Selling the house

Well, we listed our house yesterday. It's kinda wierd and it produces a fairly generous amount of anxiety for me because now I have to keep the house 'hotel room' clean for goodness knows how long with three kids running around! It'll take awhile I imagine, unless God's just gonna be really good to us and send someone along right quick.

My wife has a new job with Lifeline as a flight nurse and she's going to be stationed in Lafayette, IN. She wants to move closer to her parents so she can be around to help out as they get older. So, we've been looking a lot online. The place near Anderson we looked at won't work for two reasons. 1)It's in Anderson and not nearer to Lafayette (it'd be about an hour and a half drive!), and 2) the appraisal of that house came back a lot higher than anyone thought it would.

So there's a little place in Sheridan we found that sits on 10 acres, has fruit trees already and could be really great. Problem is, the house has two small bedrooms and only 1.5 baths. We'd have to build on at some point, and it would require quite a change in lifestyle until then. But 10 acres! Wow. So we're gonna look at it next weekend.

I had originally thought about posting several longer posts about what I did last summer and all, but that's just crazy at this point. Needless to say, I did a lot of canning!

I've checked, and good for me, I will be able to order chicks way into the summer, so if we get moved by June or July (I hope), I'll still be able to have chickens this year! Call me crazy, but I can't wait!

I'm still knitting. I'm currently working on a shawl for my Mother-in-law. The pattern is called "The Wool Peddler's Shawl" from the book, Folk Shawls, by Cheryl Oberle.

Sheesh, I gotta get off of here and get started on school with the kids... More later.

Farm Sweet Farm?

Well, this is a picture of the house that stands on the 80 acres I most recently wrote about. It has a wrap-around porch on the back. We didn't get out of the car to look around because Melora was afraid someone would yell at us for trespassing. But my sister-in-law did look in it. She says it's rough and needs work, but the woodwork inside is beautiful, and the house has potential. Yeah, I can see that. The property is wonderful. Lots of big trees, mostly oak. Pasture all the way around the place with new looking fence. The posts were straight, the wires were tight. There may have been cattle there within the past several months, but nothing there now. There isn't any one big barn. There are a couple of smaller barn type buildings that were storage areas. But oh, could I see myself living there!

Ok, here's just a sample of how my brain works... I've already envisioned how we could take down the two smaller barns and reclaim the wood to use on a newer, bigger barn, placed in a more accessible location. I've even thought of having a ''Painting Party" to get it painted once it's built. I've envisioned where the garden will go, where the fruit trees will go, where the chicken house will be.... I know, I know, I'm crazy. I got to the point where I asked God to help me think more realistically about this place so I don't go all idealistic and get super depressed when it just won't work out. I didn't want to pray that way, but I did it anyway. Melora said I needed to really pray about it if I was serious about wanting it, because she's not convinced. She liked it well enough, but there are a lot of 'what ifs'. We both know that it would take a miracle for us to be able to afford it at all and then have enough money left to actually fix the house up. Prices, despite the market, are sky high around there.

I tried all weekend to get ahold of the man that owns the place. Melinda (sis-in-law) said they're Christians and really nice people. So, I think what I'm going to do is look him up on the net and write him a letter. Tell him who I am, what I'm looking for, what my dream is, what Melora and I want for our kids, what we want our homestead to be (a blessing)... and then ask him about the property. What's the worst that could happen? He could say "No, it's not for sale," or "I'll take $850,000 for it". Either way, we don't get it. On the other hand.... he could be really touched by my dreams and hopes, and decide he wants to be nice and bless someone. Yeah, it's a long-shot, but nothing is impossible with God. If that's the farm He has for us, it'll work out. Otherwise, I wait and keep looking. No big deal. But we do have a friend who is moving over that way and seriously would want to buy half of it from us to build on.

Anyway, that's where I am with all this. I'm just waiting and trusting. Gonna write my letter soon and send it off. We'll see. (Thanks for reading Keetha!)