New House Achievement_Unlocked

I love our new house.  It's not perfect, but neither are we, and it's WAY more than we thought we would find in our price range.  Life just continued to throw curve balls our way, and right when we were getting panicky - things fell into place.

The short version is, we were supposed to close at the end of March.  But due to someone (me) screwing up something with her tax paperwork, we were waiting on a single confirmation form from the IRS to complete the financing paperwork. That's it.  We had everything else - but that piece of paper. 

The IRS, in March, is actually kinda busy (go figure, right?) so they wouldn't promise to get it to me for 6-8 weeks.  Which put us past our closing date.  So after much finagling, begging, tears and praying, we got a couple weeks extension from the sellers.  The last possible day before we would have lost the contract, rate lock, and basically - our new house... the IRS sent the form.  I could not have been more stressed. 

I had convinced myself that maybe this wasn't the house for us.  I am still working on restoring my unwavering faith, I'll admit that.  The miscarriage in October really shook my already wobbly foundation and it took me until this past June to really get it together.  The house debacle helped me see that sometimes, you just have to leave it in His hands.  I still struggle with it, but it's a journey, right?

New House and New Cars

It's not what were were originally looking for - I can admit that.  But we couldn't find our european cottage or southern plantation.  We also couldn't afford to build it with the current rules for a construction to perm loan.  So we decided this house would be our 10-15 year house, then when we are tired of stairs etc., we will move to our final home - built or renovated to our dreams.  However, we got MUCH more house than we ever thought we would and it's in pretty decent shape (some issues due to poor maintenance by previous owners) and is only 8 years old.  We have since put in a fence (for the dogs!) and there will be more pictures as we update the deck, paint the shutters (once the HOA approves it - grr), and continue turning the inside into our masterpiece. 

By the way, the new cars? Not in the original plan.

Actually, that's not totally accurate.  We've always known the hubby would need one.  The truck didn't fit our family and the kids are so tall already they were literally NOT able to fit in the back seat anymore.  So, in an effort to go anywhere together, he had to get a different car.  We were planning on getting a used Toyota Highlander, then to keep the price even lower we found a Kia SUV that met our needs.  What did we leave with?  A Dodge Journey that they brought down to the price my husband wanted.  It's a GREAT vehicle.

My new car is a result a a future post involving an accident that was a true wake up call.

All in all, not bad, right?  We are BLESSED!