Friday, November 20, 2015

Delays, Crafts, and a Boot!

The great news for the week is that the water test came back good! No E. Coli or coliforms. The bad news is that due to the sheer amount of paperwork involved in a USDA rehab loan, our closing has been pushed back, and due to Thanksgiving, our new date is December 4th. Looks like we will be tiny home living for awhile longer.
It's not all terrible though, Luke has some photography stuff to finish up, and our Girl Scout troop is going crazy with Christmas crafts (and I'm the troop craft mom), so we are plenty busy with things, and getting a delay gives us more time to finish up stuff. We will be shoving family into my dad's house for Avery and Henna's birthday party, which is scheduled the day after closing!

Our Girl Scout troop wants to make ornaments and tags to sell as a fundraiser this year. Our meeting spot is a little grocery store that only sells locally grown foods and local artisan crafts, and they will allow us a small table after Thanksgiving, so I've been busy trying out different crafts, seeing what will be easy for us to do. The hardest part will be coming up with prices.

On a last note, we had our check ups at the podiatrist this week. We go every 6 months. All four girls seemed to inherit my flat feet unfortunately. Lexi, Lilly, and Henna seem to have no problems or pain with theirs. Avery has some leg pain, but her left tibia is also twisted slightly, which may be contributing to everything. We saw an orthopedic pediatric surgeon in June that did a full x-ray, and we are playing the waiting game now to go back in a year for a repeat x-ray to see if it is straightening on it's own, or if it's getting worse. As for me, my problems started in 3rd grade after being asked to run a relay race. I've had orthotics, foot surgery in 5th grade, and then slacked off with visits and orthotics in my late teens and early 20's because of insurance and kids. That was the biggest mistake ever. Now I have plantar fasciitis, and it is awful! I've done inflammation medication, cortisone shots, and new orthotics. Now I have basically have a walking removable cast. We are starting with my left foot, and I wear it all the time until the pain is gone, then wear it a week longer. Then I can switch it to the other foot. Needless to say I go back in a month to see how things are. Right now we are trying to avoid surgery, but make it easier for me to keep up with the girls.
Isn't it gorgeous?

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Hurdles of Buying the Homestead

Closing on our new house is supposed to happen Friday. Late last week we were hit with the fact that the loan people need a water test done, to check for E. Coli and coliforms. Generally that wouldn't be a problem; call the realtor, get in, turn on the tap, and BAM, sample. Not so easy with a rehab house that's been vacant for about 4 years and owned by a bank in like California. The power is shut off, and it can't be turned on without an inspection from the utility company. The inspection would fail because of wiring (that will be fixed in the rehab loan). On top of that, all of the copper piping has been stolen, so you can't even get water from the sink!

It's a good thing we are so handy. We had loan people and realtor people saying it was impossible to start the well pump with a generator (why do you think people buy generators in the country!?!). We spent all Saturday-Monday visiting the house each day to turn on the well pump and let the water circulate for a bit.

It started off with a nice yellowish brownish tinge, with sulfur and iron smells, but after running it for a few days, it has cleared a lot. On Monday I couldn't smell the sulfur anymore, but it definitely has iron, which we figured, since the bathroom sink and tub both have iron stains on them.

Luke got up nice and early this morning to run back over with the sample bottles from the water treatment plant and get a sample, then run it to the plant, since they do testing today and it needed to be in by 10:00AM.  We should know after noon tomorrow what the results are, and we believe this is our final hurdle!

We'll see what tomorrow brings!


Monday, November 9, 2015

Moving Forward...

Our house is gone. We closed on October 13th, so we spent the weekend before clearing out the house, and cleaning. The night before we brought the girls back over to help with a little last minute cleaning, and for them to say good-bye. They took pictures of everything, and when our big camera died, I gave my cell phone to Lexi so she could keep taking pictures. She took this one of Lilly. It describes perfectly what our mood was that night. As glad as I am to be rid of that house, it was our home for the last 11 years, and the only one our girls have ever known.


Shortly after moving in, my grandma went into the hospital for surgery, and ended up with a blood infection that she couldn't recover from. It sucks to move so close, only to have her gone just 2 weeks later. I still don't think it has set in completely, but I hate that she'll never know whether or not we will get the rehab house we are looking at. At this rate I'm not sure we'll ever know either! We are currently waiting on the appraisal, which should have been in last Friday, but we've yet to see it.

Moving in to tiny barn hasn't been easy, but we've managed these past few weeks. We are currently fighting off a little sickness, which is hard when you live in less that 480 square feet with 6 people. There's no place to rest in the quiet, and when one is up coughing, everyone is up! We got through Halloween, although we had no inside decorations. We still have a lot of organizing to do in tiny barn. We'll probably have it done by the time we move out lol! If you can't tell, we were Doctor Who themed this year


And here's me with one of our chickens that are left. Whenever we move, building a bigger chicken coop is one of the first things on the list, so not only can we get our two remaining chickens back, but get more too!