filing our taxes this week, we found out that we are getting quite a large return, and since we don't have any debt to pay on as of now, except for utilities, food, etc, we decided that maybe we could use it for a downpayment on a house. So the process has begun, I spoke with our real estate agent and she referred me to a mortgage specialist and I'm going down to pick up an application for credit. I have been eyeing houses on the web in our area, and although there are several for sale, they are all so much higher since the last time we purchased a home. I did see one...3 bed, 1 bath, on 5-10 acres with a few extras, but it was 108,000, and although that may be cheap where some of you live, here and for us, it's kind of high. I'm very nervous that we won't be able to get pre approved for a loan right now with our past and I'm also afraid if we do, it won't be for enough to buy a house that would work for us, or that the payment would be so high that we couldn't manage. Have any of you had any experience with buying a home after a bankruptcy? I'm just so nervous about the whole experience. Well be blessed.