Country Life

We've been here three weeks now, we're not quite done moving out of the old house, but we've begun to settle into the new house. Some things I've learned are:

1. Fencing, no matter how easy it sounds, is much, much harder than it looks.
2. Dogs are wily creatures and will find every mistake you made in that fence that was supposed to be a piece of cake to put together. 
3. Mailboxes are closer than they appear.
4. Thank god mailboxes are only 10 bucks each, and I chose the metal one over the plastic one. It's going to save me a ton when I forget #3.
5. Tractors are fun, but expensive when they break.
6. EVERYTHING takes longer than it is supposed to. 

My living room is full of boxes, but we have internet. We're settling down. We have a goat on standby and it's so crazy peaceful outside that sometimes you just want to go sit out there and enjoy it. Something I never got into when we lived in the burbs.

We're heeeeeeeerrrrrreeee :)

You probably realize the lack of updates means we have moved :) At least partially. We still have quite a few things left at the old house, but the rain means we can't move our things so it will be a cleanup and unpacking day. Luckily we got the washing machine set up yesterday so I can continue to churn out clean clothes :) (which is a good thing since our old washer broke about 2 weeks before the move. We have tons of boxes just labeled by the color of clothes they contain. I am really surprised by the number of tv channels available on standard Tv. We've had cable for so long we haven't really paid attention to all the new digital channels. It is a pleasant surprise. Time to return to the laundry.. The updates will be short until I can get my computer set up, extended typing on an iPhone is challenging. :)

Almost there...

It's been a busy week and unfortunately I can see my posting slowing down further for the next week or two while we move.

The house is finished, all that is left is the final walk through with the builders and we are finished. It's been such a quick ride, we broke ground on the house on 3/30 and on 5/18 they put the final touches on the front steps and skirting.

The roller coaster is about to gain speed. :)

Happy Mother's Day :)

At the beginning of the house buying experience, we joked to the kids.. "What do you want for <holiday>?" and then we'd say "A New House!" .. It's really not that far from the truth. The bulk of our money for the next few years is going to be trying to get the house up to snuff.

Mother's day is here and we usually have a nice mother's day dinner at our house, but since my living room is a sea of boxes and the rest of the house isn't much further from it, (not to mention the kitchen is packed up too) we decided to just meet my mother at a restaurant and eat there.

We all love Babe's and the one in Garland is special because it is only one of two Babe's that has ribs. I love ribs so it was a twofer for me. :)

After dinner we went to whole foods market and bought some specialty chocolate and then came home. Half of us are kind of sick so no one really feels like doing anything.

Just a little over 3 weeks left, it's going to go by fast. :)

The lazy man works twice as hard

Yesterday was supposed to be a Very Good Day. OnCor was out on what was supposed to be their last trip, they were going to install the meter and bingo bango, we would have electricity. Unfortunately when they got to the pole to attach the meter they found this:

Someone broke the pipe so they could get the copper from the electrical wires in my house. :(

I did some research on this because you hear about copper thieves all the time. Did you know they had to ban the exportation of pennies and nickles because the pennies are worth 1.12 cents and 6.99 cents respectively? They were actually afraid people would melt coins for more cash. Can you imagine how much effort it would take to melt enough pennies to make this worth while?

How much wire does it take to make a pound of copper?

12 gauge copper, commonly used in homes, takes 50 feet of wire to make a pound.  How much money does this industrious copper thief make when they turn in the pound of copper? As of May 7, a whopping $3.78 cents. Seriously. And the next most common size, 14 gauge, takes EIGHTY feet.

That's if it's bright and shiny and not coated in plastic insulators. If it's coated wire then you get even less, or you have to strip the wires either manually or burn them off. Either way it's twice as much effort. You also have to take into account that most metal scrap yards don't pay the full value of the copper because they need to make a profit on it too so it takes even more to get that $4.00.

Why don't these people just get a job? Heck, cleaning someone's house will get you $10/hour AT LEAST and that's less effort than trying to steal copper. (Not even mentioning jail time, or risk of death if the wire you're stealing has an electrical current going through it.)

The world may never know.

I'll find out today how much their foray into copper collection is going to cost me.

Freebies :)

I know pretty much everyone loves freebies, (well, except that little kid in the Capital One Cash Card commercial)

Well, yesterday after we'd gotten home I was browsing the internet and found two beautiful leather couches for free :) One of them is pretty dirty (it came from a house with three boys) but the other one is in really good condition. :) A little elbow grease and we've got a nice sofa for the new formal living area and another for Meyer's office. I was so pleased with this find. :) Now we can keep all our old couches and leave them in the new living area (or maybe even get rid of one!)

On the house front, they've put in the carpet, I imagine they haven't done the seams yet though. Most likely they will have to wait until the electricity is in to finish that. We've ordered our fence supplies from Home Depot and I think our container/garage is going to be delivered soon too. I'll write more about those later though.

Electricity infinity'd

Well, we have a transformer now. Within the week we should have electricity if all goes well. I'm not holding my breath though as yesterday I got another call from someone that thought we were at the beginning of the electricity stages and wanted to set up an appointment with a planner. The way this has been going he'll have everything cancelled and we'll have to start from scratch again.

The other latest kerflup is that OnCor told me they were no longer able to discuss the account with me since the account was in my husband's name. SERIOUSLY? Apparently TXU didn't pass me along as an account holder so I had to call TXU back and make them fix it.

I did get told by the TXU person that she's learned from her customer's issues that she never wants to put a house in the middle of nowhere.. that she only wants to do it in a prebuilt house... Not very comforting if you ask me. Of course, at this time, I'd say the same thing.

Oh we also found out one of the septic sprinklers isn't on my property. (Luckily it's still on my mother's, so we're not infringing on anyone unrelated, but that's not the point.) Why did we put a sprinkler off my property you ask? Because the Rhode's Surveying based out of Rockwall TX never bothered to put up flags so we'd know where the property boundaries were. Every single person that came out asked where the flags were. Every time I asked Rhodes, I was told they had already flagged it and they'd put the buttons down, and it'd cost me $200+ for them to come back out and put up new flags. (To be fair, there WERE flags, but absolutely none of them corresponded with my property.. we're talking 100s of yards away from the boundaries so either they have no concept of distance, or those aren't the flags we were looking for.) 

So, everyone just guessed.

If we'd moved the house over 20 ft more then the house itself would be off the property too.

We're less than a month away from moving. We still have lots of packing, we have the electricity, the carpet, the A/C, the skirting and the stairs to finish and then it's all ours.

I wish there was a fast forward so I could skip to July and be all moved in and all the headaches over with. (Or at least a brand new set of headaches. :)

As I talked about previously, the electricity has been a stumbling block for us. We are currently on the waiting list to get the lines dug and laid. I've been told it could take up to six weeks for this to happen. Our move in date is June 1st. You do the math.. I guess it's possible we move in without electricity. :/ Of course, to be honest, I almost hope they drag their heels a little bit. All that is left is the carpet and the a/c unit.. which is about a day each. If the electricity gets in too early we could be looking at a move date before school is out and we end up just sitting on things until we can get out there.

We also got approved to be ag exempt again. Thankfully. However it's only for NEXT year which means we pay full taxes this year. We'd already been told by the loan officer that it would take 2 years for the taxes to adjust property and now it's going to be 3. Ugh. 

Now that we're done with the sad, here comes the happy. We have our septic tank and our driveway and the inside of the house is crack free and all seamed up. It looks beautiful :) (Well, maybe not the septic tank ;) The driveway is made of crushed concrete and supposedly when it rains the concrete turns into a nice smooth solid surface.

I've found a place to get our pigs and today we go to home depot to order our fencing supplies and other misc items so we can get started :)

 

Our septic is right under the windows we were going to eventually build out and create a deck. Not the best location, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. 

Here is our beautiful crushed concrete driveway, at the end is a 4 car parking area and off to the left is a turn around slot so we don't have to back out into the busy street in front of our house.

HEY! There's an attic :)

Who knew? Mobile Modular homes have attics :) A few days ago I'd asked our contractor if Modular homes had attic access. (Something important if you're going to look for leaks in the roof and storage for Christmas and other holiday decorations.) Anyway, he said he didn't think so, but low and behold, when I was taking progress pictures today I noticed there was an attic access panel!

Hey look, there's at attic access panel on the ceiling :)

 He was nice enough to climb up and take some pictures for me. I'm not quite brave enough to get up on a ladder and do the pictures. :)

KEEP YOUR PAPERWORK!

When they delivered the house, we noticed one of the walls that was supposed to be painted, wasn't. Rather than prove to us the order didn't contain the paint order, we had to prove that we'd ordered it. It took me an hour to find all the "preliminary" loan documents so I could prove to them we'd paid for/ordered that wall painted.

So frustrating.

Keep everything you ever signed with your house. Don't let it come back and bite you.

We're also running into issues with the electrical contractor.. They just installed an electrical pole without knowing where the electricity was going to come from, they built it thinking the electricity would come from overhead, and Oncor wants to bury it so the entire electric pole has to be redesigned.

I hate it when people don't talk to each other and assume they know what's going on.

Oh and our Ag Exemption got kicked back because it was still in my mother's name when I sent it and even though she and I signed everything, they still returned it. We're running out of time to get it set back to Ag exempt to save on taxes.

It's Electrifying!

We have Electricity! :)

Almost.. We have the pole. Now we just have to get OnCor to figure out how to get the electricity to the pole.

Wasting Batteries

I have just been informed by my 6 year old that I am wasting the TV's batteries by making her pause it while she cleans up her dirty dishes.

Packing!

It's only been a month and I hate packing already. I searched craigslist and found someone selling 100 boxes for $70. Which sounds really expensive, but it's so much cheaper than buying all brand new boxes and more convenient than trying to drive around town collecting boxes from the various stores.

Right now we have about 20 boxes packed. Mostly from the various decorative shelves around the house and the kid's stuffed animals. They are sitting in the living room next to the stack of flattened boxes ready to get filled. I have no idea what to pack and what to leave out for last minute. I'm afraid I'm not going to pack things right and they'll get broken during the move. I almost hope some of them DO get broken in transit and I can throw them away with a guiltless heart.

I've packed my sewing machine and I already need it. Funny how something can sit idle for months and as soon as you put it up, you need it. We've taken down most of the pictures on the walls and they look so empty. We have dusty shelves littered with paper and other items that aren't going to be packed but haven't yet been thrown away.

We've lived in this house for a little under 10 years, lived in this town for 17. We've filled every little corner and flat surface in this house with junk. There's going to be a lot of tough choices in our future of what to keep and what to toss.. Hopefully I won't make too many mistakes either way.

At least someone is enjoying the boxes. :)

Boxes!

Best Day Ever! ;)

Our local moving/storage facility is having a special on moving boxes. Size small boxes for .25 each! (Limit 50) I got 50 more boxes for < $15! I love the small boxes.. so perfect for everything and almost everyone can carry them!

Update: Guess they got smart.. They lowered the limit to 20. Glad I got them before they changed the limit. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone :) I will be spending my day with my family and my inlaws. Enjoying the happy sounds of kids on sugar rushes. :)

The house has arrived!

With very little fanfare, the house arrived. We were sort of disappointed.. most videos show the houses getting moved onto the foundation with giant cranes so I kept the kids out of school to let them come and watch it. There were no cranes, just a giant robot that pulled the sections onto the foundation. They didn't even connect the pieces.. just left them there.

It was neat to get to see it happen, and I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't keep the kids out since they weren't done until about 3, but the littlest one missed a field trip (just walking around outside with her class, but still) and the eldest daughter missed out on ROTC practice.

I probably would have done it again.. even knowing what I know now, but played up more just the idea of the house showing up instead of the big machinery used to do it. 

Tornados abound

In one of the biggest tornado runs in DFW history, we had tornadoes in both our old town AND our new town. Isn't that lovely? Luckily both actual home-sites were free of twisters and we all came out of it unscathed.

I also found out that our foundation has hooks buried in it they will eventually tie to the steel beams of the house to tie it to the ground and keep it from getting pulled off during a storm. That's one of the secrets to PHH being one of the only mobile homes standing after tornadoes. :)

Y'all enjoy watching the 18 wheelers get tossed around by the tornado yesterday and then keep in mind that NO ONE WAS KILLED at all yesterday (and I think no major injuries either). How awesome is that?

Anyone else wondering how long this is going to delay the septic and driveway from getting built? :(

So THAT's the problem.

Me: Various directions about the day's schedule
Jordan: Wait.. What? I had to turn my ears off after <blank>.
Me: Huh?
Jordan: Yeah, in order for my brain to work I have to shut down one of my other senses. I chose hearing this time.

Foundation Day 3

I can't believe they are already done with the foundation! The septic people were out today to look over everything and complain about the lack of flags. (Anyone else see a pattern?)

Foundation: Day 2

This is after Day 2 of the foundation build. We went out yesterday to take a look. They are supposed to finish it today and someone has to be there to sign off on it. I'm not quite sure who that someone is going to be. I've got to spend some time packing, some time cleaning and the garbage disposal is leaking everywhere so I've got to fix that some time too. Oh and they are coming to pick up the Durango and I already put that off from Friday since I had to go out there unexpectedly when they couldn't figure out where our land was.

Moving to the Country.. not going to eat a lot of peaches

We've lived in this town for 17 years. We've seen the area around us grow by leaps and bounds while our town stagnated. Don't get me wrong, I like the small town feel we've kept while the towns around us explodes with population and amenities.. but our crime rates are rising, and the types of crimes are moving beyond annoying pranks and into the full fledged criminal-type behaviors so we've decided it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

We're going to have to make some changes in the way we spend our money because the house payment is going to go up almost double until we can get all the taxes adjusted. Even with the best case our house payment is going to go up 50%. We're losing some bills, but we're still going to have to make some hard choices. One thing we're hoping to save money on is our food bill.

Since there aren't going to be a lot of restaurants immediately around us, we're planning having more home cooked meals. (Luckily our new kitchen is going to be HUGE) We also are looking into building a fairly large garden and some live stock. Primarily some chickens, a pig and a cow. That should cover the big food groups and give us a little extra so we can sell them to keep our ag exemption. :)

I've been exploring the internet for web sites that show me what we'll need for all our animals. I'm hoping we can do it reasonably inexpensively or else it kind of defeats the purpose of raising our own.

I really can't wait to move, get settled in and have our first meal of food we've mostly down ourselves. Plus, you know, when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, we'll be ready for it. :)

Poor little field.. you've been broken

We broke ground today!

Whoop!

We closed on the house yesterday!

Today they deliver dirt and start grading the area they are going to put the house. And, of course, it looks like rain. :) Kind of figures.

The house is ready to go, it's in Austin now and the movers are going to go get it next week and start the drive to us. It almost seems real now. :) It'll still be June 1st or so before we can move in.. There's lots to do between now and then, but I really do feel like a weight has been lifted. We're actually going to get the house. They can't decide last minute that we don't qualify for whatever stupid mistake I made.

PHEW

Today is the day! We close on our house and take one more step towards home ownership and country life.

I don't mind telling you, it's pretty terrifying.

Of course, we don't know where we're going, or what time we're going to do it. Only that if we don't do it today then we'll have to come up with between 600 and 800 dollars in closing costs.

Oh and our air conditioner broke yesterday.

Oh and we still have the whole house to pack and move.

I have no idea why I am stressing about this move. ;)

Wish us luck today. We'll need it.

All my paperwork is packed, are we ready to go?

I turned in all my outstanding paperwork yesterday. disclosures, redisclosures, statements, surveys, tax records, you name it. It's amazing how much personal information they want when you are trying to get a home loan. I think we're ready to go though. I haven't heard back from the PHH loan coordinator as she needed to leave early yesterday.

I wonder when this whole thing is going to seem real and not some huge exercise in frustration and stress :)

Wish us luck :)

Buying and Building a House

We started this journey a few months ago when I discovered the USDA Rural Loan Program. As long as your credit isn't totally in the dumpster, you can get a guaranteed loan with a $250 down payment. You have to understand that while we usually make ends meet, we spend what we make and are aren't very good at the whole "saving money" thing.

My mother has 60 acres outside of Dallas and has always said we were welcome to come out there and build a house, but until I found the Rural loan program, the idea of us getting enough money together for a house down payment was pretty laughable. The government website has a listing of approved mortgage vendors to use, so I picked one and applied for a loan just to see if we'd really qualify. WE DID. Unfortunately after applying and getting approved I found out we'd only be able to get a prebuilt house or a house in a subdivision because the RLP didn't cover construction loans. Ugh. Figures.

We started shopping for a mobile home since that was pretty much the only way we'd be able to get a home built on our property. We decided on a Palm Harbor as we'd looked at them before and we liked their construction, their aesthetics and their size. We decided on The Gotham, a 3k sq foot monster with two living areas and 4 bedrooms. Our oldest would have his own bathroom and bedroom, the next oldest would have her own bedroom and the two smallest would have their own bed.

We're a little worried about the luxuries once we move.. we won't have city sewer, we won't have high speed internet, but we will have plenty of room for the kids to play, plenty of room for some farm animals. Good schools and a real old time Main Street. We'll be 15 miles away from a Walmart and other big chain stores and restaurants, but there is a local grocery store and a few fast food restaurants so we'll be able to get our greasy food fix occasionally without having to go too far.

Every Dog Should Have a Few Fleas

There's already a blog with this name. Guess I'm not as clever as I thought I was. Won't be the first time, won't be the last.. I'm already living up to the blog's name and it's only been a few minutes.Every dog should have a few fleas is an old southern saying meaning no one is perfect.  :)

We're a family of six, living in a small just under 2000 square foot house in the middle of a bedroom community in North Texas and we are preparing to buy our first home and move to a small two traffic light town (and both the lights blink).

We close on the house next week and after that we have a little over 2 months to get packed and moved. Life as we know it is going to move pretty fast the next year or so, this blog is going to help me stop and take a look at it and remember. :)