A mom, a dad, and three cute kids.
Nathan cries when he eats now. It’s not because he doesn’t like the food 
I guess it is relatively common as the nerves re-grow to get some wiring that is mixed up. Somehow his salivary gland is triggering his eye to water.
I bet you didn’t expect that! So, if you’re with Nathan while he’s eating and you see him crying, don’t worry.
It was a quiet Saturday.
Nathan helped a coworker move. He took Ethan along to help and they were gone all morning.
This afternoon I took a nap and Nathan took the big kids to the library to find a movie to watch. So, tonight’s movie was Return to Witch Mountain. The classic from when we were kids.
And then after the kids were in bed, Nathan made an elaborate spreadsheet to figure out our financial situation in regard to our housing. It included our loan ammortization schedule and a lot of other things that could be plugged in to model different scenarios. It was awesome! I’m a huge fan of spreadsheets.
A few more houses hit the market in Winsted this week. At least one of them is bigger than ours and is listed for about $50,000 less than what ours is listed at. We did lower the price a little, but we’re almost out of range of what we can afford to sell it for. I feel like I need to accept the fact that we’re not going to be able to sell our house for quite a while. It’s discouraging. The housing market has been getting better, but it’s still not great and the average amount that houses are going for in Winsted is only about $100,000. We owe $148,000 on ours and it costs money to sell a house (closing costs). That’s just the way it is.
It’s a hard pill to swallow. Some of our costs have gone down since we moved, Nathan makes more money, and we no longer have any debt beside our mortgage. But we need to put aside money for health costs (we have to pay the first $7,000 out of pocket) and dental costs, car repairs and replacement, and travel to see family (no fancy vacations here– just road trips to MN/WI) and our rent here is $1250/month and there are no less expensive options for a family of 5 that wouldn’t dramatically increase our commute cost for Nathan and we don’t make so much more money that all these extra expenses don’t matter. We are also dealing with having our rent income only cover 65% of our mortgage/taxes/insurance costs (on a good month) and there are some additional big expenses that we will need to cover if we have that house much longer.
And that’s not touching the emotional issues that come with not having our own place to call our own. It’s difficult.
The simple answer of “just wait for the market to get better” before selling isn’t so easy either. I think it would be easier if the house we were trying to sell was newer or if we weren’t losing a substantial amount of money on it each month. We’ve had some big expenses come up that we’ve had to cover. The possibility of that continuing to be the case is very high- especially with a house that is a little older. In the meantime, house prices in this area keep going up.
So, that’s where we’re at. Please pray that we’ll have some clear direction on what to do. If we were in ministry, we could have a fundraiser, but we’re not. So, we’ll have to watch and see how God works in other ways.
Nathan had his chiropractor appointment this evening. It was just a preliminary visit. They did x-rays. He will go back on Monday to go over what they saw. Nathan is also considering getting tested for Lyme Disease as well. Because of the way it presented in January, Nathan didn’t really consider getting that test, but now he’s wondering if maybe he should. We’ll see what happens with that.
The kids and I went and played at a friends’ house this morning. The weather was great for the kids to play in the backyard. The moms got to stay inside and chat uninterrupted for the most part.
We got paid today. I finished the budget for the month and transferred money to our savings. That’s a good feeling!
109 Days.
That’s how long it has been since Nathan has been able to use the left side of his face. Please keep praying for healing. The doctors have nothing to suggest. Just wait and see. Tomorrow, Nathan has an appointment with a chiropractor. We’re hoping that he is able to offer some help/hope.
We’ve had our home listed for sale for about two months now. I’ve decided that one good thing about not having the house sold yet is that our loan balance has gone down $500 since we listed That’s $500 less that we’ll need to cover when we sell the house.
(please, no one tell me that $500 is a pitiful amount to pay off in two month’s time. . . I need something to hang on to here. Ha!)
Raise your hand when you spot the baby of the family. It’s a shame that he has no personality whatsoever.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning and decided what I wanted for Mother’s Day. I waited a bit before telling Nathan my plan (he was sleeping). He considered it for a minute while thinking through whether or not we could do it and then agreed!
We were off to Hobby Lobby by 9:00 this morning for our supplies. By noon my Mother’s Day project was complete!
We reupholstered the dining room chairs and it ended up being fun and not too hard. The one issue we had was that one of the chairs had screw holes that only fit with one of the cushions and we didn’t discover that right away. I wish I had taken “before” pictures, but I didn’t and the fabric is in the dumpster now. It was wearing thin in some places and stained beyond repair. I’m so happy with how it turned out.
Audrey lost one of her top front teeth last night. It had been really loose and then it had an unfortunate run-in with Ethan while Ethan and Audrey were playing. The tooth fairy remembered to show up (thankfully!), but Audrey wasn’t impressed that she got coins instead of a dollar bill. It took a bit of convincing (and adding a dime or so while she wasn’t really paying attention) to get her to believe that she wasn’t getting ripped off.
I love bedtime– the time when the kids are in bed and finally sleeping.
A long time ago when I was pregnant with Ethan, Nathan prayed for a curious child. I have not had a moment of silence during Ethan’s waking hours since.
I’m savoring the quiet tonight because I answered approximately 5,273 questions today.
