The Martens 5 will be officially homeless starting August 5th. Can't believe I just typed that sentence. Ever pray/wish/dream for something so hard, and then it finally comes true and you want to vomit out of fear because you got what you asked for?
BARF.
We put our house on the market March 10th. We sold it on June 21st. We close on August 2nd. We have to be out by noon on Sunday, August 5th. We won't even be able to come "home" after church to change our clothes.
I know I have documented the frustrations of selling a house....the constant cleaning, the emotional roller coaster, the waiting game for a showing, the waiting game for feedback, the frustration of getting positive feedback but no buyer, the constant cleaning....I am so thankful to have that part be over. We are back to making messes (although I can't stop the compulsion to pick up the house throughout the day and before I leave to go somewhere) and I don't feel the need to check my phone every 5 minutes to see if we have a showing. Sweet Freedom!
Here is the story of the selling: People came to look on Tuesday night. They liked the house. They scheduled a second showing for Wednesday night and told us they would make a decision to purchase between our home and one other. They made the offer after looking at ours. Our realtor called and told us she had an offer, came to our house around 8:30 pm and we began the process of a counter offer.
Here is where reality bites. We priced our home to sell, but still enough to make a little profit...or so we thought. Turns out the seller pays closing costs (most of the time) in addition to several other fees. By the time the realtor gets paid, the fees are paid, blah blah blah....we owed money. CRAP. It feels pretty sickening to have to pay someone to buy our house. Not a lot of money in the big picture, but still...not expected by naive us. So we counter offered and they accepted. They pay us more toward the total price of the house and we take less to closing. I found out they accepted our counter offer while shopping in the bread aisle of Wal-mart....my life is so sexy.
Since Thursday afternoon our life has been pretty surreal. The girls are excited, scared, sad. This is the only home they've known and we have made a lot of great memories here. We love this house but needed more space. As I am sitting out on my deck this morning I realize how much I am going to miss my backyard. ((sigh)) I have made a personal vow to sit outside every morning and enJOY this space.
In the meantime, we are trying to find someplace to go. We literally will be homeless if we don't find somewhere to rent for the next several months. There are no houses for sale that we want to purchase and the plan to build will happen, but needs a few more months of saving money. Rental places are not abundant right now in Kearney so if you are a pray-er, please add this to your list....if you are a crosser, please cross your fingers, eyes and toes. We aren't looking for a palace, just safe and clean.
This is going to occupy my blog for the next month.....although I promise to sprinkle in some adorable gratuitous pictures of the girls. The next 30 days is full of swim lessons, drama camp, VBS, acro, basketball, piano/vocal lessons, choir camp, church camp, Jane's birthday and MOVING.
God is so good....all ways....always.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Catch Up Post
I needed a day to play catch up with this blog.....
1. Tess went to a week long church camp last week and had a blast. She left on Monday, returned on Saturday morning. Made new friends, learned about Jesus, did a lot of high energy activities (it was a sports camp theme) and came home totally geeked out on fun. She talked all the way home from Lawson, detailing every day's activities. I relished every minute of it. We had missed our first blessing and were ready for her to be home....thankfully she was excited to see us too! Tess spent the remainder of Saturday and part of Sunday in a post-camp hangover funk. She was physically exhausted and mentally missing her new friends and the excitement of being entertained 24/7 by cool counselors. Kate is now totally jazzed to get to church camp at the end of July. God is so good.
2. Kate got nicknamed Slugger last Friday night at her KHRA tball game. For some reason the coaches decided to start pitching to some of the girls, instead of making them only hit off the tee. Andy was at work, and Kate was too embarrassed to ask the coach to pitch to her so she kept hitting line drives off the tee. The girls had not practiced being pitched to, and all the girls were doing a lot of swings and misses before just hitting it off the tee. Andy made it to see Kate's last at bat and asked her coach if he could come out and pitch to her. He threw one pitch to Kate, not a lob-it-in-there softball type throw but an overhanded fast ball....Kate needed one swing and she launched the ball over the infielders heads into the outfield. THE CROWD WENT WILD. It took Kate about 24 hours to stop floating from excitement.
3. Kate came downstairs early Saturday morning needing a drink of water, "because my mouth tastes like old cheese, mom" then went back up to sleep a couple more hours.
4. Jane is so excited for her fourth birthday she can hardly stand it. We are excited because we have been prepping her for "what four year olds can do" that three year olds can't do....dress themselves, remember to say please/thank you, not throw tantrums, wipe own butt.....my baby will be four in less than three weeks!
5. My mom is having some chest pain/heart related issues and will be having testing done today. Please lift her up in your prayers. I am confident that she is going to be fine. Our family(both mom & dad's) are disgustingly healthy. We are totally boring when it comes time to report our family and personal medical histories at the doctor's office. I have though, advised Andy that if something is wrong with my mom I might not handle it very well, so to be prepared. It is a blessing to be so dang healthy, but it makes just a little health scare seem bigger than it really is. God is so good!
6. The Royals are making this family very happy right now.
7. While Tess was gone to camp she decided to start growing a permanent tooth behind a baby tooth she hasn't yet lost. This made her retainer fit incorrectly and made us wonder what happens next. We made the appointment with the orthodontist yesterday and unfortunately we still don't really know. Partly because there are enough unknowns about the amount of time it will take to lose her baby teeth, but also because my husband (and all males I am learning) are not good at asking questions. What Tess heard was that she would have to get some teeth pulled to make room. I am planning to call the orthodontist this morning and get a clearer idea of what to expect. If she needs teeth pulled I want it done before school starts.
8. We may have sold our house. They made an offer, we made a counter offer. Now we sit and wait to hear back. More on this later!
1. Tess went to a week long church camp last week and had a blast. She left on Monday, returned on Saturday morning. Made new friends, learned about Jesus, did a lot of high energy activities (it was a sports camp theme) and came home totally geeked out on fun. She talked all the way home from Lawson, detailing every day's activities. I relished every minute of it. We had missed our first blessing and were ready for her to be home....thankfully she was excited to see us too! Tess spent the remainder of Saturday and part of Sunday in a post-camp hangover funk. She was physically exhausted and mentally missing her new friends and the excitement of being entertained 24/7 by cool counselors. Kate is now totally jazzed to get to church camp at the end of July. God is so good.
2. Kate got nicknamed Slugger last Friday night at her KHRA tball game. For some reason the coaches decided to start pitching to some of the girls, instead of making them only hit off the tee. Andy was at work, and Kate was too embarrassed to ask the coach to pitch to her so she kept hitting line drives off the tee. The girls had not practiced being pitched to, and all the girls were doing a lot of swings and misses before just hitting it off the tee. Andy made it to see Kate's last at bat and asked her coach if he could come out and pitch to her. He threw one pitch to Kate, not a lob-it-in-there softball type throw but an overhanded fast ball....Kate needed one swing and she launched the ball over the infielders heads into the outfield. THE CROWD WENT WILD. It took Kate about 24 hours to stop floating from excitement.
3. Kate came downstairs early Saturday morning needing a drink of water, "because my mouth tastes like old cheese, mom" then went back up to sleep a couple more hours.
4. Jane is so excited for her fourth birthday she can hardly stand it. We are excited because we have been prepping her for "what four year olds can do" that three year olds can't do....dress themselves, remember to say please/thank you, not throw tantrums, wipe own butt.....my baby will be four in less than three weeks!
5. My mom is having some chest pain/heart related issues and will be having testing done today. Please lift her up in your prayers. I am confident that she is going to be fine. Our family(both mom & dad's) are disgustingly healthy. We are totally boring when it comes time to report our family and personal medical histories at the doctor's office. I have though, advised Andy that if something is wrong with my mom I might not handle it very well, so to be prepared. It is a blessing to be so dang healthy, but it makes just a little health scare seem bigger than it really is. God is so good!
6. The Royals are making this family very happy right now.
7. While Tess was gone to camp she decided to start growing a permanent tooth behind a baby tooth she hasn't yet lost. This made her retainer fit incorrectly and made us wonder what happens next. We made the appointment with the orthodontist yesterday and unfortunately we still don't really know. Partly because there are enough unknowns about the amount of time it will take to lose her baby teeth, but also because my husband (and all males I am learning) are not good at asking questions. What Tess heard was that she would have to get some teeth pulled to make room. I am planning to call the orthodontist this morning and get a clearer idea of what to expect. If she needs teeth pulled I want it done before school starts.
8. We may have sold our house. They made an offer, we made a counter offer. Now we sit and wait to hear back. More on this later!
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Bennett Spring 2012
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| My brother and I hiked to hell and back to see this natural tunnel. We barely escaped being eaten by a mountain lion (we both will swear this to be the truth) and my brother turned his heels into a bloody mess. We took this picture just in case we died and someone found the camera. I haven't had this much fun with my brother in years and even though it was a crap ton of miles to walk(seven miles!), I would do it again in a second. |
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| I think this is before my brother gave Missy a huge welt on her left leg....She was crowding the plate! he said |
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| My dad was SO HAPPY to have my brother with us |
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| we hiked every trail at Bennett, even some that technically didn't exist until we found them.... |
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| Kate and Andy trying again, after Andy dropped Kate's fish and it swam away |
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| Jane's first fish!! She named him Jimmy |
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| Dad and John |
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| Jane was asleep within 10 minutes of leaving the park. Slept until K.C. Love the dirty feet and tattoo look |
Happy Girl
We were barely in the dance studio door when Kate's excitement got the best of her.....there were girls everywhere, running around in dance clothes, popular music pumping loudly from behind a closed door, a large gymnastics mat with girls doing flips and jumps.....she turned to me and said "mom, can I come here more than just one night a week?"
Her class hadn't even started yet.
I stayed and watched Kate for the first and last 15 minutes of class (Jane and I went to the library to blow some time) I got to watch her do some forward rolls and cartwheels, which she did with ease. She looked so happy. In the last 15 minutes we saw her do her backward bends and try to flip on over...something she has been practicing on her own for months. I heard her teacher ask her if she had done gymnastics somewhere else before this class...she took two years of tumbling class with Ms Terry at Joyful Noise preschool!....when Kate said she had, I heard the teacher say "I could tell you had done this before."
I thought Kate's face was going to break from smiling so hard.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Three days and counting!!
We leave for our annual Bennett Spring trip on Sunday....the whole famdamily is going, even my brother, for the first time ever! After spending four days with four little girls(Amelia will be there) and having no time alone, he may be ready to return to his quiet apartment.
Memorial Day Weekend-Sunday-KC ZOO
We became official "Friends of the Zoo" for the first time this weekend. The new tax that was passed makes the memberships, and daily admissions, for Clay and Jackson county residents super cheap. We bought the membership that has unlimited train/tram/carousel rides. WORTH EVERY PENNY. It was a super hot day and just riding the train around for 10 minutes gave our legs a break and blew a nice breeze across our sweaty selves. The tram ride was priceless as the walk to and from Africa feels realistic! Jane rode the carousel THREE times because she kept finding different animals that she just had to ride on. Kate rode it twice. That adventure alone would have cost us $15....well, actually no it wouldn't have, because we would have never let them ride it that many times! We played at the zoo for over four hours and the girls had a great time. As you can see below, Jane even got up close and personal with Nikita the polar bear, giving him a "high five" every time he swam by and pushed off for the his lap around the pool. That bear was an entertainer.
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