Mission Not Impossible


The goal is to get my family in a house of our own by Christmas! I've got an imaginary board of directors to help and I'm willing to do whatever is legal and moral to make this happen! If a guy can get a house with "One Red Paperclip," I think I can do it too!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Third Rejection...

Our offer on the house was once again rejected. We came up $5,000 from our last offer and they finally did at least verbally counter- $500 under their current asking price. Good news is that if they stick to their current pattern of dropping the price every 30 days, we'll be able to come together on December 15th (approximately).

This is good news but if we get our offer accepted in the middle of December we will get a house but not really by Christmas. We would still have to go through the loan process and that would take at least a month. At that point the only way to get our house for Christmas would be to be able to offer cash. With cash in hand you can sometimes close in about 3 days! The title is held by the bank so that makes the title search very quick and easy at least. What do you think?

Another option would be to wait until spring when their price would match what we offered earlier. I'm not sure that is a good idea as one reason this house isn't good for just anybody is that it doesn't qualify for conventional financing with so much that needs to get fixed up. You need to have 3-1/2% of the price for the down payment. Once folks get their tax return monies then they might be able to pull this off but we'll have sufficient to match the cash needed before 2012 when the price drops in December.

You're sure to do impossible things.....



Lyrics | - Follow Your Heart lyrics

My speakers aren't currently working :( but I love the lyrics!

You're sure to do impossible things
If you follow your heart
Your dreams will fly on magical wings
When you follow your heart
If you have to journey far
Here's a little trick
You don't need a guiding star
Trust your thicker, get there quicker

You're sure to do impossible things
If you follow your heart

You're sure to do impossible things
If you follow your heart
Your dreams will fly on magical wings
When you follow your heart

North or south or east or west
Where to point your shoes?
Which direction is the best?
If the choosing get confusing
Maybe it's the map you're using
You don't need a chart to guide you
Close your eyes and look inside you

You're sure to do impossible things
If you know where to start
Your dreams will fly on magical wings
When you follow
Just trust the swallow
And always follow your heart

Friday, October 21, 2011

Questionable Square footage....

I went and visited my friend Eve and she got to show off he new house... NICE! The white carpet wouldn't work for my family but with just two kids she seems to handle it well. Her home is over 3,000 sq feet and it seemed bigger than the one we're looking at. It also has amazing closets everywhere!

I stopped by and measured "the house" and it only came up with 3,070 if I included the garage space. Not the 3313 they advertise. The county records show 1769 and 1044 unfinished. Total on that is 2813. The county says the garage is 319 sq ft so if I deducted the county's garage estimate from the 3,070 I get 2751 sq feet. That doesn't sound nearly as big. According to our agent Stephanie, the square footage is always an estimate and you have to confirm it yourself. Interesting.

I remember our big house in Oregon. It was over 3,000 sq feet of totally usable space. They measured from the inside and they also didn't count it as livable space if the roof was slanted and you had to duck! It's sure a lot easy to measure from the outside like Idaho does but a house that's 3,000 square feet in Oregon is sure a lot bigger than a 3,000 square foot house in Idaho.
Always,
Vickie

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Feeling Better

So I was down today. Don't know when it started but just couldn't get it in gear. Hope you like the songs I added and that they give you a boost like they do me!
Always,
Vickie

Smash Mouth-All Star with lyrics



Just because I like it :)

Rodney Atkins - If You're Going Through Hell

Thank You - Ray Boltz




To all my friends and visitors. Thank you for coming, for caring.... my love goes out to you all today!

Sister Hazel - Change Your Mind @ HOB

MercyMe - I Can Only Imagine

Emmanuel Kelly The X Factor 2011 Auditions Emmanuel Kelly FULL

Alas..... rejection again

So long story short. The bank rejected our offer again. Now we play the waiting game and check out other houses in town. How much do we want this house and how long are we willing to wait?

65 Days Count Down

It's 65 days until Dec 23 which is the Friday before Christmas. That's the last possible day to close in time to get our house for Christmas. The clock is ticking and things are looking pretty good as in we'll probably get the house but will we get it in time for Christmas? It's just over a month away before Thanksgiving which would be my truly desired closing date. Is it possible? The 203 FHA loan we want is lots more complicated with lots of paperwork but unless we come up with cash it's the only type of legitimate financing that we currently have available. Well off to ponder while I make more applesauce and read Wisdom's Kiss, so I can write my amazon vine review and get more cool stuff on Thursday :)

Always,
Vickie

Good News, Bad News, OK News?

Bad news first. The bank rejected our first offer on the house. OK news is that we've resubmitted an offer and will probably hear back from them on Friday.

Good news is that John is able to get his pension check from the Meat Cutters union in Oregon and we will be able to make a house payment without scrimping more than I do now. More good news is that the Oregon union doesn't care about him working in this area so we don't have to find a different job right this second and we get to keep our health insurance.

I haven't written too much lately as we've been negotiating with the bank and getting contractor bids so once an offer is accepted we'll be ready to move forward quickly.

OK news is that the bank lowered the price by $5,000 again. They consistently lower the price every month by that amount. Our offer and their price would currently match up in March. That's a long way from Christmas but that's a sweet deal if we wanted to wait that long. Plus once we start getting pension checks, the more we can save between when we close on the house and our expenses go up.

Talked to Kyle of One Red Paperclip!

This morning I'm having a hard time getting going. I shined my sink- so far I've only missed two out of the last 49 days! Sweet! While eating my daily breakfast of two eggs with cheese I sat down at the computer. There was a FB post on a group of 5 artists who bought out a whole grocery store!

Come to find out Kyle of One Red Paperclip was involved in buying everything in the store to help save the store owner from losing his business. While looking at all the links, videos and so on I found out Kyle is doing something called Extreme Placement and was soliciting folks to send him products. I've got products and there right out in front was his phone number. I CALLED! I talked with Kyle who mentioned he had something else going currently but to drop him an email and he'd get back with folks when he was ready. I so hope you'll be ready soon Kyle as I could use some help to get our house for Christmas.

Always,
Vickie

Friday, October 7, 2011

Dippers Drops and Silver Boxes

This slide show is based on two books- Florence Littaur's Book Silver Boxes, The Gift of Encouragement and How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton



J.K.Rowling speaking at Harvard part 3

J.K.Rowling Harvard part 2

JK Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech Part 1 - June 5 2008

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

The fruits of Rejection!

Rejected

So our offer came back today rejected. We didn't even get a counter offer but they hinted at a number that we should start at. Kind of like when a guy asks out a girl and she says,"Now what kind of car do you drive or what's your major? Where would we go and what would we do?" When he offers up a suggestion, she says I don't think so but ask me again sometime. She might even drop a hint at where she'd like to go.

At least that's how I imagine it would go. I was the kind of girl who thought almost every guy deserved a first date. After that I could say no if I didn't see that I liked him better than I did before he asked me out, I could even be tempted to give him a second chance if he asked me out to do something REALLY FUN.

Rejection doesn't mean it's all over. It's just the beginning of negotiations which I get kind of uncomfortable with.

Always,
Vickie

Monday, October 3, 2011

I'm on the edge of.....

Here we sit on the edge...ready to jump! Today we meet with Stephanie Lee our real estate agent to make an offer on the foreclosure. We are not sure of everything but we need to move and the price hopefully will be right. The FHA 203 loan should work to get this house livable and then we can go from there.

I'm sure and then I doubt. I heard Pennies from Heaven on the radio this morning and it talked about you have to have showers to get the blessings. I teared up. This is a BIG scary thing to buy a house the way the economy is going. We haven't had to make a house payment for almost 8 years. I like to have everything all planned out and this time I don't know what color I want on the walls or what kind of carpet.... so many decisions and so little brain power available! Usually it's been a big deal to just buy a house ready to go but we've never done a fixer upper.

I took pictures when we were in the house last but I don't dare upload them. Last time my computer shut down and I thought it had died. If my son decides to upload them on his computer I'll give you all a peek.

My favorite ride at the amusement park is the roller coaster. Not sure I like real life roller coasters as in rushing in on this house.... or when I had fast deliveries with my kids. But it's better than puking my brains out on the twisting dizzy type rides.

I love makeovers. I've just never done an extreme one on a house. I love to see what designers do to other people's houses but every once in a while they are pretty bad. This way I'm in charge that's a humbling thought.

Anyways all prayers support and suggestions are most welcome!
always,
Vickie