Time to simplify!

We spent most of our day filling up our storage unit with the remainder of our stuff from Lewiston. I was amazed at how much you could squeeze into a storage unit when you get creative with your packing! I am also amazed at all of the crap that one family can accumulate through the years! Gone are the days when I moved all of my belongings to Washington State University in a Suburban! I have decided that I need to simplify a bit but first I have to find the time. It seems that every time we move it is such a quick thing and we never have time to organize and purge. When we move into the new house I need to implement the Flylady techniques again!

All of the stuff was the result of our spontaneous trip back to Lewiston this weekend. We had a couple of renters we needed to meet and we decided we would just take the opportunity to pack up the rest of our stuff while we were there. The only problem was that we had underestimated how much we had left in the house and we ended up filling up our 26' uhaul truck and still leaving some stuff behind. The good news from the weekend is that we found some good tenants that want to lease our house for 18 months. We are thinking that the market will pick back up in the next 1 1/2 years and we will be able to sell the house for more. This is definitely new territory for both Brian and I, being landlords. But the people moving into our house are landlords as well so hopefully they will be good renters. We could have never imagined that we would be renting the house instead of selling right away but God had different plans.

As far as our new house goes we haven't made much progress since my last post as Dave, our builder, was back in Lewiston last week as well. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have some more pics to post.

I did buy a fridge for our new house at Sears! They were closing out all of last years models so I took advantage of the sale and got a new stainless, side-by-side counter depth beauty of a fridge! The best part was that it 70% off! By next misson is to get a stove and dishwasher to match at 70% off as well! Hopefully I will be able to find something in the next 3 months.

Craft Time with Daddy!

This was Brian's first full week off of work. His last official day at Potlatch was May 16. Now he is Pastor Brian to us :o) He spent most of the week trying to figure out what to do with himself. He is such a structured guy and pretty much goes crazy if he is stuck at home more than 2 days in a row. He has decided that next week he is going to use an office at the church to work. He will be working on his business stuff as well as stuff for River City Church Missoula. As for now, we are not sure when we are moving. We thought we would be going by June 1st but God has different plans. We are in the process of learning how to hear Him and hear what His plans are for us and I am learning that they don't always look the same as our plans! So for now we wait in Lewiston for Him to tell us to go. For now, Brian has a little more time to spend with the kids. Earlier this week he got to sit down with Abby to paint. She was so pleased!

150 days later!!!

Yes, that is how long our house has been on the market...and we finally accepted an offer! After a few counter offers back and forth, our realtor called yesterday to say they accepted the offer. The offer is contingent on their house selling in the next 45 days. We also put in a "bump" clause which means someone else could come offer us cash in the meantime and we could "bump" the first offer. So the sale is actually pending (not quite sold yet) but I went ahead and made the picture to the right in hopes that it will all work out! We are thinking that we will be moving around the 1st of June... and so the packing begins! That is definitely my least favorite part of moving! We have had the privilege of being moved professionally twice and it totally spoiled us. There are a few drawbacks however...one major one is that you don't get to go through your stuff and purge. So this time I am going to take the opportunity to go through everything as I pack and try to get rid of some stuff! "Stuff" just has a way of taking over especially when you like to bargain shop! As it is, we will need two of the largest Budget moving trucks to get to Missoula. That should be interesting!