Our land isn't the only thing cookin'

We're expecting baby #4! This is even more exciting than our land, so we feel really blessed right now. I just wanted to reflect now on some of the reasons I'm so thrilled to be having another one.

#1 This baby is eternal. Our material possessions, money, basically everything we know here on this earth is fleeting. It will all burn up one day - either in this life, or at the end of time. Proverbs talks about how riches maketh wings and fly away! It's so true. Job knows all about that. But even if this baby doesn't survive another day in my womb, or perishes before he or she reaches a state of full accountability, he or she will be with the Lord. After that it is mine and my husband's job to walk out before this child the fullness of joy that is a life lived for HIM, so much so that it is irresistible to the child. May we be found faithful.

#2 This child will be a blessing to us. I can hardly count, and probably most parents can't either, the many things our children have said or done that truly blesses me! Just today Seth said, "Mommy, I'm sorry your tummy feels sick." and "When's the baby going to come out? I want to see the baby!" And Jude crawled up next to me and said, "I just want to snuggle you so much, Mom." Not to mention all the profound things that challenge my heart.

#3 This child will be a blessing to others, too! From the cooing smiles of a baby, to the innocent ramblings of a toddler, to the fully mature Christian who brings others to our Savior, children who love HIM are a blessing.

#4 We get to watch God provide. David said, "I was young, and now I'm old, yet I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor seen his seed begging bread." It's so true - God provides for His children. And sometimes it isn't until you HAVE the children that you get to see the provision for them. I know families with 2 or 3 children, and families with 7, 12, 13 children, and none of them lack for anything! Our children may not have the newest fashion clothes (who cares?), or their very own IPOD, or whatever it is that Americans think we must have in order to be happy, but they'll have something more important - each other. Things should only be tools to bless other people, not an end in themselves. I think the fewer things we have, the more our children will see how unimportant things really are. If there is one thing this getting out of debt journey has taught me - it is just how little I really need to be happy. And I have far more than I really need.

#5 I get to grow. I kind of don't like this part. But it is necessary. Some day, some how, this child and I will come in conflict, and it will bring out something in myself that I need to change. And I will be moved to change because of my concern for the child, that he or she not become like that flaw in myself. And I will seek HIM because without HIM nothing will change.

The Land has been Cleaned!

Tonight we discovered that the property we are buying has been cleaned up! All the junk has been cleared out - even the house has been cleaned up - and the neighbor said that the real estate agent had that done only two days ago. I'm so amazed at what God is doing! We signed the contract last week, so really they didn't HAVE to have it cleaned up, but for whatever reason (God!?), they did it anyway. That has saved us hundreds (maybe thousands?) in junk disposal fees and days of work. Unbelievable.

We Found Our Land!

Tonight we signed the contract on our new land! It's not "official" yet, as we need to get a survey done, and get the title pulled - all those things to make sure there are no (bad) surprises, but if all is a go, we will close the end of this month. It's so hard to believe! When we first set out on our search for land, we decided we'd look for something that would be equal to or less than our current mortgage. Then, after hearing more testimonies of God moving heaven and earth for people so that they could get out of debt, we decided that we'd just believe God, that He'd help us to find a place that we could just buy with whatever cash we had. And that is exactly what He has done! It is something we could have never done for ourselves and above what we could have dreamed of.

When this house was first listed, we noticed that it had an old house on the property, but for 3 acres, the listing price was a steal! We had my sister, who lives close by, drive out to the property to see the neighborhood and help us determine if it was worth the look. After her favorable report, we scheduled an appointment with a realtor to go see the inside of the house. Wow. It was bad. We had seen lots of houses in disrepair, but this was beyond salvaging. The realtor just kind of pushed the door open - not daring to go inside - and no one else volunteered either. At that moment, my husband, who had been talking to the neighbor, yelled out "Don't go inside, or at least don't let the kids go inside!" There was insulation coming through the ceiling tiles, some black stuff on the walls which looked to be mold or plain old filth, lots of trash everywhere. The roof was caving in in places, and there were certainly leaks. After talking to the neighbor more, we found out that the bank had sent in a pest control company, and the man (you know - he does PEST CONTROL!) said he'd never seen a house that bad - millions of roaches everywhere. Then the bank sent out a cleaning service to clean up the house, and they refused to do the job. The neighbor (who is a pastor, by the way - I prayed for at least 1 Christian neighbor) also said that the septic was backed up into the house and would need to be replace with an aerobic septic system because of the clay soil (doesn't absorb fast enough). So, the house was a disappointment, but not a surprise, since the listing price was so cheap. The house wasn't the only issue - this land was FULL of trash (at least, the acre or 2 closest to the road)! BBQ grills, tackle boxes, old chairs, the remains of a demolished mobile home, and just about any other junk imaginable! A dumpster (or 2...or 3...or more) full. Lots of work ahead of us. At least we have utilities....

The neighbor also mentioned a pond at the back of the property, so my sister and I braved the high grass and walked all the way back there. ALL the way back there - this property was way bigger than 3 acres. There were all kinds of trees, tall ones and short ones, and trails through the trees, and of course, the little pond at the back. When I got back to Jeremy, the lady told us that the agent who listed the house thinks that it is more like 6 acres. I whispered to Jeremy, "It's beautiful. We HAVE to buy this!"

We placed a bid and had the real estate agent check into the title for us, to see how much acreage it really was. It turns out that it was TWO lots, both 3.44 acres, for a total of 6.88 acres. Wow! Much more than we could have ever dreamed we could buy, esp. with cash! Of course all this is subject to verification before closing, but the real estate agent is confident in his information.

I'm so blown away at what God has done. It's not like we are able to do this because we are wealthy, or have never made mistakes with money, or never splurge and buy things we later regret. It is not like we are real estate pros. or have insider tips on the house search. I like how Dave Ramsey says that when you start moving in the right direction, God just puts a moving sidewalk underneath you, and you accomplish things must faster than you thought you could. That is exactly what He did. Thank you, Lord! I think He likes to do amazing, unbelievable things because he wants us to have a story to tell, where people KNOW that it was God.

We're excited about getting to build a house, and maybe get a trailer in the meantime, but either way, having a house of our own, no matter how humble, with no debt. And of course, I'll keep you posted on our journey along the way. Since Jeremy works with computers for a living, I know I'll at least have internet access! :) We may have to dig an outhouse and sleep in a tent, but we'll have our internet connection. LOL!

Cluttering Mission #3

Today's mission is sorting/packing our other file drawer. Maybe this will go faster than the other one?! We seriously need to downsize our office contents, since we may not have the "luxury" of having an office for a while, so that is my goal for the next how-ever-long-it-takes!

Update: after looking through the drawer, I decided most of it was for Jeremy to go through, so I went through my filing cabinet full of fabric instead! Yay - it's done!

Dinner Strategy

Lately, with our tighten-the-belt don't-spend-any-money program we have going on while we wait for our property, I realized that getting dinner on the table every night, without fail, and NOT wasting food, is high priority. Now, I realize it SHOULD be EVERY day, but with 3 little ones and a sometimes-busy lifestyle, that didn't always happen. So my strategy lately has been - I HAVE to make dinner a priority, and get it done first thing in the day - enter the crockpot! Now I've definitely used the crockpot a lot, but not every night like I have lately. With little ones, sometimes things would happen to make dinner difficult - an unexpected errand (for us or a friend), cranky children, cranky mom (LOL!), something didn't thaw, or something burned (while I changed a diaper or whatever). So, I decided, thanks to Renee Ellison at homeschoolhowtos.com, to make dinner my highest priority, after my time with the Lord, and get it done in the morning - so that I have 8 hrs. to get it figured out if necessary. Also, sometimes food would spoil before we could eat it - I overbought, or I cooked a new recipe that was a miserable failure, or everyone but me hated it. All these things added up to money in the garbage! So, I'm planning my menus/grocery lists carefully, using up things that will spoil soon FIRST, and just not experimenting for the time being. So far, so good! I noticed it's been a few days since the chickens have even had any scraps (peelings or anything!), and when I dumped a little bit of food off the boys plates into the trash tonight, I realized it had been a while since I'd done that, too. And for the most part, if the kids don't finish it, it goes into the fridge, and the next time they ask for a snack (or even a meal), I give them their leftovers first. Jeremy has been very faithful to take his lunch to work (or eat what's at the office), so no eating out for him!

More Decluttering

Today's mission: go through all my yarn and give away what I will likely never knit/crochet into something! You'd think having lots of yarn would be great, but everytime I pass by the basket it says, "Why have you not made something out of me?" and I feel guilty. I know there are other young women who would love to have my yarn and who actually have TIME to make something with it. I'm also going to try to go through some more files - one more drawer to go! How's your decluttering going?

Update: Yarn sorted!

Decluttering & Organizing

Sorting through my house to declutter and get ready for a move! Whether it be for this property or another, I believe it will be coming up soon, so we are getting prepared. Tonight's mission: File Cabinets and Underbed Storage. I'm getting rid of clothes we no longer want and manuals and papers we no longer need. We will probably be downsizing, at least in the beginning, so we must get rid of more stuff. It's amazing how little we really need to survive, or even to be happy. I'll be posting my progress as I go through the house purging our stuff. What about you? Do you have corners of the house that need to be de-junked? Let's do it together!

Update: Underbed boxes sorted - check! 1 file drawer sorted and packed into a box - check!

Things are Tight Around Here!

So, it's been a LONG time since I've posted. Mostly because we've had a lot of things going on that required a wait time before there was any news. We placed a bid on a property that is still pending. Nothing is certain yet, but if/when we get it, I will have such a testimony to tell! In the meantime, we are trying to hold on to every penny we can, to make sure that we have all funds available to make this purchase, should we get approved. When we found out that this property was available, when we did the calculations, we decided that we would have very little money to spend, if we made our top bid. So, I dug through my pantry, fridge, freezer, and deep freeze, and I decided that we could probably live for a month on what we had in the house, if we were judicious in the way we prepared meals, and if we didn't waste food. A while back I started a small food storage program, so maybe it was for this reason! So, since then, I've been to Aldi once and spent a little over $7, and we went out to eat at Rosa's with some friends after church (our whole family of 5 ate for $10). We also put in an order with our milk co-op (before we knew about the property), but still only spent $10. I feel guilty when I think of all the food that has gotten wasted at our house in the past, not to mention all the fast food trips that we could have lived without. To see just how little we could live on is humbling. When we say a prayer to thank God for our food lately, it has taken on a whole new meaning. I could just be eating a piece of bread, but God has provided so much more than that! He is so faithful!