A new (old) house

Life is all about choices.  Some choices are simple and have little impact (like what to wear today). Other choices are huge, life altering decisions (like who to marry).  Lately, it seems we've had more than our share of the life-altering choices to make - having another baby, Scott going into full-time ministry, my choice to stay home with the littles.  It's these previous choices that have led to this new decision - moving to a new (old) home. 

We are downsizing, moving to the country, buying a fixer-upper, and making a life-altering choice.  We've been praying about this since Scott decided to go full time at the church.  We can afford our home but we can't really afford much else.  Our budget is extremely tight and we decided to try and reduce our monthly living expenses. 

When we started hunting for homes, I started praying for a very specific home.  I wanted a 4 bedroom, 2 bath home with a living room and a playroom, and a large yard in North Lee County.  And this was the biggest thing I wanted - I wanted it cheap enough that we could have no mortgage.  I know.  This was my "sun stand still" prayer. 

Now, God had blessed us tremendously over the last 15 years of marriage.  We have a nice chunk of equity in our current home and carry zero debt other than our mortgage.  No credit cards, no car payments, no student loans...that's all paid off.  But for us to continue to live debt free, we were either going to have to reduce our mortgage payment or earn more money.  We chose the somewhat radical step to live with less. 

We looked a lot of homes.  Small homes, old homes, new homes, homes in other areas - and after a while I was beginning to think that our home wasn't out there.  Then, we found this less than nice foreclosure that had a bit of possibility.  We walked through it and decided it would work.  It has 4 bedrooms although they are a bit small.  There are 2 baths although there is not really a master suite.  There is a living room, dining room and small kitchen.  There is also a utility room and a huge room that we can use as a school room.  It also has a large shop, huge yard and it's in Saltillo School district.  The downside is that it needs a ton of work.  The upside is that it has a great foundation and it was cheap enough that we will have some money to update it before we move in.  We won't be able to do everything we want right away, but we will be able to make it very comfy and cute and hopefully clutter-free.  

This will be our fifth move in 15 years.  More importantly, this will be our fourth home since Lyra Kate was born only four and a half years ago.  All three of our children have come home to a different house.  So will the new baby since we hope to move in by January.  We have much work to do over the next few months and we will still need to sell our current home, but hopefully within a year we will be completely debt free which is something when your our age.

I know this is may look like a step back to some people, but for us it really is a step forward.  We will have a home that suites our needs and no debt.  Anyway, I've always believed that a home is really made beautiful by the love you find inside it not by how it looks.