It's Done

My son got married two weeks ago. He's my youngest child. I was not prepared for the emotional upheaval it created in my heart. My heart stirs with various different emotions and it is hard to flow with each one. I'm prouder than proud of him and what he's accomplished; his success in life in general, but more importantly, his stance and passion for the Lord. Yet, there's also a subtle emotion of vacancy, for lack of a better word. I'm not the most important woman in his life anymore. I've always felt a strong bond with my son. While I don't think the bond is less, it is just different. I'm not sure how to articulate it, but it doesn't hurt really; just different than anything I've experienced before.

Mandy, my oldest daughter, is getting married here in about 6 weeks. Maybe I'll go through all that again??? I kinda doubt it though. She's been married before and my bond with her is unlikely to change much being female to female. Ahhh the joys of getting older and watching my children grow up, sigh...

Another subject. I'm very frustrated this week. Mandy and James (her Dad, my husband) had a big blow up on Monday. Now they both are talking to me about how the other person is this or that, and should have done this or that. The weird thing is that I see both points AND they are both very similar. I think that's why they butt heads so much. Mandy wants her Dad to just call and say hi and quit studying her every action and word under a microscope and telling her everything she's doing wrong. James wants Mandy to not be so aggressive and opinionated and grouchy. I think they bring all that out in each other.

The big problem is that their conflicts reach everyone who touches them: me, Ricky & Rosie, Daniel (Mandy's soon-to-be husband). If those two don't get along, then it kinda ruins it for the rest of us. I'll just have to keep praying on this one.

Lord help us all!

Cool Photos

I'm posting some of my photos that are from the last two trips to Italy. Have fun looking! I hope to go back again sometime in the next five years or so.



Beautiful Italy

I Know....

I know it's been a very long time since I've said a word. What can I say? Sorry.

Well, we decided to keep the house and rent it out. The new Narrows Bridge will be complete in the next year or so and we're banking on the fact that better traffic flow could help prices in that area.

When we went to refinance the house (the loan we took over from the buyers was at a very high interest rate) we found out that there was a hidden feature that took us by surprise. Turns out the original loan the couple had negotiated included a pre-payment penalty! The amount was almost $5,000! Aww shucks! Now, even if we had decided to sell it, we probably would have made only a couple of thousand dollars. Not much considering all the work. Not a good deal in my book. So we bit the bullet, paid the penalty and refinanced the house. The savings in the house payment ends up making the decision a good one in the long term. We hope to keep it for a few years and then sell it.

We got it rented this last week and all is good to go. The house looks beautiful and the new renters are very happy with how it looks.

Thanks for sticking close during the renovation process. It was a wild 12 weeks of rehabbing! The big question for me is: would I do this again? I've mulled it around for a while and determined that I would, but only with a few stipulations. 1) I would not do it while I was working; I'd have to take at least a month off. 2) I would try to stick to the project management portion of the job and leave more of the actual work to others. (I'm getting too old for this). However, maybe if I weren't working a 40+ hour week job, this wouldn't be such a big deal.

Now I can turn my blog back into other issues to write about: life, kids, travel, cool photos I've taken, and other nice and fun things that occupy my time.

See you all soon!

Kitchen

Before












After

Almost There!

BEFORE



AFTER







As you can see things look much better than they did 1 month ago. We put a sign up in the yard and an ad starts today. We still have a window to fix and I'm checking into getting a realtor out to do an official market analysis as well. It's possible we'll just list it depending on the analysis. We want to try by owner for a few weeks though.

We'll put a big post out and flyers here sometime next week and I'll boost the ad with a picture as well.

Please pray that we sell this thing quickly. The market has softened a lot in the last 2 months. We would like to think that we'll have favor from the Lord and we won't have to sit on this house for too long.