So, So, Tired

We've been working on our house non-stop since Monday and I'm exhausted!

Gail Bishard, a Realtor and a good friend of ours, came on Monday morning and looked through our house. We sat down and talked, signed papers and before she left she pounded a "For Sale by Gail" sign into our front yard.

There is only one month left on the home buyer tax credit so we are crossing our fingers and hoping to find a buyer planning to take advantage of that credit.

We bought this house as a major fixer-upper and had to do a conventional loan to get it. But Gail told us that Conventional loans are so hard to get right now: high interest rates, high credit scores, and large down payments, so she wants our house to be approved for VA and FHA loans which means more work for us.

We were hoping to be able to sell the house as is: lots on improvements but still some things to fix - but I guess it's not working out that way.

In our paper work we agreed to have the garage painted, the porches painted, the front bathroom in fully functional condition, a working heat source in every room, and all the wood work finished. So we've been working like crazy, but still have a long way to go.

Ryan was hoping to work on the front porch today, but then it rained, followed by snow!

I think I'm too tired to paint any more just yet, perhaps if I go lay down for a while I'll be able to get more done later... Here's hoping.

If anyone wants to volunteer some service hours we would love a little help!

Money Woes and Lots of Stress

Things have now reached the point where we can no longer ignore them. It's been nearly a year since Ryan's pay at Fred Meyer was cut by 4% and his hours were cut back to part time. He went back to school to keep student loans at bay (which will be $800 a month when we DO have to start paying them back.)
We have come to the conclusion that we need to sell our house, and find somewhere to rent that doesn't cost more than our current mortgage and has lower utility costs. I will miss our ward and I don't know where we will go (we have yet to find somewhere that meets our needs and is within our price range.)
There are things that still need to be done on our house, but I don't feel like I can do most of them myself and Ryan doesn't have the time or motivation to finish them off. So I think the best thing to do is to do my best to get it clean (with the help of my kids :P) and get it on the market right away; then we'll just have to see what happens.
I need to put my trust in the Lord, exercise a little faith, and trust that things will work out for the best.

A Rude Awakening

This morning, at 5:45am, we were jarred awake by the sound of our fire alarms throughout the house blaring their repetitive "BEEP, beep, BEEP, beep, BEEP, beep..." Ryan bolted out of bed and ran to check on the boys, I on the other hand took a minute to figure out what was happening and then helped Ryan investigate.
We didn't find any fire and didn't smell anything burning. Ryan went down and flipped the breaker switch in the basement (to make the beeping stop) but we never figure out what caused the alarms to go off.
I decided that it is nice to have the alarms hard wired throughout the house so if one goes off they all go off, but it also means you can't tell which alarm triggered the reaction. However, I vaguely remember hearing it somewhere in the rear of the house before the one in our bedroom went off.
Tate, for some reason, was asleep on the couch and didn't wake up. I was standing in the kitchen when I heard Canton in a hesitant voice say, "Oran, go get Mom." Oran came out and said, "Mom, I heard a loud noise!" I scooped him up, assured him everything was alright and put him back to bed. Before I left the room Canton whispered, "Was there a fire Mommy?"
We never found anything, but it was pretty weird.
I decided that it was not my favorite way to wake up - once the excitement was over we all went back to sleep for a couple of hours.