Getting caught up

It has been nearly a month since I last posted to my blog. Many thanks to those of you who read my blog regularly. I am humbled when you tell me in passing that you are keeping up and praying for me. Wow! What a blessing. Thank you.

After the marathon we became very focused on packing and making decisions about our new home. We had a great time picking out the specs for our new home and only had to make a few cuts (nothing critical) to stay within our budget. Then came the meeting with the contractor who will do the "outside" package -- porch, work shed, brick work and any cement that is needed. We had no idea of the cost, so we made our wish list, knowing that it would probably be more than we could afford. Sure enough, our initial requests put us at double what our sales rep. had estimated we would spend. So we quickly cut back on the brick work and came up with a smaller porch, etc. The final result will be just fine. October 20th we met with our sales rep., gave her our down payment (what a huge cashier's check that was) and signed the papers. She reviewed the time-line with us and the plan is for us to move out of our current home the weekend of November 10-11, the old house will then be removed, the site prepared and the new home placed the end of November. It will then take 2 weeks for the house to be put together, carpet and flooring installed, etc. and the "outside" package completed. Hopefully we'll be in our new home the week before Christmas.

Then we hit a "little" glitch. Friday, October 26, about an hour before Jon left to lead a group from our church to Mexico for a weekend work project, we got a message from the manager of Advantage Homes. We knew that he would be reviewing the paperwork and expected that he would order the house that Friday. Well, there had been a $30,000 mistake made by the sales rep. I will not go into the details, but suffice it to say, we were very disappointed. Jon and I spoke briefly about the situation and decided to spend the weekend praying and make a decision on Monday. The manager was able to find some savings and dropped the mistake down to a $20,000 increase over what we expected to have to borrow. What a weekend. I am a budgeter, saver, planner and this was a big hurtle for me. Both Jon and I prayed and when we got together Sunday night he said he would sell his motorcycle and that would help to cut our loan amount by another $10,000. Unfortunately the Marine who had been interested in buying his bike is now considering buying a home, so he doesn't have any extra cash right now. Jon has posted the bike on a couple online sites and we'll see what happens. There are always lots of bogus online offers but today someone did call and said that he lives in San Clemente and would like to come by and see the bike. So who knows how the Lord will provide, but we are confident that we have made the right decision and He will take care of our needs -- He always has.

I hope Jon will post on his blog about his trip to Mexico. He led a team of 8 to work at the church in the community of El Nino where our family worked over spring break back in April. Jon and the team had a wonderful time working and connecting with the church community there.

If you checked Jon's blog last week, you saw that we were not directly effected by the fires. School was closed for two days due to the bad air quality from the ash in the air. It was hard to breath and since I was recovering from a cold my cough was pretty bad, but of course that is nothing compared to the loss of homes and some lives caused by the fires. Joshua and I were able to get quite a bit of packing done while he was home from school.

Tonight Joshua (the werewolf) is out trick-or-treating with Jon (not dressed up) and another friend from the neighborhood (a zombie). What fun -- more candy than we need. :) Tomorrow and Friday there is no school due to parent/teacher conferences, so we'll be able to sleep in after our sugar high.

Thanks again for caring about our lives. Blessings and Happy Halloween!

Sheryl