Where We Are

I know I've been absent here. I've kind of had the blog on hiatus while we were dealing with selling the house, and while we're still dealing with that, this seems like a good time to update.

So here's what's been happening since my last post. Both of our families came together on a couple of days to help with the final push getting our house to market. And they (and we) worked HARD! And we got it all finished. A few days later a very sweet photographer showed up to take listing photos, and we went live a few days later on May 2.

We started getting showings right away, 5 in the first couple of days. And though it eventually slowed down some, it's been very steady. But we've not found the right buyer yet. And the contingency contract we signed on the home we wanted to buy ran out 6 days ago. We contacted the home owners, and they agreed to renew if we wanted, but we wanted to go see the home again. So we went to see it 3 days ago, and we noticed a few things that hadn't really stood out to us before. We still love the home, but basically there are too many things that would need to be taken care of as soon as we move in for us to be able to afford with the combination of their asking price and the profit we're likely to get from selling our current home. So after much prayer and discussion, we opted not to renew our contract with them. And we've not ruled it out completely, but there are a few things that would have to change if we do buy it. And of course it may sell before ours does, so we're just trusting God to work things according to His plan. 

So anyway, here are a few pics of our current home. You know, if you're in the market.

The Kitchen. We painted the cabinets white a few months ago, and I couldn't believe how much it brightened up the whole space. 

That pantry cabinet holds a TON.

That hallways leads down to a bathroom and two bedrooms, plus a linen closet. And that door you see just down the hall is a pretty roomy under-stairs storage closet.

The Living Room. First of all, I feel that I should point out that the stuffed fish, deer head, and ducks on the walls are not actually part of the building structure. This might seem obvious, but we did in fact have one viewer that left feedback that they didn't like the house because of the taxidermy. Those are, uh, ours. Fear not, they will be moving with us.

I realize that the couches and chair we chose are a maybe bit large for the room, but frankly we spend most of our time in this room, and it's nice with a family of 5 to have space to comfortably seat 8 so that we can all sit with some space around us. Assuming I can untangle Sawyer from my hair and get Lily off my shoulder.

The Downstairs Bedrooms. 

Bonus picture of Sawyer helping paint before the new carpet went in.

When we just had Taylor, this one was our family room/den. It's very roomy.

The Downstairs Bath. I hate trying to get pictures of bathrooms, don't you? Anyway, it's a full bath.

The Master Bedroom. This is where all the magic happens.*

I can't quit staring at my crooked bedspread. What happened? Anyway, lots of room and his and hers closets.

The En Suite Bathroom. Also a full bath.

The Great Outdoors. This deck has a fresh paint job here. And by fresh paint job, I mean we decided the night before the photographer came to go ahead and paint it, and we did much of this by...flashlight. Fortunately it proved quite passable by the light of day.

The Back Yard.

One last shot of the outside. The roof is 3 years old, and the HVAC unit with air purifier is 5 years old.

If you or anyone you know in the area is interested in a great starter home in a quiet older neighborhood, please feel free to contact our Realtor using the form on the listing page.

So anyway, that's la casa. Meanwhile, we're still planning and praying (but praying more than planning). The really excellent news is that all this waiting and showing is getting the whole family in excellent practice for keeping a neat and tidy house, and with so much of our stuff in storage, we're really finding out just how much we can live without. Except for my craft stuff. I need all of that. All of it.

*I just ruined this post, and possibly this whole blog for my mom. Sorry, Mom. Mystery of the grandkids revealed.

Home

Gratuitous shot of my cute kiddos, because what's a post without a picture?

Okay, so I'm still here. I even have projects to blog about. It's just that there have been such big things going on in my life that I can't seem to put them all into words. It seems hard to post about small things without talking about big things. But God has been moving here, and it is important that I talk about that.

So I've mentioned that we've been getting our house ready to list. And it's a process that has stretched out longer than we've wanted, but God's timing is in everything. There is a house that we had been looking at since January. We really liked it, and it had many, many of the things we want/need in a new home. A big garage for Nick, bedrooms for all the kids, a space for a craft room for me, even a bit of extra room for a play room. And it was close to the price we were looking for. We had been to view it inside a couple of times, and we were just waiting to get our own house on the market before we made an offer.

Finally, after talking to our Realtor (who was also their Realtor), he indicated that the homeowners would be open to a contingency offer since we were so close to listing. So we made an offer. And we waited. And they had another offer from another buyer. And they came back to both of us and asked us both to submit our very best offers. So we gave them our walk-away price, and we waited and prayed. And finally they decided - on the other offer.

And while we had prayed and prayed that God's will would be done here, whether or not that meant us getting this particular house, it was hard for me for a bit. Because I'm silly and human and imperfect and eventhoughIknowbetter, sometimes I get impatient with God. And this feeling sad and a little teary went on for about an hour.

Then Nick found a listing online that we had never seen before, mostly, I'm sure, because it had only been on the market for 9 days, and we were concentrating on the other house. It looked very interesting to say the least, and we decided to see if we could go see it the next day. As luck would have it, the owners were happy to let us come by.

The home is partially renovated, with most of the major work done, but there is still a lot to do. Most of it is relatively minor, tile installation, painting, etc, all things we can do ourselves, although there are a few bigger things still to be done too. A lot of work. A lot.

We fell head over heels in love. In. Love. We prayed about it, and we felt liberty to put in an offer. So I texted the homeowners to thank them for letting us look and tell them that we would like to make an offer. Then we called our Realtor to let him know. I think he was caught off guard, because this was just a day or two after he had to deliver the news that our offer on the other house had been rejected, but he was happy to contact the owners of this new listing for us.

Longish story shortish, the owners decided to accept our offer, even though we've not officially listed our house yet, and we have a signed contract! We also have 90 days (a bit less now) to sell our own home. We go to market next Monday, ready or not, and tomorrow we've got (hopefully) lots of help coming to knock out the last bit that we have left to do. Guys, I don't want to share too many details about the new house at this point, but I just have to say that it has things I never in my wildest dreams believed we would have. God is SO very good to us, ALL THE TIME, and He constantly amazes me with how He blesses us.

He's already moving us through this process, starting with the homeowners accepting an offer from us when we didn't even have our own house listed yet (and yes, they knew this). And today brought another big answer to prayer. One of the biggest things about the first house we were looking at that was not ideal for us was the high school it would have Taylor zoned for. It's not a bad school, but it's also not our first choice, or even our second or third. Our first choice is the high school attached to (like in the same parking lot as) the middle school she's in now, but due to the crazy zoning in our area, even if we stayed right where we are, next year she would go to a high school in the next community.

So a few months ago we put in a request for a transfer to our first choice high school. And to be honest, I wasn't holding out great hope that we would be approved. Transfers around here are notoriously hard to get unless you are a teacher zoned outside of your school of employment or your kid is highly involved in a school specific program. But we submitted the transfer request and prayed for the best. And it turns out that this house we have an offer in on now is zoned for the same high school as the first house we tried to buy. But we felt God telling us to put in the offer, so we were trusting that He had a plan for that too, whether that meant that He wanted Taylor there for a reason or whether He had another plan.

Today we got a letter in the mail telling us that Taylor has been approved to attend the high school we want her to attend! There are still hurdles to overcome, the biggest of which is going to be selling our house in the next two and a half months for the right price, but I believe that God's hand is in this as well, and we want to give Him all the glory for whatever comes out of this situation.

I can't see the whole picture yet, but I can see some of the ways He has been blessing us, guiding things with His hand and timing even when we've been impatient. If we had been able to get our house listed when we wanted to, we would have doubtless made an earlier offer on that first house. And it probably would have been accepted. That home was on the market for over a year before it sold, and the offers from us and the buyer they sold it to were the first offers they had gotten on it. When we lost it, I thought "Man! If we hadn't waited so long we would have gotten it!" And that's probably true. But that was not the house God had for us.

The house we have a contract on now is so much more perfect for us in so many ways, and it offers things I never imagined. And if we had gotten an earlier answer on that first house, we would have completely missed seeing this house, because they didn't even list it until the day after we decided to finally submit an offer on the first house. He kept us interested in and mentally committed to that first house until this one was ready. Even if we had been told no on the first house earlier, we might have tried to buy another house before this one became available, and we might have missed out! God always knows what's best for us, and, something that I think I sometimes forget, He always wants what's best for us.

So I can't say 100% for sure at this point that our house will sell in our time frame, but I can say that if it does not, if for some reason the path we are on suddenly veers to the left, God's hand will be on it. It won't be because it was just too big of an obstacle for Him to handle. He loves us, and He has a plan for our lives, and if He doesn't put us in that home, it's because He has something for us to do somewhere else, or even right where we are. And if we are where He wants us to be, wherever that is, it will be Home.

We R Memory Keepers Gift Box Punch Board

Hi, guys. It's been...busy...around here. Obviously by "around here" I mean around my house and not around here on the blog, because, well, I've had a few other things going on. Like putting down the last of the new flooring (in the kitchen) and painting ceilings (also the kitchen), and more painting, painting, painting, PAINTING (like, everywhere). We are slowly but surely getting there though. Just a few more little things and we will be ready to list.

So between that and the soul freezing winter weather Tennessee has been hit with lately, things have been a little uncrafty. But last night I finally had a chance to sit down and put together a post about one of my favorite crafty tools, the We R Memory Keepers Gift Box Punch Board.

First of all, I want to make a disclaimer - these pictures, guys, they're not my favorite. Late night crafting with incandescent lighting is almost always a bad combo, but we work with what we've got here. And my poor, poor kitchen table that is (somewhere) on the to-do list to get a makeover makes for a pretty lame backdrop. What's really sad is that my mom passed this table on to us several years back, and when she did she had just refinished it. Three kids, one crafting momma, and all the abuse of being a staging area during our house revamp has left it looking a bit worse for the wear. No judgment though, someday she'll have a fresh white coat of paint (if I have anything to do with it), and all will be redeemed.

So anyway, that out of the way, here's the Gift Box Punch Board.

Source

My mom bought me this board for my birthday, and I love it! In fact, I bought my SIL Leah one for Christmas. Basically it makes a self closing box (no separate lid!) with one square of paper. And they can be made in a variety of sizes of course, depending on your starting paper size and the shape instructions you choose.

I started out with a 6x6 sheet I cut down from this fun Disney paper. I scored the whole 24 sheet pad at a local dry goods store for $1.99!

As always with the WRMK punch boards, the instructions are printed right on the board, and the score tool stores in a slot on the underside of the board, so there's nothing to keep track of.

I chose to make a 1.75 x 1.75 x 1.75 inch box. Based on that, here are the measurement instructions to follow.

Using this board is a lot like using the Envelope Punch Board - just punch and score. It's important to pay attention to the line instructions, because they may not both be the same depending on your box size. If your box is taller or shorter than it is wide, your start and diagonal lines will be different.

Start out by lining the left edge of your paper up with the appropriate start line, in this case the small (S) line.

Punch using the button.

Now score using the tool along all three score lines, the two lines leading off the button (follow the little guides trailing off the button to find the grooves) and the diagonal line.

Now rotate your paper 90 degrees to the left and repeat all steps.

This is what your paper will look like at this point.

Also, our paper is small enough to fit entirely on the punch board, but if you're making a bigger box, there is an arm that swings out to extend your score line surface.

Now, flip it over and do all the punching and scoring again.

Now you have two notches on each side.

Here you can see the score lines a little better.

Now insert each corner into the punch at the top of the button and punch again to cut the curved slits you will need to lock the box flaps together. It's very important to make sure your corner is well seated into the corner of the punch before punching, otherwise your slits will be off and the corner will not round well.

Just make sure you have the same side of the paper facing up during the punching of each corner. This is what it should look like at this point.

Go ahead and crease your scored lines, starting with the longest ones.

Now bring your sides up and crease the diagonal lines inward so they are toward the inside of the box.

You can leave these interior flaps as is if you would like the box to be able to be flattened back out when opened, but I like to adhere them with either glue or an adhesive runner. I find it easiest to go ahead and add the adhesive to all 4 sides before folding up the box.

If you look closely, you can see the lines of adhesive.

When folded up, they will adhere the interior flaps to the sides of the box.

Now you will gently hook the opposite flaps together using the curved slits we punched earlier. Be careful here as these can be easy to tear, especially if you used thinner paper.

All done! Isn't it cute? This size is perfect for gifting jewelry, or it would be just right for holding a cake ball or truffle at a wedding or baby shower. 

Since you can't see the date on that ring, we're going to say I graduated 5 years ago.

Here's one I didn't adhere the sides on. Okay, fine, I graduated in '95. Whatever.

I made a whole stack of these for Lily, who loves anything Disney. And now I'm kicking myself for not buying up all the cheapo paper stacks!

These are really cute using just about any paper. Here's one I made using some cool printed vellum I found at Tuesday Morning.

Oh, and how cute would these be in craft paper for a gender reveal party, with a pink or blue cupcake inside? So many possibilities! I can't get enough of these punch boards, and I can't wait to see if they come out with any more!