Fail.

We were supposed to go see two houses this weekend. But then Brandon said we couldn't go Saturday because he had to watch the UK game. So we rescheduled for Sunday. Saturday night, we get an email saying that someone got a contract for the one house we were going to go see, so we were just going to look at one house. And part of me was ok with that because I had kind of decided that I liked this house- the one we were going to look at- better than that other one, anyway. After all, it did not have scary blue carpet, and it said it had 4 bedrooms instead of 3.

So we go see the house on Sunday, accompanied by my parents. We notice that the air conditioning unit has been stolen. We walk in the door, and things kind of smell weird. I think it's just musty. It kind of smelled like my dresser did when we brought it out of storage. We look around, and things are ok. The bedrooms are really cute. Then the toilets don't flush. Then we open the door to the basement, and are hit with a horrendous, nasty smell. The basement, while huge and spacious, is incredibly moldy. There is mold about a foot up the wall. How incredibly disappointing. As my mom said, everything that was wrong with the place would probably take an extra $15,000-$20,000 to fix, and if we had that money, we wouldn't be looking at that house in the first place. We need a house that doesn't really need any work done, because we don't have the extra money to take care of that.

So that evening, I was a little sad and disappointed and feeling frustrated. I spent a lot of time online last night looking at some other options, and have found one or two that we might go look at Wednesday. I am going to wait and see what else is posted tonight and tomorrow morning.

And there you have my update for now.

A-hunting we will go...

Hello, hello.

Not much is going on around here today. I am feeling sick, but that's because there's about an hour left before I need to leave for work. And I always get sick before work. I think it's because my stomach hurts all the time anyway (just a little hurt floating around in the background there) and then my subconscious gets worried about it. I'm used to it, but it seems a little harder to shake off today than usual. But I digress.

Brandon and I have officially started looking for a house. It all started about a week ago when I was puttering around on the internet, as I am known to do, and I came across a house for sale for what seemed to be a really good price. In our quest to learn more about the business of acquiring a house, we got in touch with a realtor (who is my best friend's aunt, and her office is basically across the street for us, so it's super convenient and we feel really good about talking with her.) She got us in touch with a lady at the bank, and we got the process rolling. So we are preapproved by the bank, and have started looking at listings. I have a feeling that we will be going to see the house we came across last week, because it seems quite nice and very affordable. The one bad thing is that it's a short sale, and Kim (the realtor) said that they can take a very long time, because banks are slow moving. So if we try to get this house, it will definitely be an exercise in patience. We want to do the right thing and follow God's will and not just jump on the first ok-looking house we come across. It's hard to know what He wants us to do sometimes, though.

So anyway, the point of this post I guess is to say that we will probably look at a couple of houses this weekend (I found two others that look pretty good, too) and to ask for your prayers. Prayers for good decisions, for wise financial moves, and most definitely for patience. Also for timing, as well, because our lease on the apartment is up in December. If we move earlier than that, we have to keep paying rent until they find someone else to take the apartment (and we can't really afford that). If we don't move by December, we are automatically set up for another year's lease. Which would be very bad. We think that our landlords offer shorter leases, but we would have to pay extra per month, and we can't really afford that either. So it would be great if we had a house lined up to move into mid-December, could give our notice by the 5th (which is the deadline), etc. That would be great.

Hopefully I will have another (good) reason to post on here soon!