It's Gone!

Less than a half a second letter, that stick connected with my chest.

As of Friday, Jen and Husband are no longer home owners. We closed on our house, passed on the keys, and left a little gift behind for the new owners. It feels weird, after eleven years, that I am no longer allowed to go into that house anytime I want. It's not mine. Someone else owns all the rights to it. I guess I could try, but I feel like the new owners might not be cool about it.

Some people are really touchy.

Back when I started this blog, my intention was to chronicle our home building and moving process, with lots of life-stuff and the things I find in my weird brain mixed in. I laid out our Super Awesome Plan and we got to work on it immediately. Putting it in list form was key. I work very well with lists.

I'm extremely proud to say that we have officially checked off numbers one (admit we have a problem), two (get out of debt), three (purge the toxins), five (ready the house for sale), and six (sell this bitch). We altered our plan and five became four and four became seven, probably, and it was all very exhausting.And technically we still have debt, as we have a car payment and my student loans, but all the credit card debt is paid off. And that was pretty much the main focus of that effort.

So that was a little more than two years ago. We made a plan and we saw it through. And it was literally the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than maintaining an 'A' average in college while pregnant—twice. Harder than giving birth, also twice. There was a lot of crying, frustration, hopelessness, fear, doubt, etc. Lots. LOTS.

BUT...now that we've passed our first home on to a new family and settled comfortably into the house we're renting, it's time to shift our focus. We get to take a few years off from updating and repairing and worrying about the housing market and turn our thoughts to our future. And the biggest future-y thing on our minds right now is our financial plan.

Talking about personal finance can be a bit tacky, and I maintain my right not to go into great detail, but in the interest of thinking about the future, I do want to talk a bit about our goals.We have many of them.

First and foremost, after the stress of preparing and selling a home, we think we deserve a few months to do nothing big, and the timing is perfect for that with summer break on the horizon. We're going to turn our attention to making our rental house feel more like "home" to us. This will include:

• Painting the rooms on the main floor a really lovely gray(when we get to it)
• Painting Bug's room blue (we asked him what color he wanted, which was risky, but it worked out! I was sure he'd say, "Black!" or, "Red!")
• Finally painting our ugly, black lacquer bedroom furniture (when I feel like it)
• Making the back yard a fun place for the kids to play and for guests to come enjoy with us (I have some cool plans, but I haven't started on them yet, so I'll share them when I actually do something with them)
• Taking a week off for a "staycation" (whenever we WANT)

In addition to the house-y stuff, we are also looking forward to:

• Re-evaluating our budget and savings plan now that we have only one house to pay for
• Buying Husband a new car, in cash, and not acquiring any more debt
• Rebuilding our savings with the goal of putting down 20% on our new home

These are the things we intend to accomplish this summer. Well, not saving the 20% down payment in one summer, but starting on it. Slowly.

No big decisions aside from the car, no major purchases aside from the car, no added stress. After years of thinking of nothing except for moving on and putting all of our attention toward that goal, we feel like we deserve a few months to have fun and enjoy life.

Thanks for continuing along on this insane thing with me. I'm beginning to believe we might actually pull this off. You know—as long as I make us a list.

And here are a few more of our "last photos":

Bug and me in the kitchen. I had, um, something in my eye. Ahem.

Daddy and Bug in the kitchen.

I had to coerce her to hug me in Husband's and my old bedroom. Husband put in that overhead lighting.

Bear needed one, final climb in her favorite tree.