Welcome rain.

So its been a few weeks since I have been able to post. Some of that is due to all I have had going on and some of it was not really wanting to perm. put it out there...

it would be ....we are not moving.

long story short, after making the offer on the house, paying for the inspection...and waiting the appraisal, we found out that Dean's VA cert is no longer any good thanks to early (read young) stupid financial mistakes in our 20's. There is nothing quite like reliving mistakes you made when you were young....ahhhhh LOL.


This was something unforseen by any of us during this journey, and while it stinks the hardest part was the 4.5 months we have spent living this whole thing out. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of stress that it put on our family. Maybe...that should have been my first clue, I dunno. I will say this though, living here in this tiny house with my troop was enough to push me through said stress for the bigger goal ahead. With that now said while i am really sad we are not moving (right now anyway) part of me is a bit relieved over not having to deal with it all right now. Dean is working an ungodly amount of hours right now thanks to the position he has been in for the last year (minimum of 65 hours a week for the most part) so while it sucks.........i'm ok with one less thing on my plate.

In the meantime, we HAVE to make this house more livable for crying out loud. I don't think i've ever dove into what we live in here too much so I'll try and paint the picture for you here. In a nut shell...we have a 4 bedroom house that is roughly 1450 sq ft. We have ONE....count it ONE bathroom. The bedroom sitch is very tight, 4 of the kids (currently the 4 girls) all share the master BR and then we have 2 boys in each of the other (we had the boys all in the bigger room at one point...yeah NOT good). My least fav part of this whole scenario is the fact that 1/4 of my huge kitchen is consumed by my laundry room. For the average family this would be a pain...for us? It's a major fat PITB daily. I am always working on laundry, it never ends, but having it right in my face in my kitchen? it doesn't get any worse than that. its so bad that many times we can't even sit together as a family at the table because there are clean folded clothes everywhere. I know it seems obvious to just put them away...however in my day sometimes thats not always possible.

Anyways, the point of this is, we live in a shoe (but i'm NOT old lol).

The good news is that we found out that we actually can still use my VA loan, we just have to get a few things lined up in order too, which could mean another 6-12 months. So for now we have to figure out how to make this house work. As of right now we have plans in the works to convert our covered porch into a laundry room (yes!!) and also to finish the attic area upstairs for a bonus room for the kids. This will give us an additional 300 sq ft so not only adding value to the house (for not a lot of $ i might add) but also will be a selling point eventually.

In the meantime, I've been busy doing a few other improvements to the house that *I* want. I am currently working on painting the trim on the outside of the house a new fresh color, and I just painted my door in a gorgeous deep (antigue) teal color yesterday. We went to Lowe's last night and bought a new Pella screen door and a new door mat and I finally splurged and bought some patio furniture that wasn't lawn chairs (ROFL!). These few little things alone have made a huge difference. It didn't add any space, but it makes the house more beautiful for sure. I also have the front flower bed to redo, I think I'm putting in hydrangea bushes and hostas, but first I have to buy dirt. Huh...dirt. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to spend my $ on DIRT?! lol!! O well...

In other news, the struggle with Dyl continues at school. I cannot begin to express my fears about him entering into MS next year. Out of all the things about not moving have meant for us in the past week, this one is the toughest for me. I had every intention of putting him into the autistic school in Garden city, and now that won't be happening. There is too much to say to put here, but the good news is I have opened a new blog for him that is directly attached to this one so it should be easier for me to actually post on it. If you would like to read, here ya go...

http://ilovedylpickles.blogspot.com/


I always have the best intentions of blogging then don't seem to find time. The night is usually best, but lately I'm either tired or know I have to get up early to workout that I skip it in favor of rest. I'm hoping that now that the moving sitch has been summed up i'll be able to find more time for it both here at on Dyl's. Today was the exception because its sat., Daddy is working and it's raining outside...thus giving me a chance to sit here for a little bit while the kids are enjoying TV and video games curled up in blanket masses on the couch :). I love the rain, and this morning it has hit the proverbial spot.