Change is good, right?

(I whited out the address for safety)

Wow! What a busy couple of weeks! I'm nervous to type this because I don't want to jinx anything but WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! Yay! That's what has been taking up all my time!! (I know some of you thought I was preggo-- geez!) We put it up on the market and 5 days later we had not one but two contracts on our home! It's a weird feeling selling your home. Sad, Happy, Excited, Emotional, but in the end we knew it was the right time to sell. RJ and I love real estate and watch har.com faithfully. Why? I don't know. It's just fun to us. We have bought and sold a few different properties in the last couple of years and our area right now is "hot". We couldn't pass up the opportunity. We put it on the market back in October of last year to just test the waters and then the holidays came and I decided to take it off. Something about random people in my house during Christmas time didn't appeal to me.

Sometime in February, I received 4 different calls in about a two week period from different realtors that had gone back through "withdrawn" listings to ask if I would be willing to sell my house. I was in shock! There were no homes on the market in our area and they were desperate to find something for their clients. That's when RJ and I decided it was time. We feel so blessed to *hopefully* have this stress behind us. In today's market it can be hard to sell your home so we knew we had to jump on it!

Now on to more exciting news! WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE! It's still along Memorial just 2 exits closer in to town. Yay! It's a much bigger home so we have plenty of room to grow and the best part is I get to remodel it just like I want (again!). We are still in Spring Branch ISD just Frostwood Elementary now. Speaking of Frostwood, I can't wait for them to start/finish building the new 2 story school. It's going to be so nice :)

All of the negoitating took place the one week RJ was out of the country on business so I had to handle everything on my own with a toddler. Not fun and completely stressful but it's all going to be worth it. We close on both homes in April (one early, one late) and then start the remodeling. The good news is I get to lease back my house until my new house is ready. Thank God. Please continue to pray these two transations go through smoothly-- It's been an exhausting month.

What I have been up to these days....

I've been over my head busy these last couple of weeks. I love it though! It's a feeling of self pride and hard work. I've got a couple of listings and had an open house this past weekend. Watch out Martha Turner.... ha ha... totally just kidding!

Finally Remodeled!!

Wow, it's been so long since I blogged! Live has been crazy with the "we must remodel the whole house in only 2 weeks" phase I was going through. The house looks great. I can't tell you how happy I feel being in a clean house with floors! I have decided I love floors! Carpet, tile-- I don't care!! I just love not walking around on cement and trying to jump over tack strips. It's so nice not to have to put your shoes on when you step out of bed. I'm just so happy!

Here are a few pictures of the remodeling. It only took 4 months after the flood for us to finally remodel! We put new carpet, new tile and new baseboards throughout the house. We also put new cabinets in the kitchen, both bathrooms and laundry room not to mention a few more changes like moving the oven to a new spot in the kitchen, building in the refridgerator and totally getting a new master shower. We still aren't completely finished. I just ordered knobs for all the cabinets and R.J. still needs to calk. Also, I have painted the babies room (3 times-- totally a story in itself!!).

We still need to put the kitchen knobs on- I just ordered them!

The oven used to be in the spot of the long cabinets to the left. We moved the oven to under the stove and built this pantry. I love it!!!

Our new carpet and tile up close and personal :)

Like I said, still needs knobs.

Master shower-- TOTAL redo. Down to the wood framing!

Blog Holiday!

Sorry guys... I'm taking a week off of blogging to remodel the house (it's a must as you know!!). I'll keep you updated on all the progress soon! :)

I GOT CABLE!!!!

Yes, it's true! I finally have cable after almost 2 months! You want to know the funny part? I went back with the same company that R.J. cut off for being too expensive! LOL I wanted to go with Uverse from At&T but it's not offered in my area yet sooooo...... I went with Comcast again and didn't sign a contract so when I finally get Uverse in my area and I can switch to it. I got the Premium package too! All the channels that R.J. would never pay for- HBO, Showtime, Oxygen.... it's great! I tried to convince the customer care representative guy that I really didn't need the ESPN channels but he said they come standard. Now, why do all the guy channels come standard and the girl channels you have to pay "extra"?

P.S. Notice the flooring underneath the tv? Yes, that is correct-- I still don't have floors... Guess what my next project is??? :)

House Pictures

What the heck... I guess I will show everyone how bad my house is really... here you go Leah!!! This was my house before the flood. I don't know why I have this random picture but I found it in my picture folder and thought I would share. This WAS our sitting area in front of the fireplace. (Hey Laura-- that is your baby shower gift sitting in the chair... ha ha).

This WAS our kitchen.

This WAS my favorite piece of furniture because it displayed some of my goodies... :(

This WAS my entry way. I painting these diamonds all by myself.

This WAS one of our spare bedrooms.

This is my fireplace after the flood. Random stuff piled on top with nothing on the bookshelves. I don't even know where the stuff is!

This is my kitchen floor now. I've started a new trend... pull up your wood floors and see what yucky blue painted tile you can find!

This is our hallway leading to the bedrooms. Gotta love the tack strips along each wall and the nasty glue-stained concert. The brown tile was a surprise! We found it under our entryway wood floors.

This is a picture of our exposed baseboards. I'm trying to pick new tile in case we have to stay in the house. Don't you love the exposed concrete everywhere?

This used to be my living area. I've tried to make it as "homey" and back to normal as I can. Everything is just piled up and moved to a corner.

This is the rest of the hallway that leads to our bedroom. I tried to put plastic down as runners but it doesn't really help. Don't you love the crazy glue and tack strips??!?!

This was an office but now it's a storage room.

This was a spare bedroom but now it's another storage room. I don't know where ANYTHING is!

This is our guest bathroom.... stay clear!

This is another view of our sitting area in front of the fireplace. We couldn't pull up all the carpet in this room because we orginally moved everything into this corner.











I don't know if I mentioned or not, but R.J. got mad at Comcast when I went to Dallas a couple of weeks ago and turned off our cable. I could have probably survived a couple of weeks with one or two channels if our nation hadn't converted from analog tv to digital but since they did I don't have any tv. Not at all... not even one channel. Therefore, as of this Thursday, I will be staying in Coleman until circumstances change around my house or I at least get cable. I would like to say you can contact me on my cell, but I don't get service in Coleman. In case you haven't gotten the memo already-- I am living like a cave woman.

House

Okay, I have to vent! I am so tired of my house right now. Everything is exactly the same as the day the flood came in (April 28th--2 months ago!!). It's horrible. We are walking around on nasty, dirty concrete floors because we had to pull up all the carpet and wood flooring throughout the whole house (except our bedroom). There are tact strips outlining every room which makes it really fun in the dark to try and avoid and not step on. I have never sneezed so much in my life as when I am in the house. I know I must be allergic to something exposed (maybe the 50 year old insulation hanging out from the walls??). It's so depressing and I swear it is not good for my health (or the baby) but R.J. said it's all in my head and we can't do anything about it until we finialize things with the insurance company. UGH! I'm about to pull my hair out! If you talk to R.J. he would say our house is "not that bad" because he could live in a smelly barn and it would be totally okay. He never really cared if the house was nice and clean. Me, on the other hand, strongly believes everything has a place and a house should be kept clean and tidy. Everything I own is boxed up in one of the bedrooms piled as high as the ceiling. All of my furniture is thrown to one side of the house and piled on top of each other. I don't know were anything is. We finally moved our dishwasher back to it's correct place so that we could stop hand washing the dishes outside with the water hose like they did back in the 1800's! I haven't cooked a homecooked meal in over 2 months and am so tired of eating out. We don't even have a kitchen table to sit down at and eat. We are eating at the bar. I am so ready for a change. Since I quit my job it has been even worse because I spend most of the day at the house. In R.J.'s defense, he is never home long enough to actually let the crappy house sink in and get under his skin. He leaves by 5:30a.m. and doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7p.m. every night. I'm trying to hang in there and not complain too much to him but my patiences is running super duper thin. Does anyone know of a cute house we can buy and move immediately?? I would post some pictures of our house right now but I am too embarrassed to let anyone see what I am living in. Take my word for it-- it's horrible!