28 May 2017

And just like that summer is upon us!  We had a great week.  Let’s start with the good news that our appraisal came in and it was perfect, spot on.  The buyers’ offer is $169,900 and the appraisal came in at $170,000.  Phew!  I am so grateful, thank you to everyone that prayed for us and was thinking about us.  The owners of the house that I want to buy, the short sale that I offered on, turned the house over to the bank in a "deed-in-lieu" deal.  Basically, they got to turn the house over to the bank immediately and walk away from the consequences of a foreclosure, but it also meant that my offer on the house was cancelled.  I took a deep, frustrated breath, and then had an overwhelming sense of peace that it would all work out.  After talking to my agent, this may be a blessing in disguise.  He called the bank and talked to the person handling the deed-in-lieu and explained our position.  He let him know that I was very interested in purchasing the house.  The bank agreed that its in their best interest to get it off their books as soon as they can and having a buyer lined up is an advantage. Since the house has already been vacated we may be able to expedite the purchase.  We are going to try and negotiate buying it directly from the bank.  So a process that was going to take me 4-6 months in a short sale, may end up taking far less.  At the very least we will have to wait for the bank to get the deed back from the county recorder, maybe 14 days, and then start the purchase process.  It's still uncertain, but possibly very happy news; praying that it comes to fruition.

This still means that I will need to move to a rental in the interim.  My house closes on June 16^th and with the appraisal in, there is no reason that it should fall through.  I will be moving the week of the sixteenth.  I am a little bit anxious about this as I hate to ask for help, especially knowing that I will need help moving again when we actually purchase our forever home.   Having just moved wards makes me a little more hesitant to ask for help as I know it’s a lot to ask from people I don’t know well.  Again, I’m just going to trust that it all works out.

The kids’ last day of school was Thursday and it was met with mixed emotions.  Helen was excited, Arlo was oblivious, and Felicity was a crying mess.  Felicity is going to miss her teacher, Mr. Johnson, whom she loved dearly this year.  She’s going to miss her friends as we’ll be moving to a new district when we get to the new house.  She ended up going home with her friend Mia after school, so when Helen got home she and I went on an outing together.  We went to Target and did some shopping for the new house and then out to lunch.  We had a lot of fun.  We picked up Arlo in the afternoon and then I took the girls to the pool for Activity Days.  Arlo and I played in the park while the girls had their activity.

Friday morning was spent boxing up the rest of our things that we won’t be needing for the next couple of months.  The remaining pictures and decorations, the winter clothes, kitchen items, etc.  My plan is to keep everything we don’t desperately need in the boxes while we are at the rental and wait to unpack everything when we get into our new house.  I figure I’ll pack the necessary items a few days before we move and mark those boxes with green tape so I know what to open when we get to the rental.  Speaking of the rental, I went and saw the house that my agent had available for me to rent on Friday morning.  It was very nice and signed the lease with his wife.  They are letting me have a month-to-month agreement with no deposit, I’m so very grateful.  It’s in Green Valley, just on the other side of Duvall Mine Rd.

Saturday was spent packing and cleaning.  In the evening we watched a movie together.  Our Sunday was very nice.  Felicity spoke in Primary on the Sacrament and I taught the Relief Society lesson based on Bonnie Cordon's conference talk Trust in the Lord and Lean Not.  I think it went fairly well.  When we were done with church we went to my parent's house and had dinner and the kids went swimming and played with their cousin.  It was a lot of fun.

I'm off from work on Monday and I have some projects to wrap up at home and am going to start deep cleaning the cabinets and fridge and other areas of the house, getting it ready for the new owners.  I'm praying everything works out with the bank and purchasing the house on Mann Ave.  I really wanted to keep an arms distance, but if I'm honest with myself I have my heart set on that one...that's why I've stuck with it since February when I made the original offer.  That being said, I have faith that the right thing will work out.  Here's to hoping that our first week of summer and everyone home will be successful!

21 May 2017

It was a downright quiet week at our house.  While last week had lots of events to attend and activities to do, this week our schedule was pretty much wide open.  We had a nice, low key family home evening on Monday.  The kids really enjoyed not having homework after school and spent lots of time playing together. 

I worked on a new quilt top this week in the evenings.  I’ve been trying to decide how I want to quilt the top I made for Arlo and was waiting until the weekend to get the batting for it, so in the interim, I worked on a new top.  I’m crazy, I realize this.  By the time Friday came around, I had completed 12 blocks and was fairly pleased with how they turned out.  This is really the mechanism I’m using to keep myself distracted while we wait to see how everything is going to play out with the house buying and selling.

Just an extra picture from Arlo's graduation last week

The kids went to visit their dad Friday night and I worked on the new quilt top.  On Saturday I cleaned, worked in the yard, did my grocery shopping, and started quilting Arlo’s blanket.  I spent the whole day listening to an audio book, so I also finished a novel in a day which made me feel extra productive! 

I’m still waiting to hear how our appraisal went.  I’m praying that it comes out above what my buyers offer is, but my agent is a little pessimistic because we’ve had so many bank owned sales and short sales in my neighborhood.  It’s really frustrating to have stuck with my home through the market turn, watch its value deteriorate, but keep my end of the bargain and continue to pay on it and care for it.  The frustration comes from still being negatively impacted by everyone who didn’t follow through.  We may be able to wiggle a bit on both ends if the appraisal is slightly under the purchase price, but if its way under I will have to take the house off the market and either wait or consider renting it.  I’m praying it works out!  As of right now, if our house does sell, it will close the second week of June and we will have to move to a rental while we wait out the short sale on the house we want.  The short sale house on Mann has been the only home that I’ve felt very strongly toward and will be just tickled if it works out and we can have it.  It really is perfect for us.  My agent has a vacant house he is willing to let us rent month to month until we can get our new place.  As much as I don’t want to have to move twice, I’m grateful the option is available.

My Sunday meetings were nice.  I spent the morning quilting and preparing my Gospel Doctrine lesson.  The kids came home in the evening and we stopped over at Nana and Papa’s to pick up a few things for the coming week.  We are excitedly waiting for summer to arrive, only three and a half more days of school.  Here’s to praying everything works out!

14 May 2017

Happy Mother’s day to all the wonderful mother’s I know, especially my own mother!  How was my mother’s day you may ask?  Well, we have 1:00PM church and half way through our first meeting, Arlo looks up at me and says, “It’s Mother’s Day?”  I just laughed and nodded.  We had a very nice day and got to spend time with my parents after church, so all in all, I can’t complain.

There has been a fair amount of excitement around our house.  We had our home inspection on Monday and it couldn’t have gone better!  There were a handful of very minor things that were found and on Wednesday I got the buyers’ request for which repairs they would like done.  They had two requested repairs: replace an outlet in the downstairs bathroom, and seal up an air leak in the AC unit.  It was such a relief.  I can accomplish both fixes myself for right around $30.  Now we are on to the appraisal and I am praying that we come in right where we need to be so that the sale can move forward unhindered.  The buyers have been great and seem really solid, which I am so grateful for.

We had Family Home Evening on Monday and Arlo taught our lesson on the atonement.  He did such a great job and took the responsibility so seriously.  Helen picked our activity, she wanted to watch “Into the Woods”, so that’s what we did.  It was a nice low-key evening. 

Wednesday we got to attend Arlo’s pre-school promotion ceremony.  They did a really cute Peter Pan theme and Arlo was very excited to participate.  I can’t believe he’ll be starting kindergarten in the fall.  I had always hoped that at some point in Arlo’s life, before he started school, I would be able to stay home with him, but it was just not in the cards I suppose.  They had Eegees and balloons and cake pops when the graduation was over.  I received a portfolio of Arlo’s work at the end, and in it was the perfect certificate for Arlo: “for outstanding achievement in being the most free-spirited”!  Well, that’s one way of looking at it!

Thursday, Felicity had her final band performance of the year.  Helen was disappointed because she still hasn’t been able to go to Activity Days in the new ward since we’ve had too many scheduling conflicts, the band performance being the latest.  The concert was good and Felicity did so well, I’m proud of her.  When we were done we ran to Home Depot and I got the new outlet that I needed and mastic for the AC repair.  After the kids went to bed I replaced the outlet and then climbed up into the attic.  I have lived in the house for more than 9 years now and have never so much as poked my head up in the attic.  I was surprised at how nice it was! I was immediately hit with a wall of cold air upon getting up there, unbelievably, the builder had left three pipes fitted into the plenum without any sort of sealing around them.  Evidently the AC has been spilling cold air into the attic for the last nine years.  I don’t even want to know how much money that has cost me!  Luckily it was easy to rectify.

I was off on Friday and cleaned house and went grocery shopping.  Remember that short sale house that I offered on in February?  The one where I was first back up?  Well, I got an email from my real estate agent informing me that the first offer fell through and my offer on the house, which is at the end of Mann Ave. south of Sahuarita Rd., is now being considered by the bank!  The agent for the seller gave us the impression that the bank was not wanting to cooperate with the sellers and may favor moving toward foreclosure instead of accepting my offer.  Only time will tell, so I won’t count on it coming through, but man would it be nice!  That house was PERFECT for us.  I took my mom to lunch at Manuel’s for Mother’s day in the afternoon.   We had a really nice time and I’m so grateful for her.

Friday evening the kids went to their dad’s for an extra visit and I worked on Arlo’s quilt.  I have it all pieced together into four separate tops.  Amazingly, it wasn’t as out of square as I had feared!  I’m waiting for a darning foot to come in the mail and then I will sandwich the four tops with the batting and the backing and quilt them.  I hope that by keeping it in four pieces I’ll be able to manipulate it on my machine more easily, and then I’ll just attach the four pieces to make the one twin sized quilt with binding.  I love how its turned out so far.  I even made two additional blocks this weekend, raccoons, to incorporate into two pillow shams.  I started work on those as well this weekend.

I did some chores around the house on Saturday and worked on my sewing projects.  In the evening I picked up the kids and we enjoyed a quiet evening in.  Our Sunday was nice and I enjoyed hearing all the Mother’s Day talks at church and visiting with my family after church.  I’m praying our appraisal goes well on Monday morning and the path to where we will be going after our house closes becomes more clear.

07 May 2017

The school year is winding down and you can really tell at our house, we have some major spring fever floating around!  The girls are so done with school.  They had a pretty easy week, however, both had extra field trips.  Helen got to go to the symphony and Felicity to the observatory.  They both had a great time.  Arlo has been enjoying school, and I think he’s still rather blissfully unaware that preschool is almost over, he has his field trip to the Primary school next week to visit Kindergarten and his graduation ceremony next Wednesday. 

Monday I received an offer for our house!  It’s a pretty straight forward deal, they don’t want any concessions or appliances.  I worked the numbers out and with what they are offering I’ll be able to pay off the loan, although I won’t be making much if anything in profit.  That’s OK, I knew going into this that I’d be hard pressed to actually turn a profit, I’m just grateful to be able to move on to something more suited to us.  We are certainly not out of the woods yet as there is still a home inspection and appraisal process we have to get through, so I’m not getting my hopes up too high.  I also don’t have a place to go as of yet.  The short sale that I offered on in February is still tied up at the bank, so it still may fall through and come my way.  There’s another house that I’m interested in as well, I just need to let my sale get a little further in the process so I can make an offer on it.  I don’t know what will happen.  If everything goes smoothly with our sale, close of escrow is slated for June 16^th.  I don’t know if we’ll have a new place to go to, or if we’ll have to go to a rental in the interim, I’m just trying not to worry about it, I know it will all work out.  Our home inspection is scheduled for Monday afternoon, I’m just praying that there are no major findings as I’m already stretched pretty thin considering I won’t be making much.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

I got a text from Arlo’s teacher on Tuesday, evidently he had decided to have his own water day and had gotten himself all wet in the bathroom sink.  I had his backpack at home, so he came home in the clothes they were able to scrounge up for him; Girls leggings and a long-sleeved Christmas shirt.  It was quite the sight.  Thursday evening I assigned Arlo his newest chore, I told him it’s the man’s responsibility to take out the trash.  He was super excited about that and I taught him to take the trash to the dumpster and then drag the dumpster to the curb.  He even replaced the bag.  Having the kids get older has its advantages.

I finished piecing together my new quilt this week and I am just tickled with how it is coming out.  Friday after school the girls helped me lay out all the blocks and we moved things around until I was happy with the layout.  I took a picture so I would remember how I wanted all the blocks.  Friday evening the kids went to visit their dad for the weekend and I started sewing the blocks together with their sashing.  At first I was not looking forward to this step as I figured most of my blocks were out of square and not quite the right size, but as I started squaring them and measuring, I only had three blocks that were not exactly what they should be.  Two of them, little bear tracks, I’m going to re-do.  I really want this to turn out nicely and if I don’t resew them, my eye will forever be drawn to them every time I look at the quilt. I was able to trim up the mountain block that was off. 

Saturday morning I was up early and did some chores in the backyard.  I had new rose bush stems and leaves sprout up from some of the roots that must have been left behind when I transplanted them a few weeks ago.  These are most likely from just the stock root.  The root system of these roses is hearty, but the flowers are not necessarily pretty, and they’re used to graph on the “pretty” roses that they sell in the store.  I figure a rose bush is a rose bush and I’d like to try transplanting them and see what I get.  I miss my garden terribly, I hope I will have time to put in a small fall garden at the new house.  

I went grocery shopping after that and then worked on my quilt until I ran out of background fabric.  I’m out of sewing budget until next week, so I moved on to another project.  The girls have bright pink Disney princess body pillows that they love, but that won’t match the new bedroom stuff I got them, so I covered them in simple white fabric and then made envelope-style pillow cases for them out of the extra sheets that I picked up when I got their bedding.  They turned out so cute and I’m so glad they are now washable!  If you can’t tell, this is my way of exercising a little bit of control in a situation where I have none.  I can’t control when my house will sell, or what house will work out for us to buy, but I can make new pillow cases for the new house!  Yes, I’m fully aware that I’m slightly delusional! 

Sunday was very nice, I had lots of time to read and prepare for my first Gospel Doctrine class.  Church was nice, my lesson went fairly well I think.  I made a few “practice sandwiches” when I got home.  These are mini quilts that I can use to practice my machine quilting on before actually jumping to Arlo’s quilt.  Since this is the part of the process I’m most worried about doing right, I want to practice on some scraps first!  I picked up the kids and heard all about their fun weekend on the ride home. 

I’m hoping that things are starting to fall into place.  I see how convenient it will be if the house sells in the next few weeks and we can move over the summer.  I trust that it will all work out the way it’s supposed to.  I keep coming back to the scripture in Roman 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…”  Here’s to good things to come, oh, and gratitude for all of the good things that already are!

 

30 April 2017

It was a business as usual kind of week at Casa de Davidson.  Felicity taught our Family Home Evening lesson based on 1 Nephi 3:7.  She did a great job and we watched a movie, again, as our activity.  I picked up working on a crocheted blanket for the girl’s room this week since my fingers are all healed up from my little table saw moving stunt.  I also continued to work on blocks for Arlo’s quilt.  This week I completed two mountain range blocks and two tree line blocks, and have most of my rabbit blocks pieced, I just need to finish sewing them together.  I have 8 blocks yet to complete and then I can actually start quilting it.  Its my first rather complicated quilt, so its by no means prize worthy, but I am really proud of it so far.  Once I get settled into the new house and things die down a bit I will be investing in a new, high end machine.  At the very least I need a piecing foot as I’ve struggled with exact ¼” seams on this project.

We took dinner to a family in our stake this week and Helen requested I make the same dinner for us, so she and I worked together in the kitchen to make ribs, beans, cornbread, and veggies.  We had a fun time together and the dinner was heartily devoured, which is nice as it isn’t always the case in our house!

We met Nana and Jaidyn at McDonald’s on Wednesday to have dinner and play.  The kids had such a fun time.  They enjoy playing with their cousin.  We did a little bit of shopping for our upcoming camping/hunting trip on Thursday and the girls got to get Icee’s on the way home, they were quite thrilled with it. 

Arlo had an end of the year carnival and water day at school on Friday and was super excited about it.  His teacher sent me a fun picture of him during the day and when he got home he talked about how fun it was for the rest of the evening. 

The house has been getting an increasing number of views and saves online.  We had someone come on Wednesday night to see it and then we had an open house on Saturday.  The kids and I went to Sabino Canyon on Saturday during the open house.  We hiked about a mile and a half to the dam in Bear Canyon and played in the creek.  The kids had such a great time.  They played for at least an hour and I had to bribe them with lunch to get out.  I’m glad we stuck to a shorter hike, quite a bit of it on the road, it was fun for the kids without wearing them out and eliciting whining.  We did venture off on to a couple ½ mile trails and they enjoyed that.  I wanted it to be a fun experience that they would want to do again, maybe the next time we’ll hike back a little further.  We stopped for lunch on our way home and then enjoyed a quiet evening in.

We were pretty busy on Sunday morning.  Our home teachers came by around 10 am and then at 11:30 members of the bishopric stopped by to extend a new calling to me.  I will be teaching a Gospel Doctrine class, which I’m excited about.  We enjoyed our meetings a lot and the kids had a great first Sunday in their new ward.  They were excited that there was such a large primary and that they knew so many of the kids.  It was a good experience.  The bonus of the day was when I found out that the Olivero ward is the mid-single magnet ward for not only the Sahuarita Stake, but also the South Stake, which means that if we want, we can stay in the Olivero ward after we move.  It’s nice to have options and we’ll have to pray about that when the time comes.  We went to Nana and Papa’s after church and had dinner and visited. 

While we were at church we had another requested viewing of the house.  My agent called and left a message that they loved the house and while he didn’t want to get our hopes up, he felt confident that an offer would be forthcoming.  I sure have my fingers crossed on this one, it would be so nice to be able to move on!  The house that the kids and I saw a few weeks ago and really liked is still on the market, so I could potentially make an offer on it and we’d have somewhere to go.  I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, so for now we’ll just pray that it works out the way its supposed to.