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. :)