What God did for us

Well, I am still holding my breath, but we did sign the papers selling our house yesterday at 4pm. We are going to remain in the house for 6 more days. During that time we are responsible for anything that goes wrong or right. So, please hold your breath for us also. :)

As you all know selling this house has been one crazy ride. I was thinking yesterday, and Wes and I talked about it last night and the entire process was filled with everyday miracles. The types of miracles most people don't realize are happening unless they are seeking God first. So while many of you know the story, I want to recap the way this wonderful web was woven for the good of all and glory of God.

We received a contract on our house after 6 days of being on the market for $86, 000. This was a young couple who was going to have a baby. (remember our house is 99 yrs. old and needs lots of TLC all the time.) An inspector came to assess our house and told this couple that our house had lots of problems and was beyond repair. The couple backed out of buying the house to my tearful dismay. Wes and I believe that this was a miracle because honestly, from our understanding the couple did not have much money. Buying an older home comes with risks that involve spending money. Second, we then had to come up with a plan to save about $5000.00 dollars or we would not be able to buy the house in Gulfport.

Fortunatley, the inspector was wrong and house only needed a few (at the time) plumbing repairs. We had these done. We went out to eat dinner with a friend of Wes's from his fraternity that was also trying to sell their house. He said we are praying that God is preparing someone for our house. I was like OMG, that is the pray I should be praying. So, I started. 10 days later, we had another offer. PRAISE GOD! Because of the money we had saved earlier, we were able to sell the house at a much lower cost. We had another inspection, but this time we were better prepared and things went, well. The buyers only requested a few repairs. Those included replacing some rotted boards and some other bathroom adjustments. Then we found out to replace the boards involved removing our entire bathtub and basically remodeling the entire bathroom. We were told that this was going to cost $5000 or more. Enter God. I tearfully called Wes at work and he found an old yellow pages and found this guy (who is not in the current yellow pages btw) named Mitch Moore. Mitch came over and gave us an estimate of $1634 to replace all the tile, a new bathtub, the plumbing, paint, replace the rotted wood, and rotted beams. PRAISE GOD! We had him do the work, and he did an excellent job and was very amiable during the entire process.
So, then we had the appraisal. The appraisal came back at $80, 000 which was (if you remember from above) $6000 less than our original first offer. So, if that offer had remained we would not have been prepared to buy the house in Gulfport because we would not have planned to save our money in that way. PRAISE GOD!
Next, was the termite inspector who discovered a few more leaks. God has been quite determined that we would learn to trust him more during this process. Again, a call to Mitch Moore repaired the leaks and saved us a little money.

From this point, we only had 24 hours left before the closing. I began to breath a little easier and was not feeling sick to my stomach at all yesterday until the text from my realtor that said, "We have a big problem." The problem was that the termite inspector put in the report that the house had had a prior infestation. BTW, not while we lived here. The loan company wanted an official letter stating that this infestation had not cause any structural damage. The inspector was refusing to write the letter because he did not want to put his job on the line. It appeared that we were going to have to pay yet another person to come out and crawl under our house and inspect the structure. Enter God who used a lady named Wanda Touchstone to convince the home inspector to write the letter. PRAISE GOD! The letter was sent to the underwriter at the loan company at 1:20pm. We were suppose the close the deal remember at 4:00pm. So, at 3:30 when I still had not heard anything, I felt that it wasn't going to happen, and we would be back at square one. Yet, I continued to pray and beg. At 3:35pm, I got a text from the realtor saying the letter was accepted and we were clear to close. I tearfully PRAISED GOD!

Miracles still happen, today. Look around you and see what God is doing for you, rejoice in what God did for us, and please continue to pray for us.

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If you are in the Hattiesburg area and need some work done, contact Mitch Moore Contracting, 601-408-0728

On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again. . .

WOW! What a busy week. The career center has the been a hopping place this week at Hattiesburg High School. The library closed for end of the year inventory, the computer lab techs get to school late, and their printers don't work. So, all of the students are coming in here to do the work they waited until the last minute to do. It is wearing me out, so many students, so much noise, so few computers. . . I have actually started counting down the days; 7 more to go. 

So, we are so close to closing on both of our homes, but it has not been without much drama this week. The lender needed a copy of our Gulfport contracts to clear us for closing. Gulfport was being difficult about giving these to us, so I had to drive to Gulfport after school on Monday to pick up our academic contracts. Then, I had to bring them home, get Wes to sign his, and take them back to Gulfport, Tuesday, after school at which time, I picked up Wes's supplemental contract. 

In the meantime, we found out that the inspection to inspect the work we had done was scheduled for Tuesday morning at 9:30am. So, Monday night, Wes and I had some cleaning and toilet repair to do. We discovered that our toilet was running constantly so we decided to put our handy skills to the test and replace its insides. This actually worked out great. We worked together, and we got it done in an hours time. We both felt successful because most of our handy man projects don't go that well. We also discovered another small dripping leak underneath our bathtub on Monday. To no ones surprise, the inspector doing the re-inspection on Tuesday, said, hey, there is still a leak. So, it's return of the plumbers. One plumber came, but was too "big" according to the contractor to fit under the house, but he did; however, diagnose the problem which someone hopefully repaired, today. The good news is that the buyer is still going to buy the house, and we are going to close on Friday @ 4pm. No more inspections, no more plumbers, no more worries. HAHAHAHAHA... don't fool yourself. Just last night while I was cleaning the dinner dishes, the kitchen sink just stopped draining. Well, we were looking and thinking and kinda of tapping on the pipes, when Wes took a jab at it with the flash light and the pipe came loose and a water/drano mixture sprayed into our kitchen at 11:00pm. I am chuckling just typing this ludicrous story. We found the clog, removed it, put the pipes back in place, tightened them down, and off to bed we went. Who knows what adventures the final days in our house hold, but heres hoping they are completely uneventful. :)

So, Dawn's and Josh's wedding was fantastic. Big Cedar Lodge was so nice and peaceful. It was a great getaway for Wes and I even though it was very short. Of course, Wes is still fishing it up, and unbelievably, we pulled over on the side of the road on our way to Branson beside a lake. He dropped his hook in the water and out came a fish. He was so excited. He threw the fish back in, and we hit the road. He fished a lot and I mean a lot at Big Cedar, but didn't catch a thing. :( I got to spend a lot of time with Dawn over the weekend, and I was so excited. I love hanging out with her. We enjoyed seeing Wes's mom, Ron, and grandmother, too. Of course, I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures. But, there was a photographer and maybe those photos will be posted on Dawn and Josh's website, and I will copy some from there to share with you all here. 

Until next time. . . 

XOXOXOXOXO

Road trips for weddings

This is my latest art project and my favorite so far.

This past weekend Wes and I took a road trip to Atlanta to visit his family and to attend Kyle's wedding. We were glad to get the chance to visit with everyone and to check on Wes's dad. He seemed to be doing very well, I am happy to report. The wedding was very nice and the reception was fun. The ceremony and reception were held at a nice winery about an hour from Wes's parent's house. I had never been there, but think Wes and I might pay it a closer visit the next time we go to Atlanta.

This weekend, we are hitting the road again to attend Dawn's wedding in Branson, MO. It is going to be a long drive, but we are looking forward to the excuse to get away. I will miss Mother's Day with my Mom, but I am sending her an awesome gift. Can't wait to surprise her again! Speaking of getting away. . . .

The termite inspection started today and will finish tomorrow due to rain. So far things are looking good. This is the last hurdle in selling our house, and I am just praying that it goes smooth. We are 13 days away from closing, please pray that things continue to progress in this endeavor.

I am going to start packing up our house this week. Does anyone know were I can get some boxes for free?

I want to leave you all with this picture of Lillie in my suitcase. She loves sleeping in tiny places and hates it when we leave for trips so she tries to always get in the suitcase. It is so cute to me.