The almost big news

So obviously I haven't been blogging much. I've had a few things on my mind that I don't really want to blog about just yet. And if I can't blog about those things, then I just can't blog because I'm not really thinking about anything else. But I decided to relax a little and blog about the biggest thing taking up my brain cells right.

We're going to try to sell our house. I've been straightening and cleaning like mad for a few days because I called our realtor (that sounds so hoity-toity, "our" realtor...he's just the guy who sold us this house). He hasn't called us back yet, but I want him to come over and take a look around and tell us what we can do to help this house sell ASAP. Not that we are in a particular hurry, because we aren't, I just don't want to have the house sitting on the market for months and months. We are going to make some cosmetic changes. We're going to recarpet the bedrooms. I think two of the bedrooms have the original carpet. Shag carpet. Dark brown shag carpet. Actually, I love it except that it's brown and shag. I loved having it in the boys' rooms and in the playroom (before we ripped all the carpet up in the living areas) because it's so soft and plush, they almost never get hurt when they fall on it. Our bedroom has some nasty well-loved berber carpet which is reminding us of one particular fit that one of our children threw and also of one particular illness that the same child had. It's in nice shape, y'all. So we're going to replace it all. And then all of the flooring in our house (except for a few closets and the utility room) will have been replaced. We're also going to repaint the kitchen and the exterior of the house. Right now the outside is brick with a nasty yellowish beige and brown trim. We're going to paint the yelllow white and brown black. It should look much nicer. We also have to put a few finishing touches on our last remodel project that never got finishes. And Sweet Hubby will have to fix the ceiling in our room where he accidentally made a nice little entryway for himself via the attic.

The down side to making all these changes is that we don't have the cash to do it right now. Which means we'll have to put it on a credit card. We recently paid off all of our credit card debt, so it's a little painful for us to have to charge again.

We're hoping since we've made all these updates (because the house was firmly set in the 60s when we moved in) that we can get quite a bit of equity out of the house. The plan is that we'll sell the house for as much as we can get and then move in with my folks for a few months while Sweet Hubby is working overnights (he just started that shift this weekend and will be working it for the next 6 months). For those few months we'll be trying to save our money like mad to put a decent down payment on the next house. Which will be in a nicer area with more to do and a bigger homeschool community. It will also have everything we should need within just a few miles. And that will be.so.nice. Because as it is I have to drive at least 20 minutes to do anything. The gas is killing us. Sweet Hubby will actually be a bit closer to work and it will be much more of straight shot for him.

So that's the plan. I'm cautiously excited. I know the housing market stinks. And I know that no one in their right mind should want to move out here. But we have a nice little house with a huge yard and all we need is one person or family to want to buy our house. I can't wait to buy a new house. I've already started looking and there are at least a hundred in the area in which we are currently looking (although, I'm not married to moving to that area).