MP3's

I took a break from all the cleaning to do something nice for Jake. He will be on a school bus for 7 hours tomorrow (that is if traffic is good) so I got him an MP3 player and I am loading it with songs. He has an old MP3 player but it only help like 10 songs. This one I am pretty sure has more than 200 and it is not even half way full! I am still adding songs. He asked for a few new songs but the rest are songs from the 1990's to present day. Collective Soul, Cornerstone, Casting Crowns, Cold Play, Maroon 5, 3 Doors Down, Richochet (seven bridges road), Mercy Me, Jeremy Camp and many others. I have been loading songs for hours. It would have gone faster but many of the songs had never been uploaded to the computer... that is why I love itunes! One click and the song is on my computer and then I sync his player and he is ready to go. I really hope this makes his ride more enjoyable. Why will he be on the bus so long you may be asking? His team is headed to Shaw High School in Columbus for the State Playoffs. I think they will do well... at least they better!!! :) Go Raiders!! Wait Shaw is also Raiders I better say Go Southeast!!

First Inquiry

I got excited. I got a reply to our ad posted on North GA Trader, "Would you be willing to do a rent to own?"... gag!!! Oh well, I was prepared for this. A friend of mine had many request for rent to own so I know there may be many more to come. Which makes me think... would anyone like to buy a great house to rent out?

Still Sorting and Waiting

The last few days I have been spending an hour or more in storage, sorting. Our empty box pile is growing. That is very good news! I hauled 3 bags of trash to the dump yesterday, all from papers and broken things that had been kept in storage or around the house. It felt really good to get rid of that stuff. The yard sale pile is getting bigger. After our last yard sale I thought we had nothing left worth selling. I had even taken a couple of loads of yard sale leftovers to Salvation Army and Goodwill. I said I would never have another yard sale. I did not realize what we had packed away! I am going to try to finish the sorting this week so that we can have a yard sale on the 24th. Let me know if you are interested in joining me. Even if you have a small amount of stuff... bring it on!

The house selling process seems to be going really slow. Right now I have our house listed on 5 web sites and at least 2 of them seem to be getting a steady flow of visitors (the only 2 I can see how many views the page gets). Our fliers flew out the first weekend but now they are going about 1 every other day. It is great to know that people are looking but no one has even called or emailed us about it so we will just wait and pray. Our next step would be to pay to advertise in the Chatsworth paper (I understand the Dalton ads are way expensive). If we still do not get any calls then we might have to shell out the money to list on the MLS. The MLS would get our house out there for EVERYONE to see. The problem with the MLS and for sale by owner is #1 it is expensive!! #2 it is a data base used by realtors. If a realtor wants to show our home to someone then we would have to consider the options. The realtor would want a % if they helped make the sale. From what I understand it is any where from 1-3%. If we could get 100% of what we are asking then I think we could pay 1-2% to the realtor but we would make nothing. I think if we get to the point of where we really need to sell then we would consider that. We are not really going to make much any way. We look at what our loan was and what we owe now and have decided that we have been renting from the bank... haha. Ok so it is not really that bad but in this housing market our home is probably worth what we are asking even though it is $2000 less than we paid for it 3 years ago.

The good news is that the foreclosure up the street and the house that was for sale across the street from it look like they might have been sold. One says Sale Pending and the other one does not have a for sale sign anymore! That leave 2 houses for sale in our neighborhood. Our house for $137,9,00 and a house up the street that last time I checked was for sale for $148,000 or so. So even though no one has called after 2 weeks we are remaining optimistic and we are reminding ourselves that God is in control... after all it has only been 2 weeks.

If any of you have advice on selling a home we would love to hear it... especially if you have experience.

Storage

It has been nice to have extra room for storage but now I am realizing how unnecessary it is. Storage = Junk. Every bit of extra space just leaves more room for us to fill with junk. It makes us lazy "we don't have to sort that right now, let's just put it down here"... then 3 years later it's still there. If something is in storage for three years then how much of a necessity is it really? I am looking forward to having a yard sale to get rid of all of this... and the numerous trip I will need to make to the dump to get rid of all of the trash that has built up (not stinky trash... just years of papers and broken things that we said... I'll get to that later.)

More Cleaning

This morning I picked up Caleb from his very first sleepover. It was right next door but that is a big event in a little boys life. Then we went to Taylor's football practice. Today they practiced blocking and tackling with dummies. I thought it was a nice change from the usual practice where the kids beat up on each other. After practice I realized why they did it this way. No contact between the boys + a talk about make sure you wash your hands = swine flu prevention. It seems to be running wild here. Of course very few cases are actually diagnosed as swine but it is the flu and it spreads fast and hits hard. So either way we don't want it.

After practice it was back to cleaning and playing with the kids and more cleaning. This is the 3rd time I have had a break today. The first was writing an email to a dear friend and the second was a much needed nap. It was only 20 min or less but it was refreshing and got me geared up to tackle Taryn's room. Her room was left until last, upstairs, because she has so much stuff. I found better ways of organizing and talked her in to giving some of the baby toys away. So between my normal tidying up, finishing my room and Taryn's it has been a pretty busy day. I think tomorrow I will work on my closet and then I think it will be time to move down to storage. I do have the main bonus room cleaned up so it can be turned into the super sort room!

Now it's off to fix supper, play with the kids and then fold clothes (I have been putting this off all week) while hanging out with Jake. He has been at his volleyball tournament all day. The girls have been playing good today... sorry the kids and I did not go but between Caleb staying up late at his friends and Taryn cutting molars I did not feel like taking them out.

Pictures and Listings

So today I have focused my efforts on our master bedroom and photos. I have been cleaning and organizing our bedroom. It is not in bad shape but it is the room that is often on my daily cleaning schedule and often turns into a dumping ground when we have company coming over. So I am almost done with the basic cleaning and then I will begin to pack up things such as books that we never look at and bag up items for a yard sale. I have read that it is best to clear out any unused items because it helps the room to look clean and spacious... that is my goal. My other job for the day has been taking pictures and adding our home to listings. I am taking pictures as I get a room prepared. So far I have pictures from outside, the kitchen, dining room, kids bath, attic entry, 1 view of the bonus room, the boys room and a photo of the trey ceiling in the master bedroom. I can't decide if I want to post pictures of Taryn's room before or after I paint it. Right now it is pepto- pink. I will be painting it a nice neutral brown/tan color... unless someone comes along in the meantime that likes the pink! Now I will take a break from my cleaning to go eat with Jake... among other things and then continue (maybe with Jake's help) with out closet this evening.
Here is the link of our pictures... so far... if you know of anyone who might be interested :) I plan to go back later and add room dimensions so people can try to visualize the space.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lisabdickey/House#

For Sale By Owner

This has been a great house and we have the best neighbors but we feel that we need to make this financial decision for the betterment of our family. We have been praying about this for months. So why now? We have gone back and forth about what is best for our family. We decided that having our finances in better shapes and not having to pinch pennies is better than living in a big house. Please keep us in your prayers and if you have any advice on For Sale By Owner we would love to hear it. Also if you know of anyone who is looking for a house in Dalton please send them our way!

I am going to try to blog throughout this whole process. For the last week I have been cleaning, clearing, sorting, etc. So far the laundry, kitchen and dining rooms are almost show ready. The kids rooms look good enough but I am trying not to displace to much of their stuff at one time. I worked on the bonus room yesterday. It was a MESS... but not any more. It still needs some work but for the first time in months I can see the floor! That was just part of the bonus room... hopefully tomorrow I can begin on bonus room part 2. It actually feels good to clean and clear out spaces. I am hoping to be done with all of this by next weekend so that I can begin to plan a yard sale... if I have enough stuff worth selling. If any of you are interested in joining me for a yard sale at my house let me know... we get good yard sale traffic.