So now is the time to reflect on the past year and make plans for the new year. What a year I had in 2012! Full of ups and downs, and some very major changes. Walk with me as I reflect on the year God gave me...
January:
Took this picture near our old house.
I don't remember a whole lot of excitement for this month, but it was the second month that Allan had been at his new (current) manager-ship. We were still getting used to living 300km apart, but we were very excited and hopeful still about all the new possibilities. Allan was actually home every other weekend and it was something that I could rely on! That was a first for us.
February:
Again, I took this near our old house. An abandoned farm house.
The original plan was to stay in our house until Sam (our oldest) was done high school. At this point she only had the remainder of the current year and one more year of school left. We felt it was unfair of us to pull her out and drag her up north without any friends to finish school.
The plan is starting to crack and fade. There are major holes in it. Yes, we were seeing Allan more regularly than before, but he was now on call 24/7. He was before...but not tied to a phone. Now he was. We felt like we never saw him, even when he was home. After several family meetings...it was decided. We would move north come summer. Sam would stay with my mom to finish high school, and we would sell the house. Ugh. I wasn't happy about leaving my baby girl behind...but I needed my husband, Willy needed his father, and Sam was almost an adult...*sigh*
We started to clean out the house and yard and get it ready to put on the market.
March:
Peyton
Oh what a month March was. One that no one in our family will forget. We had the house ready to list near the middle of the month. The realtor was coming on a Thursday to go over everything with us, photos paperwork, etc...
On the Wednesday before the realtor was to show, I got one of the worst phone calls I have ever received. My mother-in-law, Jane, called to say that Peyton, my 5 month old niece, was on her way in an ambulance to the hospital. She wasn't breathing...they think it's SIDS.
It was SIDS. That beautiful little angel passed away while having her afternoon nap. I still have a hard time with it and try not to think too much about that day. I've had people I love pass away before, they were all hard in their own way, but this was the first time I had to deal with the death of a little one. One who should have outlived me. It's not easy for me as an aunt....I can't imagine what my brother and sister-in-law went through and are still going through. As far as I know, there is nothing worse that someone can deal with on earth, than the loss of a child.
Needless to say, between losing Peyton, her funeral, and everything tied with it...we didn't list the house. The realtor was put on the back burner.
April:
First week of April, the realtor came and went over everything with us. Took photos of the house and the yard, and basically told us that we would have no problems selling. The price was right, the time was right, the house was great, perfect!
A week later...with no viewings, the realtor was back-peddling. The market was slow...the price is a little high, maybe drop it a bit? Fine...we dropped the price.
Another week later...perhaps drop the price some more? The market is still slow...but it will pick up soon! Yeah... uh huh....we dropped again.
May:
The house has been on the market for 30 days...we dropped the price twice, and have had 2 viewings. That's it. Time to start having open houses. This isn't good, as statistics show that less than 2% of houses are sold through open houses....I guess we are getting desperate.
We find a beautiful acreage up north that is everything we want. We put an offer pending sale of our house on it (I mean...we're doing open houses, it should sell soon, right?), and the owners accepted our offer! Oh we were so excited! Things are moving now, if only we can sell our house, all will be well in the world!
The owners got another offer and accepted it, unless we could meet our requirements within the deadline, which was selling our house, and obtaining financing. We had financial approval! We had 3 days to sell our house, which we didn't, so...we lost the acreage. As my son would say....sad panda :(
June:
June, the month of Father's day, Willy's birthday, and when the kids finish school. We are supposed to be moving soon (that's the plan, right?), but we still haven't sold the house. We have, however, found another piece of land that we love! This one doesn't have a house, but it's beautiful. We put an offer up pending the sale of our house, and the owners accept. Our house has been on the market for nearly 60 days now...it should sell any minute....right? Wrong. Two weeks later the owners accepted another offer and we lost the land. Sad panda :(.
It's now getting close to the point where we need to decide, and quickly, what's happening. We have two months until the kids are back in school. We haven't sold the house, and the only offer we got was $30,000 below our asking price. We were at the point where we probably would have accepted it, had we not hit bottom already with our asking price. We couldn't go down any further, not from greed...we had to pay lawyers, pay off our mortgage, and real estate agent...and then we might have a downpayment left for the new house...maybe. Drop it 30K and we would have to pay out of our pocket...which was empty anyway...not an option.
So...we start looking into other ideas.
July:
Our house hits 60 days on the market. Time to remove it, or renew it. We removed it. We are off the market, but we have a plan. Oh yeah, and what a plan it is!!
We have decided to buy a 5th wheel and live in a campground while renting out our house!! It's genius! Perhaps a little strange, definitely unorthodox, but it's a solution. So, we go 5th wheel shopping, and find us a 2013 Avalanche. It's beautiful! I didn't know you could buy holiday trailers with ceiling fans and dvd players, and surround sound! Oh how little I knew then. *heehee*
August:
Our old holiday trailer and our new home.
Basically from here on out, everything has been covered in the rest of the blog, so I will leave it at that. What an adventure this year has been. The only real difference that arose in our plans was that our house hasn't been rented. That's right...we are still paying for the house. The nice thing though is that Allan's company is paying our lot rent right now until we can everything figured out financially. They are truly a good company to work for.
Current Plans:
(Some old MLS photo I got from google ;P)
As last year shows, the best laid plans don't always work out, but it's still good to make them. God decides in the end what will and won't happen anyway, but we can always try.
For now...our current plans are to sell the house, we will put it on the market again soon, and to buy some land. We will then put the 5th wheel on the land, run utilities to it, and live in the 5th wheel on our own land, not in a campground. That's the plan anyway....we'll see what happens ;)
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