Stress

We need to move. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it, we need to find a new home. This house that we are in now is too small for us. We never expected to have twins when we purchased it. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath modular. It worked well when it was just Josh, Garrett and I. Now that we have Mattie and Teegan, its closing in.

Lots of people may think that we can just put Garrett and Teegan together in one room. We thought the same thing. The thing is, that Garrett has a ton of stuff! He was the only child for 4.5 years. Over the course of that time, he accumulated a crap ton of toys, books, stuffed animals, a TV, bunk bed set, etc. His room is jammed packed. Teegan would have no place to put his toys in that room. There is not even room for another bed in there. The two smaller bedrooms in this house are the exact same size, so it's not like Mattie could take the smaller of the two.

We thought about putting the boys in the Master bedroom but that won't work either. Josh and I just purchased a brand new bedroom suite last year for ourselves. It's got the queen size bed, two good sized dressers and 2 night stands. All of that stuff would never fit into one of the smaller bedrooms.

Therefore, we need to find a bigger place to go. Since this house is a modular, in a park, it most likely will never sell. We've seen first hand how the houses in here don't sell. The house right next door to us went up for sale a couple months after we moved in here in Feb. 2004. It just sold in December 2008. We don't have time for this place to sell that slowly. That said, we found out that the owners of this community, may buy our house from us. So, Josh is going to talk to them and find out if they are willing to buy our house. If they are, that will be a HUGE relief. If not, well, we don't have any choice but to walk away from it and file bankruptcy on it.

My mom made sure that when we were little, that she chose a school district that she wanted us in from K-12. She never wanted us to have to move after we started school. I want the same thing for my kids. Granted, Garrett will be in 1st grade next year, but I think he's young enough yet, that he should be fine if we transfer districts. I will not move him out of another district after he's started 1st grade. That said, we have until August to find a new place, move and get settled before he starts school in September. We are on a time limit! That's really stressful.

Due to the fact that we may have to file bankruptcy on this house, we are only looking to rent for the time being. Yes, it's a step back from where we are at now, but we don't see that we have any other choice right now. We don't have the credit to purchase another house, nor do we have the money to make 2 house payments.

So, I've been searching, and searching, and searching some more. Finally, we found something! It's in a great school district (the same one that Josh graduated from) and it's a great location as well! Shopping, family and the elementary school are super close by this house. Where we are now, is about 20 minutes away from my mom. It's also 10 minutes away from my sister (who does a lot of our babysitting). To go shopping, we have to drive about 10 minutes away (yeah I know that may not seem too bad) but why travel 10 minutes if it could take 2? We have no parks or anything around here. The school Garrett goes to now, is about a 2-3 minute drive away from our house but it's not within walking distance.

This house we are looking into is within walking distance to the elementary school, about a minute from my sister and 2-3 min max to the closest grocery store! It's a prime location for us. There are also a few parks within walking distance too, which I love for the kids! It's a 4-5 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 story historical home and I love it! We got to walk through it yesterday and meet the landlords (who said they really like us!). The house is really, really old but that's what makes it such an awesome place! It's got a typical Michigan basement w/ the laundry area down there. The floor plan is pretty open too on the main level. You can walk all the way around the house. The front door leads into a small mudroom, which leads into the living room (which has a huge picture window). If you go straight through the living room, you would walk into a bedroom/office type area. From there you could go straight through a door onto the sun porch or you could turn left and go into a full sized bathroom. From that bathroom you could walk out the other side and right into the kitchen. If you're on the sun porch, you could take a left through a door that leads into a breakfast nook. The breakfast nook, is right off the kitchen. So either way, you end back up in the kitchen, which leads to the dining room, right off the living room. So, pretty much a huge circle! Another bonus for us, as it would give the kids lots of space to roam about. There is a door in the kitchen that leads to the basement. To get upstairs, there are stairs in the living room that lead up there. Once at the top of the stairs, immediately to the right is a bedroom. There is a huge hallway up there that all the bedrooms are off of. If you turn left off the staircase you could go straight into bedroom #2, or turn left again and continue down the hallway. Once down the hallway, there is another full sized bath on the left, bedroom #3 is right next to the bathroom and kiddy-corner from bedroom #3 is bedroom #4 (which I think is the master bedroom, as it seems like it's the largest). Closet space in super limited in this house too. There is a coat closet in the mudroom, a closet in the down stairs bedroom, and closets in bedrooms #1, 3, and 4. They are pretty small closets too compared to what we have here. The closets in our house now are HUGE! They are all walk-ins with the master closet being like a small bedroom. That would take some getting used to for sure!

The yard is super nice sized too. It's big enough for a swing set for the kids, a small pool even, but enough play space. There is a 10x10 shed and no garage. Which really isn't a big deal. We only have a 10x10 shed where we are now, with no garage. The landlady said she really likes us and would be willing to sell it to us in a rent to own type thing if we are ever interested in doing so. Another bonus as we could definitely see ourselves there forever!

Now one of the the cons of this house is No pets. That's a huge thing as we have a cat and 2 dogs. We might be able to convince them of letting us have our cat since he is de-clawed on all 4 paws and is litter box trained. The last tenants they had there, had an unauthorized dog that caused a lot of damage. They have to totally replace the back door because of damage from this dog. So, I don't blame them for not wanting anymore dogs there. Its a huge sacrifice for us. Do we take the house and find new homes for our dogs? Do we pass on the house in order to keep our dogs? It's weighing heavily on our hearts. We've had Alex since Garrett was 2. We've had Daisy for not even a year yet, but her and Alex are really good buddies. I don't know if I'd be able to find a home that would be willing to take both dogs together. I also will NOT put them in a shelter. I will find new homes if this is what we chose to do, but it's a really tough decision!

The other con is, that we'd be paying about $300 more a month for rent there, than what we pay here with our mortgage payment and lot rent combined. That's a huge amount of money when we are living on only 1 income. We could do it, or I wouldn't be considering it, but we will be living really tight. If we didn't have our car payment, it wouldn't be an issue. We could make rent and live comfortably on Josh's income alone. We can have our car paid off in Feb/March 2010 which is less that a year away. So, we have to decide if we want to live super tight for 9 or so months. By super tight, I mean, absolutely no extras! No going out to eat, no buying this or that because "we can", etc. It would only be for about 9 months though, so that doesn't seem too bad, to me anyway.

There is also a lot of cosmetic issues on the inside of the house right now. There is a contractor that is working on it and the landlady said it should be move-in ready within a couple weeks. I don't know if that's possible to get all the cosmetic issues taken care of in that short of a time. I did tell her that before we make a final decision, I want to walk through it one last time after all the work is completed. She said that's not a problem at all. I told her I understood she had other people interested, but I really love the house. I just want to see what it's going to look like after it's completed. She understood and basically told us that the house is ours if we want it. All the other people will have to wait on us! So that's a positive thing too! I just hope we're happy with it and ready to sign if that's what we decide when the time comes. I'd hate knowing I held all these other people up, only to decide that we don't want it.

So, it's a lot that's weighing on my mind right now. The thought of leaving this place that's the only home my kids have known and that's a comfort zone to me, is scary! The unknown of whether we will be able to get out of our mortgage or having to file bankruptcy is stressful. I just wish I could fast forward another year and see what's going to happen and if we come out the other end of this being OK. I hate the unknown.......