Baptists & bullets.

 

In between buying a house, we had to have a little time to blow off some steam. Our Connection Class (Sunday school class) decided to partake of Date Night at our local gun range this past Friday night. How funny is that? Sound crazy? Yes, it does. I've never even shot a gun in my life. It was great fun, though! For under $36 two people could shoot, eat dinner, and have 100 rounds of ammo per person. Let me tell you a secret--the French Dip at the gun range? Best I've ever had! It was an awesome meal. I know you think I'm making it up, but it is true.

Here's some members from our class from left to right:

Archie & Brandi, Kristy & Gene, Michael & Kim, us, Brian & April

We needed some fun because this house? It's going to drive me insane.

(Literally, I'm going to go insane.)

(Did I mention, that I'm going to go insane?)
(Did you know that as they comb through your bank statements you get to explain everything in ridiculous detail like you never thought possible?)

(Did you also know that you want to poke your eye out over the toothpaste that you bought?)

(Ok, it isn't really that bad, but I'm just sick to death of everything coming with this house. At some point, I'm ready to be done.)

(To next Friday, when we are in a house.)

 Anyway, we did have a fun time stepping out of our normal box and doing something completely abnormal for us.  Here's a picture of the girls: Brandi, Kristy, Kim, me, & April. I stole this off of Facebook. Thanks, Kristy!

 

My sister watched Micah while we loaded our ammo on date night. Thanks, Aunt KerKer! I'm sure he had a wonderful time!

 

Mr. C taking aim. It was really cold in there, and we had the whole place to ourselves. How fun is that?

 

My turn!! Don't I look like I could hurt you? I had no idea what I was doing, and we borrowed our friends' gun. 

I will say, I have become very interested in guns. Call it the Obama Factor. I'm not sure why, but now that you are telling me I can't have a gun...I want to learn. (Ok, that's not really how things are going, but you get my point.)

 

Of course, we had to pose for our date night photo op complete with head gear and all.

 And just because everything looks better through Instagram.

 

Figured I'd throw these shots in, too.

At any rate, I know that this busy time in our lives is a phase, and we will pass through it soon. I'm hoping that I'll be dancing a jig in my very own new house by next Friday. Until then, I'm going to keep jumping through mortgage hoops and bank hoops and red tape and seller/buyer negotiations and inspection hoops and somehow find some time to pack.

I have no idea how this will happen. Or if I will survive. I think I will survive.

Until then, I'll keep yelling at my mother. 

Except, I didn't yell at my mother. However, I was so frustrated today that I did yell at her regarding my frustrations of so many things going on right now. I also yelled at or around my father, too.

Isn't it nice to know that you have family who lets you yell at or around them without being the least bit offended? Have you ever been that frustrated?

Nope? Just me?

At any rate, if I don't see you in the blog world, I'll see you sooner rather than later. =)

Think fence. Another house update.

Are you ready? This is what I call "House Tour 2013" at the new Casa Confident.

I'm just going to be honest. I'm not going to blog very much until we move. I know that you 23 big readers of mine are on the edge of your seat, and this possibly saddens you. However, I am about to lose my mind with all that is going on. Every weekend is spent meeting the agent or an inspector or bank loan person. It's a bit overwhelming, there is no time to breathe, and we are about to be juggling two houses. I'm sure you can relate. Plus work. Plus pack. Plus raise a child. Plus go to church. 

Anyway, I'll just hush and start the home tour. My realtor took these pictures for me with her camera the other day while we had the inspection. They are in some random order, so I do apologize.

Above, you'll see our new den/family room area. Nice and updated complete with laminate flooring and old school built-ins. I love the built ins. I hate the wood burning stove, but we can fix that over time. You'll see the double doors? Those lead out to the backyard and the pool.

This is another view of the den/family room looking towards the front of the house. If you go to the left, you are in the entryway.

Bad picture of the kitchen, but you can see it has been moderately updated with nice, crisp painted cabinets.

This is the (very) tiny half bath downstairs, but it does have Corian countertops which is an improvement from the upstairs bathrooms.

This is my favorite space in the whole house. I love the updates and the character! You're looking at the dining room which leads into a formal living room. The formal living room will be my music room. I plan to take up teaching piano lessons again in the front of the house.

This is the "music room" leading into the formal dining room.

Yet another view of the kitchen. The kitchen is HUGE by all the standards of all the homes we viewed. Most of the homes had galley kitchens. We were so excited to see this wonderful kitchen! Add a granite countertop and a nicer backsplash--it will sizzle one day for minimum investment.

At some point in time, I'd love to knock that wall down to have an open entry into the den for better flow. Or perhaps a half wall with a bar area for when people come over? The door to the left leads into the laundry room/half bath.

There's my "pantry" of cabinets. I'm going to miss my actual closet pantry, but this probably has more space. I'm also super excited about the double ovens and drawers for my pots and pans instead of cabinets!

This is the formal entry after you step in the front door. It looks into the "music room" and the dining room.

Oh, I'm so excited to have an actual laundry room!! This is a special treat for me because of the laundry closet that I now have. The door you see on the left goes into the half bath. The shelf you see on the top right hand side is actually above your head (if you were taking the picture). It's a wall that is completely empty. There is currently one shelf. I have plans to put in a wall of shelves to become our "pantry" since we don't currently have one.

This would be our master bathroom. Not very impressive, but we're ok with that. We're just happy to have TWO sinks! As my husband said, we can knock that wall down later to make it more open. At some point, we'd love to add a soaker or jacuzi tub. A girl can dream, but I know it won't be for a really, really long time! Ha!

Here's the master bedroom located on the back of the house. Praise the Lord for a master on the back of the house! It's upstairs, but I'm excited about that, too. Especially since our house was almost broken into while I was sleeping in my bed. I'm excited about being upstairs.

Another view of the music room and dining room. I like how it is a very open floor plan for being built in the 80s.

This is the best picture to show you the actual size of the kitchen except my husband is in the way and so is the inspector. At any rate, you can see, there is a lot of room for gathering around while I cook. What am I saying? While Mr. C cooks! Haha!

Anyway, there have been many different roadblocks as we have moved towards buying another home. We have prayed specifically for wide open doors to walk through for the house the Lord had for us. Basically, everything on this house (after three prior homes) has been wide open! I can't even begin to describe all the perfect details the Lord has worked out. At any rate, one of our last hurdles is the actual repairs on the home inspection. We're praying that they will fix the fence. It need some major repair that would cost us a lot. So if you are praying for us this week, pray specifically that the fence will be repaired! =)

Hope you are having a great week!

Our life is just plain crazy right now!

I realize I need to take some more actual pictures of Micah, our family, and what we are doing. But honestly? What we are doing is living! We are so busy, and I can't seem to keep up with it all let alone take a picture.

One of the main reasons for this is that we are in "house world" right now. Those of you who have ever bought a house--much less possibly buying a second house while you list your first house after buying the second house--realize how incredibly insane it can be. We're dealing with two realtors, the owners of the house, trying to get our house ready, our mortgage broker, an appraiser, a pool inspector, and an inspector. I'm quite possibly going to lose my mind. So I'm in denial today and spending part of my Saturday morning letting Micah watch Mickey Mouse while I write a blog post.

We meet with our mortgage guy today at Perkins. How funny is that? He's actually a parent of mine from my school. I currently teach his precious son in my class. He's been an awesome mortgage guy, and it probably doesn't hurt that they love their second grade son's teacher (that'd be me). You get some special VIP treatment then. Who says that being a teacher doesn't pay off? Haha!

This week was also conference week. Yes, I said week. It was supposed to be just conference night. But if you are like me, you end up having so many conferences that they are spread out over the course of three mornings before school, a planning period, and then the actual conference night itself. I'm exhausted. The house is falling apart, and I'm actually liking the fact that we will be listing our house after we actually move out. That means:
1. I don't have to deal with cleaning it constantly while working and keeping up with a toddler.
2. I don't have to worry about our dogs annoying anyone or trying to hide the fact we have dogs.
3. People won't wake my husband every time they want to see the house during the day randomly.
4. I already have a place to live.

Yesterday was inservice day, and I ended up in the ER all day. Not because I was actually in the ER, but a fellow colleague went to lunch with us and almost had a heart attack. It was quite eventful calling your principal and telling her a car load of teachers were headed to the ER after a crazy lunch! You can imagine, I didn't mind missing all the meetings, but it was quite scary! (As far as I know, she's ok but her potassium levels just dropped dramatically.)

So there you go. Our week. Without pictures. I'll try to do better and actually take some this weekend. =)

House hunting is not near as fun as they make it look on House Hunters.

Well, the great house search continues, and it has been a bit comical. We did put a third offer in on a third house, but the owners were extremely stubborn. I can understand that, but don't tell me you are "motivated" to sell your house when you aren't. They would only budge five thousand dollars, offered to sell us their fridge (that was sitting in their empty home--mind you) instead of include it in the house, and would not pay closing costs. Needless to say, when we got the counter offer, we walked away. Amazing what happens when you walk away in this market, they always call your right back!  (Well, two out of the two offers we walked away from have called us back. "Oh! Our bottom line is x amount. If you can do x amount, we'll be ready to deal with you guys."

Um, no. Come to find out these people have actually listed their house three other times at ridiculously high prices. Apparently, they aren't really willing to sell it for what it is worth since no one else apparently has bought it the three other times either.

That's when we moved onto this house above. It's the most beautiful home we have seen. How cute is that lot and this house? It's actually dropped into our price range! It's not on a main street! (So many in our price range are on main streets.) It's immaculate on the inside of the house! Oh, it is so pretty, but the hubs was not thrilled with the lot. See that hill? He dreads hills after living on a hill for so many years. In fact, we saw it on Thursday. I knew it had the potential to be "the house" for us to call our longterm home. It's actually my favorite of all the houses so far. It's true that something better will come around. Anyway, I couldn't talk C into it because of the yard. (It is on the small side with a pool.) Still, we went back out on Saturday looking at houses, and I put it on the list again. I told the realtor, "If I can just get him to look at it one more time, then maybe..."

See, I know my husband.

It has to be his decision.

If it isn't his decision, I'll live with some major fights about it later.

Eight years of marriage will teach you this.

So instead of coaxing him into it or nagging him, I just said, "Let's go see it one more time."

"Why? I don't like the yard."

"I know," I said, "But it was the nicest house of all."

"Ugh! Leah, gosh. We just saw it, but if you want to waste her time to see it again. Let's go see it."

I started smiling because after we came in, he looked around again, and his "light switch" (as I call it) went on. He said, "Let's do this! Let's make an offer."

So. We did. Again. House #4.

What I love about this house is the kitchen. It's actually a big space. So many kitchens we have seen in these older homes have been nightmares and galley kitchens. I have a galley kitchen, but you'd think you could upgrade and get one if you move up in a house? Not so if you are buying a home in an older part of town. We have seen some great modern floor plans and kitchens in the new parts of town. Our problem is proximity to our jobs & church. Our church is nowhere near our jobs, but we don't want to leave it. Our jobs are nowhere near our house. We spend so much money in gas each month, it is ridiculous. That being said, we're trying to find a house in good condition with modern amenities in our very limited price range.

I'm trying (again) not to get attached to this house. I'm really excited about this one, though. It is my absolute favorite one. Don't you love the built-ins next to the fireplace? You don't get that kind of charm in a new house. =)

This is the formal dining room and formal living room. Basically, it will be my "piano" room with hope of starting up a piano teaching business again in the near future.

Love the wood floors, the details on the walls, and the awesome chandelier!

This is upstairs, and it would be Micah's playroom.

And here it is. The reason we almost didn't even make an offer on this house. A pool. I'm still not exactly sure what we think about the pool, although it is in working order complete with a two-year old liner. Our plan is to ultimately save up enough to have the pool filled in over the course of the next few years so we don't have to deal with it.

I'm hesitant to even post another blog on another house we've looked at. It's all part of our journey, and I want to remember it.We found out at noon today that they countered us the EXACT NUMBER we said we needed and prayed for. Our mortgage isn't really going to change much, so we are basically making a lateral move. Hopefully, we'll have ours listed by the end of February so we can get it sold as soon as possible. Pray for God's will to be done. Everything seems to be a "go" on every end. We just have to go through inspection & appraisal. If all works out, we'll be new owners by mid-March.