Good News Update

Hello, friends and family!

Last Thursday Kevin and I had dinner with our realtor (the one who helped us buy our house 20 months ago). She gave me a compliment on how clean my house was, but still said that it may take a while to sell, since the market is slower than it typically is.

She listed it in MLS and put a sign in our front yard on Friday afternoon. She hadn't even had time to post pictures or her virtual tour by the weekend. Kevin and I had 2 showings on Saturday for the same people, and then 2 more today with 2 different people. At 3pm we had a great offer on our house and sent in a counter-offer. They accepted it!

We are getting $1,500 less than our asking price, which was high. It also happens to be $10K more than we paid for our house less than 2 years ago, which is still amazing to me. We have to close on January 29, which will be very tight for us. But it's good because that's another month (February) that we will be able to sock away money toward closing on our new home. Our realtor also knocked her commission down to 4% (from 6%) because it was such an easy sale. She was shocked at how well it all worked out. We still have to make it through appraisal and inspections, but we all suspect that everything will go smoothly.

Basically, God is doing great things for us. All in the last month, Kevin got an amazing job opportunity, we have the priveledge of building a beautiful house for our future family in a great neighborhood, and our house here sold (after only having to deal with 4 showings). It's so cool to see how great things are coming out of the hardest time in our lives thus far.

There are still a lot of things to work out with our move, the priority being that I get a job in Houston. This has now become my new focus, along with packing our house up so that we can move in with Kevin's mom on January 23rd. We're going to hire movers to take our stuff to storage in Houston (and follow them down there to supervise) that weekend. Then Kevin and I will live at Debbie's for two weeks together until he has to move to Cypress, and then I'll be there for another 4 months. I am so grateful for her hospitality!

We also still need to secure a pre-approval for our new home before we go to the design center on February 13th, as we will have to put down a 25% nonrefundable deposit on our upgrades at that time. We'll be meeting with our lender hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday.

Oh yeah, Kevin is also going to have to sell his truck to make our debt to income ratio work with his (very) base salary. The vast majority of his income will come from a great commission program that the underwriters cannot take into consideration since it is a new job in a new city. His new job is giving him a company truck in February. So if you know anyone who is looking for a F150 with a lot of upgrades in great condition, let us know!

So that's the update! I am finishing my ILD training this week so I will be out of school another two days, and it's only a four day week. I really hate missing school! I miss my kids, and even though I have great subs and detailed plans, I still worry about the instruction that I am not giving them when I'm not there. My next course for grad school is also starting on Tuesday, and I'm trying to complete an online Defensive Driving course as I write. Actually, I'm on a mandatory 12 minute break. Talk about busy!

I hope that all of you are staying warm in this cold weather! Thank you for your encouraging words, good thoughts, and prayers as Kevin and I work through the details of this big life change that we are approaching. I love you all more than you know!

Meagan