Starting to Say Goodbye

I sold the formal dining room table today. We won't have space for it in the new house and needed the cash to pay for some of the small expenses that pop up when you build. As I sat in my empty formal dining room I had my first real emotional response to our big move, I cried.

You need to know that I am not a "things" person. That is, I don't get emotionally attached to things. I can easily purge and I don't feel the need to keep every thing my children have touched. Things are easily replaced and other than a few extra special items such as a few baby clothes (and by few I mean 2 maybe 3 items) and pictures, I am not truly attached to things. This is why my reaction surprises me so much. But as I sat there on a chair, which is also being sold, staring into the empty space that used to be filled with the dining table, I was suddenly overwhelmed with memories. We have only been in this house for 3 years, yet I was shocked at how many wonderful memories we had already made. While none of my children were born here, and in fact Brianna has moved 3 times in her 8 years, they did so some "growing up" here. Maybe the fact that I spend such an unusually large amount of time with my children has made the memories collect faster, maybe this move is different because instead of moving two streets over we are moving clear out of the city, maybe I have associated this house with being where my last baby learned to crawl, walk, talk, and is now a nearly 4 year old little boy, maybe I am having a fight with my vanity and am wondering if maybe I do really want a big fancy house. I don't know at the moment.

I remember hosting a House Party for Wii Just Dance. I will spare you the photos. I am sure my friends appreciate that too. Even as I type this the scene playing in my head makes me laugh out loud. I remember family holidays with my house packed with people, countdowns to Disney, fish frys, Grandma Shirley visiting from England,  summer days spent on the water slide outside, the two freak winters where we got a foot of snow and we spent hours outside building a snowman that a teen decided to decapitate.  I remember how excited I was when my husband painted our school room and when Brianna and Keira learned to ride their bikes on our street. I remember making fairy houses along the walking trail and surprise trips to the community park. I remember...

 Right now it is all becoming real and during random moments it seems to all catch up with me. But that is ok because I know this is right. I know this is where we are being led and I know that the new house will offer us memories and experiences and that one day I will be able to call it home.

Doubts and Fears

Whew, that didn't take long. Now that the decision is final, I have begun a sort of back and forth between being on a high and being filled with anxiety! How will we sell this house? What do I need to purge? How long will it take to get the new house dried in enough to live in it? Should we go ahead and take out a construction loan just in case? How will we sell this house? What will family and friends think? And most importantly, how will we sell this house?!

At the moment we have received nothing but a positive response, but then again we have only revealed our plans to a few as of me writing this (though I am sure now, everyone knows). We expect to get some negative response because when we approached the idea the first time back in January we got that response. I can't honestly say that it doesn't make me wonder, at least every now and then, why we are doing this.

Looking forward I see such a great future. One of the mortgage free variety. One where we are no longer slaves to the bank and our debt. Debt we are managing, but who wants to just manage when one can conquer?  I also see a future of my children growing up with a kind of independence we can not give them here where streets are busy with cars and yards are dominated by home owner association rules. I see them running 3 houses down to grandma and grandpa's house to see what sugary treat they can weasel out of him (and we all know grandpa is the culprit in this situation).

But what if it doesn't work out? What if we hate living in a less than manicured neighborhood? What if we miss having houses within touching distance of our own? Should that actually happen (and I have my doubts that it will), then we will own a house that is mortgage free which we can rent out or sell. We can take our savings from being mortgage free and invest it into another house. Of course this is worst case scenario but it is nice to know we have a back up plan just in case.

But, I have faith that God is going to bless our attempts at "owing no man".

Downsizing: The Journey Begins

This is the artist rendering of our current 3200sq ft home

It bit us. The downsizing bug. The one where you realize that things are not as important as memories and memories are not made in big houses where families are so far apart from each other that they only pass one or two times during an evening. They aren't made when mommy sits in the bedroom and daddy is in the other end of the house in the office. They are not made when having so many toys means that none are treated with respect. They aren't made by having 3200 sq ft of home that takes all day just to do a basic clean up in.

Now,  I am not saying that all families who live in big homes have these problems, but our does. Currently our lives are dominated by tasks that do not really create memorable moments but rather barely keep chaos from taking over. I spend my day fighting a losing battle cleaning house while the kids are so overwhelmed by toys that they give up trying to play with any of them. Daddy comes home and has to continue work in his office which is closed away on the other side of the house. I sit in the bedroom watching TV and the kids are now fighting because of how chaotic the upstairs is.

We decided we have had enough. We are getting rid of the chaos in our lives. We are getting rid of the obsession with things. We are downsizing.

On July 16th, 2012 (if all goes according to plan) we will pack up what we need to live, move in with my parents and put our 3200 sqft, in the city, in a manicured subdivision with an HOA, on the market. During this time we will dry in our new, in the country, on 5 acres of land, 1660 sq ft home for which we will pay cash. While we are selling our current home we will slowly work on finishing the new one doing our best not to incur any debt.

We don't know what the market will do for our current home. We have only been here just under 3 years. We may even have to take a small loss on it should it not sell for what we need it to, but even if that happens, we will be mortgage free on the new house and will be able to quickly pay off the small amount we would owe.

So here we are. At the start of a fantastic adventure. One that no doubt will have it's ups and downs. We know that we have some family and friends that will think we are nuts. Right now I am riding the wave of happiness over the thought of being mortgage free. I am sure this feeling will come and go, but we know that this is a chance to live as we believe we should, owing no man.