swim team, internet, and surgery prep

so no pics today so sorry. it makes posts so boring doesnt it! and there has been some MAJOR demo on the house so pics would have been cool. i hate to say i doubt those will post to entertain you for several more weeks .... patience iago.

so we have internet back and both at our new house and at granny's. so we are back in the game. life is settling as much as seems possible for our temporary medical and construction filled experience. demo on the house is going well. the master bath is 100% demoed and the master bedroom is almost all demoed. the hall bath is also almost there. goodbye pink fixtures. the pink carpet in the hall bathroom around the toilet was perhaps the most disgusting thing i have ever in my life. its probably the most disgusting thing nate has ever experienced ... well ok maybe in the top 10.

we also went to our new ward today. its at 9am so no sleepin in but great afternoon nap time. going to a new ward is always strange. imagine having a child that procurs lost of questions and concerns for strangers. its complicated. but in all honesty the kids had a great time and adjusted fast and well. i was surprised at just how many kids are in this ward and i think the primary might even be bigger then our last ward. the bishop is amazing and we really liked him. i think we will fit in and settle in just fine. its an affluent ward full of well known peeps. sometimes in life you feel a connection to someone and you arent sure why it doesnt seem to make sense. well a few wards back and a few houses nate & became friends with one of the young men nate served. his family moved to provo and he grew up and got married and we attended his wedding and we adore him but see him very rarely, still yet feel a strong connection. we walked into church today and there he was with his cute young wife. life is funny that way. he is the only person we previously knew in our ward.

so for the past few weeks i have been dealing with the inconvenience of swimming lessons in the afternoon for stock every single day in preperation for swim team tryouts. something nate determined would be good for the young athlete he is breading. that was like the worst two weeks of my life to throw that into and often times i wondered if it was even worth it. we arent much of a swimming family and he didnt seem to be catching on to me so i worried these expensive one on one lessons were for nothing. tryouts were yesterday and low n behold the kid made it! i am not sure how i feel about this now knowing that there is no summer break for me and the kids, no sleeping in. swim team is at 8:30 every morning and yes you say car pool etc.... i say no we are the furtherst away out here in good old provo, swim team is at PG pool so we must head out the door at 8am every single day. i think this will be a great thing for him and it will make us more productive over the summer to be up so early but i cant help but find a few things to whine about, oh i am such a murmer - er. oh i try not to be.

so surgery is fast approaching and we are all feeling the intensity of that realization. saylor is starting to be very scared and express feelings and its just back to that all knowing heart wrenching very physical thing. today starts her clear liquid diet. its just been such a whirlwind this last few weeks that i can barely comprehend and wrap my hands, fingers, or brain around whats going on. i realize the impact must be that much harsher for my darling children. they are so strong and amazing. and saylor just cannot be described by words. tonight nate will give her a blessing. tomorrow is our last day together tuesday she gets admitted to PCMC early in the morn for a long long day of NG tubes, pic lines, and nasty go lightly. then wed morning is surgery (2 procedures).

so its time once again to ask that you keep us in your prayers. to send good vibes, to come visit if you want and drop off all old magazines, food and treats! of course tue and wed we will ask that you let us do our thing and that you check the blog for updates.

so like i said no house pics as we switch gears to medical trauma for a bit. non the less never a dull moment.

internet-less

ok peeps been a while since i posted. ok not too long. last friday. so this is what has happened since. i got very sick. did a workshop and brothers wedding flowers and linens. worked my little tale off only to be out shined by horrible greek columns and fake greenery that really should not have been there and a serious miscommunication on linens. but i will say the linens & flowers looked fab and i got to use some of my fav flowers english garden roses, and my intern was the bomb. i did not get to be at anything more then my brothers sealling because i was toooooo sick. body gave out on me. and this was a HUGE bummer because of all my siblings i am more close to joey and even more then that i am beyond words proud of the kid! i am attaching a pic just one ... more to come. courtesy of Jessie Alexis photography.

nate triumphantly moved all construction supplies, garden/yard para, and the TRAMP!

then sunday came ... supposed to be day of rest. nope day of boxing and speaking in church and saying goodbye and crying non stop. fun farwell get together with priceless friends. made it all that much harder.

monday came .. final moving day. what i realized was i did not put enough in storage and my ideas of camping were way too extravagant. kicking myself in the bum! thanks to so many boys that worship nate and great neighbors and really really good friends the day went smoothly and fast. i ended up seeking serious medical treatment when i realized i could not breath. saturation rate was only 76% but a breathing treatment a new inhaler, some new meds sent me on my way. then finish up a move and some serious unpacking. This could not have been accomplished without the kind efforts of tammy brunst & amy fox who pretty much was me (nate's other wife & my other wife! lol) and then a little more then me. i cant do what either of these women do in one day in a week of my time! they are the most amazing and generous people i know!

then tuesday came with its final goodbyes and house cleaning. another long hard day of work. thanks to so many who showed up to help clean (including the two extra wives) and then those who helped me through it all! thanks to heidi, carol, and nita for the icecream send off! and more!

today was busy also with mowing grandmas lawn, actually making a dinner, skool, swim team, flower arrival, work prep, laundry, bank, grocery, and finally this stop off to use my moms internet. i am still internet - less. dont like it! at all! soon peeps i will be back on full time

both houses are funded and paid and now we are starting to work and get ready for surgery. never ever a dull moment! email me or post a comment if you would like a new mailing address! :)

ok i am editing on may 28th may 27th post. here i went on and on about all this house stuff and moving and being sick and surgery and and and AND IT WAS MY ANNIVERSARY!!!!! can you believe that! 11 YEARS BABY!

house is "officially" purchased

so SHAG is mine! we closed yesterday ... it should have felt better then it did i am so distracted by so many things and so overwhelmed and stressed its hard to feel the way i want to, or should. but i will say that was the easiest home purchase of my life (and i have done a few!!!!) and it went so smooth and seriously closed one week after we made the offer. thats ONE week folks! unheard of! a big shout out and thanks to KEVON with INOUYE APPRAISAL & TODD TELFORD with prudential, and most of all CHARLES GREEN with SECURITY HOME MORTGAGE. all 3 of these guys rock and i will never do another real estate transaction without them EVER!

so whats next? well this weekend we will move a good amount of stuff we need for renno and a few other things to the new house. brother is getting married tomorrow and you know what that means for me .... right ... ok so busy busy. maybe monday we will finish up the move the good old grandma murphs! good thing its just down the street from our new house and i am excited about the convenience. i am sure we will merely be sleeping at grandmas while we work work work.so much to do so little time.

speaking in church this sunday also, saying goodbye with a bbq (i hope) and accepting change.

house is "officially" sold

so the house we built together is officially sold. does not belong to us any longer. closed today. so its a done deal folks not matter what we are out a here. i am starting to be sad and mourn a little. things are so crazy intense with weddings and surgeries and moving etc... i hardly have the time to breath though so those mourning moments are few and far between, but they are there, little twings of ache. so we are hoping to close tomorrow on our new property. however it wont fund till mid next week because the sellers need to close before it can fund and its like a bunch of kids who inherited their dead parents house and one of them lives in holland ... yep holland. kind of complicates things! but we will go ahead and close our deal on it tomorrow. looks like i will be at grannies soon ... any visitors?

the house that is under contract .. yes that one.

so this is it ... who knows what you all our thinking but i am thinking its a GEM! so my plans for this poppy in the rough on sumac street in provo utah ... well definatetly a new saufet and faccia color! a new front door, some serious bushal removal and shapping and some water to the lovely lawn.


a peak at the best part of this house .. the SHAG carpet throughout almost the entire 3000 sq feet! there are multiple shades of it of course, some red ....ish, green ...ish, blue ...ish, brown, and of course orange! isnt orange like the national shag color? not a spot untouched! in fact in many of places the carpet is pulled up the wall and doubles as baseboard! soon to be gone from this place (with the exception of one small square of each for keepsake purposes!)



a peak into the potties. arent they glamorous. this house showcases a design technique i have never seen in my life .... wall paper on the bathroom ceiling ... yep folks! i am serious. in fact there is not even one room in the house that lacks wallpaper but most have normal ceilings. of course potty rooms will receive a 100% overall very soon! anyone want a pink, orange, or blue toilet with matching sinks??




there are a few vintage details that i heart ... like some lighting and bathroom hardware. of course it needs my touch but nothing more.


one more thing i heart ... the vintage mint condition double wall oven!

a few last things 4 sale

ok peeps i think this is the last and final round of items ... ok well maybe not but hopefully the last round. cute larger rug $30 darling red armoir $200 broken TV cabinet that could easily be fixed FREE white leather couch set $500 cute potter barn twin bed headboard/footboard sort of beach style looking $40

under contract

YIPEEEEEEEE! i so want to post pictures but i just cant i dont have time tonight but tomorrow when we go for inspection i will take some and i promise to post them this weekend. so we are headed to non other then ..... zoobie land! thats right we are headed to provo. not what we expected or anticipated. we may be crazy but yesterday we decided to consider provo and went and looked at a few homes after another long unsuccessful morning looking in slc area. well we found the one. you know just the one, the one you know is the one. it has about 5 lovely shades of original shag carpet and there is carpet throughout the whole house ... like bathrooms, kitchen the whole shabang. its a perfect set up for studio stems, huge gorgeous lot with great landscaping and sprinkling system, its a sprawling dated rambler in pristinely dated condition in an AMAZING neighborhood, it needs some work ... has a new roof, AC, and i could go on and on but its so so so PERFECT for us and better yet its a smoking deal. we made an offer last night and it went under contract this afternoon, because its vacant and we have some many people working hard on our side we will close in only one week. still going to grandmas for a few months while we rennovate ... good thing its just down the street from grandmas! yeah! still moving into storage as well but feeling much better about things!!!!

things i am nervous about, switching schools completley including districts, the commute to the freeway, and how this will affect my company.

thats all my little overwhelmed brain can output at this time!!!!

hmmmmm

so for the most part most of the furniture we are ridding ourselves of is gone. and a big majority of the house is packed. of course i still have the major rooms like the kitchen & my studio to conquer but in due time of course. we are thinking storage unit moving this weekend. my house is feeling less and less like my house as i take the steps to say goodbye. such a bitter sweet feeling. i wish i had a house on the other side of this all ... one that excites me. but i simply dont and so for now, for the time being the patience i have grown needs to get me through and perhaps i need to grow a bit more .... like say a whole crop of it. i am looking for the way ... the way that feels right and i havent found the way or the place yet. but i hope i will know ... like really know when i get there. i had this profound realization this morning ... i realized that i am in a moment, one of those moments. you know the ones. you never forget. the ones you look back on and can suddenly see ginormous growth in. the ones that just stretch you like armstrong! i am in it. and all i have to say is hmmmmmmmm

4 sale

a few things that need to go this week. kitchen table is 4.5' by 4.5' square and is two toned wood. gorgeous! i am so going to miss this! it has 8 chairs. bar height table. $600 rocking chair is a glider $25 garage table that is really a kitchen table $25 rug $75 and armoir $200 to someone i know .... $250 otherwise! haha

the one that got away

the saga continues and its nothing short of a saga for sho! so this is how its all been going down. day after little white house on 200 north fell through i pulled myself together for a viewing of a few more homes with our agent todd. one of which was one i have had my eye on for some time but have neglected to respond to promptings about (yes there is a hard lesson at the end of this ...) i had even sent the listing to todd to get me more info on and he had determined that it likely would not work for our family. so i decided to not pursue it any heavier until this point of total desperation for something. He called on the property on wed and learned that an offer had been presented. he encouraged me to go look on wed and not wait till thur morning but i just couldnt do it because i was working on an event. so we went out thur morning with the understanding the agents would not put the house under contract until after we viewed the home and checked in with them. and guess what ... i fell in LOVE. wanted it so baaaaad. but when todd called the listing agent .... yep you guessed it under contract. so now i felt even more down in the dumps ... but there were a few more to view and nate was joining us at lunch and so the day carried on, all the while i was sick to my stomach about not following my gut!!!!! now my gut was dragging me a long ...

so we found a cute fixer later in the afternoon that had potential and could work in PG and decided that we could make an offer and that a certain number being that the house would be worth it. we asked them to respond by today at 11 just with the rush of time crunch we were in as far as getting something closed around the time we close our exisiting home. well they totally did not respond by 11 and when they finally did they countered back higher then their asking price .... WHAT THE? i seriously dont get this whole real estate game! the agents are shady and so is the system! so that deal went down the tubes right there in that moment.

so we are back to scratch. with nothing in the playing field for options. we have scowered the mls and the county as well as even into the slc regions we would be willing to consider. we have driven a many hundereds of miles on several days with screaming kids in the back just looking and looking and looking. and to no avail. so .... it looks like nate and i really do need to resign to just getting our hind ends out of this big one, into my grandmas for a temporary retreat and also into a storage unit.

still the same i am sadly disappointed with this weeks happenings.

house update

so real estate is such a roller coaster ... does it go smooth for anyone? is this just my curse?

ok so here it is on this current home we live in. inspection and appraisal are both done and in the bag. things are cool and looks like we are definately moving and appears to be that it will close no problems. buyers are as solid as they come! yipeee....

on what we thought was the "perfect" home for us not so good. so basically we made that offer, the bank countered and as you have read before we accepted that counter and all their terms. so techinically under contract right? no sir! so how this particular bank works was a nightmare and it wasnt under contract until they officially signed off on their own counter we signed back to them. well they never signed it because in the last two days 4 more offers came in on the house. so they resended their counter to us and basically said bid it out all you folks, the house goes to the highest bidder. well we arent willing to pay anything above what we had agreed to. so we are backing out of the fight. the house is not worth it and needs to much work to go any higher. bummer deal. made me sad and kind of put a damper on the day. i have total faith that things work out the way they are supposed to in my life as long as i live rightously. and so .... the gentle hand of my father is guiding the situation and i am cool with that. that all being said i am little concerned about finding something that i like as much still in our price range and meeting so many of my standards ... and so the journey continues. prayers are appreciated :)

for now peeps anything we havent sold will stay with us until we know where we are going and what will fit in that house that someday will be ours. we do like our stuff you know. so sorry but its hold off time. and as for those that have gotten some of our stuff .... stop right now and dont feel guilty in the least bit! we feel burdens lifted for having let go of it. there was strategy behind it all we let go of what we knew we didnt want to keep no matter what first! we are downsizing you know!

more items 4 sale

so peeps here are a few more items. this is what needs to leave this house this week. so the deal is i am offering it to all i know first. if not spoken for in the next 24 hours it goes KSL and we all know what happens there! and the deal is you have to come get it this week! if not like tomorrow!

there may be some additions of more things at the end of the week and for sure more next week including the TV that everyone seems so interested in ... how can i not increase the price here people ... its for a good cause! so the first to pay the most gets it so start biding now! (price starts at $100) its a 42 incher hitachi flat screen old school flat screen man technology moves fast. its not the kind that hangs on the wall people. and i want to keep it till about the 20th.



first there is this little horsy ... rocking horsy. he is so cute, too cute for the DI pile so he is FREE just email me!


my beloved vintage pottery barn couch table ... $75


HUGE armoir pretty much like new condition. has TV/wire holes drilled in back. $300


cute rug in good condition ... 8'8' square $75


air hockey baby! includes paddles and discs $100



what is this you ask? well this old skool 70's vintage kitchen table buried under stuff in my garage needs to go. wasnt saylor so nice to vanna white this? on a scooter no less. anyhow $25

152,000 turkey

this is a long post so beware ...



Nate & the two older yahoos went turkey hunting late thursday afternoon. i fully expected to not see them till late saturday night but by heavens grace they shot a wild one on friday morning and were home by 10am! isnt it beautiful! and so very very dead? i still am on the fence on so many hunting issues but i am so glad nate is home to work on house projects and happy or at least supposed to be happy! ... ok on to what ya all really want to know ...

the house .... so inspection and appraisal are done here at the current home but the appraisal paperwork is not in so we arent sure what it came back at yet but we think it will be ok. inspection is sort of on the fence too. there was nothing major and nothing deal breaking and the few minor things there were nate has already repaired without the buyers even asking for it. but the buyers havent even responded to the inspection report so thats kind of strange. anyhow i dont know why i am all skeptical all the sudden i know this is in the bag in my heart.

and the new house, so some background stats. the house was forclosed on owing over 200 grand. the banks initial listing was at 175, their first contract was at 158 which fell through due to the immense amount of work needed. we offered 135 with a 5000 kickback to help us with the cost of renovation. meaning we were really offering only 130 and with closing costs and agent fees etc.. they would walk away with closer to like 115. so they countered back 152 with no kickback of any kind, they wanted $1600 in ernest money rather then the $1500 we initially agreed to, no FHA repairs (hard to explain but very lame of them and unnecessarily complicating) and changed the dates to closing june 17th anytime before that ... well duh we were hoping to do a simultaneous close on may 21st. but whatever it made our loan denial deadline may 20th which is great we can pretty much back out whenever up to the very end of when we want to close and still get our ernest check back.

so the thought process .... after much thought about the 5000 kickback we calculated that its a $30 difference in monthly mortgage costs, not much but in the end paying only $30 a month on a $5000 debt is not smart. over the life of the loan (however short or long that may be) we would likely be paying a ridiculous amount over $5000. so we decided here as an opportunity to make a wiser decision. we worked some numbers to figure out if we could do the rennos without and decided we likely could if were were smart, frugal, thrifty, and creative so we sort of let that one go feeling like its in our best interest.

now to deal with the price ... are we willing to pay 152? well first we tried to find a lot in orem that was .38 in size in a location we desired for less then 200 grand. not possible. so obviously the land alone is worth nearly what they are asking. then we went back to how much would a house with 3300 sq feet meeting ALL of our requirments be? we have looked at a good few within our price range and non of them met our needs and most were in the 250-300 range that came even close. so how silly does it sound to pass up all our needs and 3300 sq feet for $152? pretty silly. so we didnt pass it up! we signed the contract. because the house is bank owned and because we didnt sign until the evening last night the house is not technically under contract until they receive the contract at the bank first thing monday morning ... but you know a technicality is all that is. still many a things have been changed by a technicality so i still feel on edge. i have a feeling i will feel on edge for the next 3 weeks to come!