Got some great news just now, the major horrible repair that we need to do...turns out won't be out of our reach expense-wise after all! We can handle it with the money set aside by the bank for repairs...so we are proceeding after all with the house! Man, what a roller coaster. How do you people do it who move often??
We are set to close officially Sept. 29 at 11am, provided the Lord wills it :) Definitely seems like He has guided every step of this so I am at peace if this deal goes through!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Stupid House
Okay. What a crazy week this has been. If you follow my facebook, you've seen my barrage of posts about the house.
Wednesday Blake and I went to meet with the lender at 8am. Who is wonderful. We love our lender. We had a house inspection and termite inspection scheduled for the house at 10:30 am the same day. The lender mentioned we hadn't gotten a signed agreement back from the bank putting in writing everything they'd agreed to. So we pressed our realtor to get on that. Sure enough, we get a call around 9am that the bank only was going to offer a certain amount of money toward a new roof instead of shelling out the complete dough to pay for the roof. We were infuriated. They quoted about $1000 under our lowest roof quote we got. Really is maddening them trying to push us around. So, I called the roofer and asked if he'd replace the roof at what the bank was willing to pay for...and he was wonderful and said yes! So, a big victory there.
Then, we go to the house inspection. Termites = negative! House condition = awesome! Then we're wrapping up the inspection and one of the guys is taking a while in the attic. Come to find out, our roof is caving in. That is a little strong...I guess our roof is "sagging" because it's current shingles are too heavy for the original framing and then to top it off, when the house owners had the heat and air moved overhead some genius installed it in the attic and cut some crucial support beams to get it to fit. So there is a visable sag especially in the attic that needs attention. From what I understood, this is fixable and wouldn't be cause for future alarm if fixed. If not fixed...that is alarming. So I'm in the process of gathering quotes from framers to see what it would take to fix it.
After that we face the dilemma of approaching the bank with our revised offer. Do we say 'hey! you pay for it or we walk!" We risk the whole contract being thrown out and starting from square one. I'm hearing different things like people are impressed on a short sale that we got the bank to pay for anything. And then I'm also hearing, hey to sell it the bank has to fix it anyway. So pray that we can make a wise decision once we have all the facts together. I'm kinda numb to the whole house thing right now. So many big events happening at once: a house, a new CD release, and the National Quartet Convention (the climax of our year in Southern Gospel field). I'm pretty impressed I'm handling everything as well as I am right now. I'm discouraged about the house but don't know whether to let it go without a fight, or walk away from it and have the bank try to get us to still take it. The other houses available on the market right now just aren't as amazing as this one. But, I don't need amazing, I need a quality house that suits our needs. So, Lord please lead us as we have to make life changing decisions next week.
Wednesday Blake and I went to meet with the lender at 8am. Who is wonderful. We love our lender. We had a house inspection and termite inspection scheduled for the house at 10:30 am the same day. The lender mentioned we hadn't gotten a signed agreement back from the bank putting in writing everything they'd agreed to. So we pressed our realtor to get on that. Sure enough, we get a call around 9am that the bank only was going to offer a certain amount of money toward a new roof instead of shelling out the complete dough to pay for the roof. We were infuriated. They quoted about $1000 under our lowest roof quote we got. Really is maddening them trying to push us around. So, I called the roofer and asked if he'd replace the roof at what the bank was willing to pay for...and he was wonderful and said yes! So, a big victory there.
Then, we go to the house inspection. Termites = negative! House condition = awesome! Then we're wrapping up the inspection and one of the guys is taking a while in the attic. Come to find out, our roof is caving in. That is a little strong...I guess our roof is "sagging" because it's current shingles are too heavy for the original framing and then to top it off, when the house owners had the heat and air moved overhead some genius installed it in the attic and cut some crucial support beams to get it to fit. So there is a visable sag especially in the attic that needs attention. From what I understood, this is fixable and wouldn't be cause for future alarm if fixed. If not fixed...that is alarming. So I'm in the process of gathering quotes from framers to see what it would take to fix it.
After that we face the dilemma of approaching the bank with our revised offer. Do we say 'hey! you pay for it or we walk!" We risk the whole contract being thrown out and starting from square one. I'm hearing different things like people are impressed on a short sale that we got the bank to pay for anything. And then I'm also hearing, hey to sell it the bank has to fix it anyway. So pray that we can make a wise decision once we have all the facts together. I'm kinda numb to the whole house thing right now. So many big events happening at once: a house, a new CD release, and the National Quartet Convention (the climax of our year in Southern Gospel field). I'm pretty impressed I'm handling everything as well as I am right now. I'm discouraged about the house but don't know whether to let it go without a fight, or walk away from it and have the bank try to get us to still take it. The other houses available on the market right now just aren't as amazing as this one. But, I don't need amazing, I need a quality house that suits our needs. So, Lord please lead us as we have to make life changing decisions next week.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
We got the house!
We got the Ashford House we put an offer on! The bank accepted and even agreed to put a new roof on it for us -- Praise the lord! He answered our prayers for a beautiful home in the country that is safe, affordable, and is plenty big for us to stay a very long time. Also, it's a blessing because if we ever have to relocate, the house is very desirable and should resell quickly.
We are now waiting on the bank to turn on the electricity so we can get an inspection. Strangely, the bank is dragging their feet in this, but want to close on the house Sept. 30th. They'd better get on the ball. I'm trying to be patient.
If all goes to plan it looks like we will be moving into this home in late October! I am so excited. :)
We are now waiting on the bank to turn on the electricity so we can get an inspection. Strangely, the bank is dragging their feet in this, but want to close on the house Sept. 30th. They'd better get on the ball. I'm trying to be patient.
If all goes to plan it looks like we will be moving into this home in late October! I am so excited. :)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Hotel Sign
I saw this sign at the Holiday Inn Express in Enid, OK where we stayed this past weekend...hilarious!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
I made a balanced dinner!
Ever since I got married, cooking has been an interesting challenge. Growing up my mom tried to teach me to cook, even instilling a "Jenna has to cook once a month" rule. Somehow, with as strict as my parents were I got out of it. I don't know how I managed that. Now that I'm married, cooking has been a learning experience. I have to say that I think deep down I could like it. If I really tried...I do get joy out of making a great meal--mostly watching Blake eat it, he loves food. But, since I've had such a learning curve, I'd focus hard on one thing and just make that. And completely forget to make it a whole meal! Seriously, for 3 years now, I've repeatedly focused on the main course or just the MEAT and not make anything else with it, but be so proud that I made something. This of course incurred much teasing from my family. So I am posting this picture to prove that last night I made a balanced meal:
This meal is thanks to a new program I started...last night. Hence the nice meal. I signed up for this site that posts a meal plan each week and it comes with the ingredients on a shopping list! Already made for you. Here's the site: http://www.e-mealz.com/index.shtml
What's cool is that you can pick the meal plan that best fits you, like I picked Meals for 2, Lowfat, shopping at Walmart. But you can pick from lots of plans. If I don't like a meal that is scheduled for a certain day, I can just substitute it with a crockpot recipe of my own or something. This sounds basic, but the way this site has the plans posted and laid out...it just really meshes with my lifestyle. So we'll see how long I keep up with it! They try to incorporate at least a crockpot meal and two "easy" meals a week. Beef stew is cooking in the crockpot for us tonight!
This meal is thanks to a new program I started...last night. Hence the nice meal. I signed up for this site that posts a meal plan each week and it comes with the ingredients on a shopping list! Already made for you. Here's the site: http://www.e-mealz.com/index.shtml
What's cool is that you can pick the meal plan that best fits you, like I picked Meals for 2, Lowfat, shopping at Walmart. But you can pick from lots of plans. If I don't like a meal that is scheduled for a certain day, I can just substitute it with a crockpot recipe of my own or something. This sounds basic, but the way this site has the plans posted and laid out...it just really meshes with my lifestyle. So we'll see how long I keep up with it! They try to incorporate at least a crockpot meal and two "easy" meals a week. Beef stew is cooking in the crockpot for us tonight!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Videos
This is Blake singing "I Will Sing of My Redeemer"
These are unaltered, unedited, and un-beefed up :)
This is the background vocals for the Medley:
Done with Vocals
Blake finished the vocals for his new CD this week! He was in Nashville all last week and I got to join him for the last half. It went really well and Blake's voice sounded great. We had a scary week just in the fact that on the first day of recording Blake pulled a muscle (or a few) in his neck while singing and they swelled up so big they were squeezing his vocal chords and he had a hard time with a few registers. His neck was rock hard because it was so swollen Wednesday night we were considering going to a doctor to get a steroid shot so he could finish the vocals on Thursday, but we prayed and God healed Blake enough to get through the last day and finish up without any dangerous shots. I have to say this CD is going to be SO good. It's beautiful and fun and uplifting. Blake's best one yet. Oh, and Blake's neck is still a little swollen and he's on vocal rest this week so he can sing for his upcoming concerts, but his voice sounds good and not like it was damaged at all.
Here are some photos. I have more to upload but they are still on the camera. Perhaps I even have a video clip somewhere... ;) Oh, and as for that house we put an offer on...the bank still hasn't responded to it yet. It's been over a week, grrr.
Here are some photos. I have more to upload but they are still on the camera. Perhaps I even have a video clip somewhere... ;) Oh, and as for that house we put an offer on...the bank still hasn't responded to it yet. It's been over a week, grrr.
Here is Blake singing with the $25,000 microphone.
Actually, to get a good shot I had to go into the room but not while he was "for real" singing. Blake posed for me :) (for some reason you have to click the picture to see the whole picture...weird)
Actually, to get a good shot I had to go into the room but not while he was "for real" singing. Blake posed for me :) (for some reason you have to click the picture to see the whole picture...weird)
Blake asking a question or something
Blake's view from his recording room.
It's soundproof so all he had was a small window to see us
and we had to push a button to be able to talk to him.
It's soundproof so all he had was a small window to see us
and we had to push a button to be able to talk to him.
Listening back
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