God's timing!

Some years ago I had found out about the first time homebuyer bond program which give the buyer 4% towards closing/down payment/pre-paids. I was totally psyched as I'm always up for some free money :) I mean who isn't. anyway, we found this house and the bank says there is no bond money because of the "market" conditions.

I accepted that (initially) and proceeded to negotiate the contract which eventually came down to who's going to pay the closing costs? Well with no bond money to lean on I stood my ground and said, "not me". The came back with a couple offers and again I turned them down standing firm, then they lowered the price and I declared, "DONE!!!"

Well skip to last week when I persist to get more info on the bond thing since I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to free money. I speak to this one guy and he tells me that I should apply anyway since they are trying to get funded. I left a message for my banker to submit the application.

This morning bright and early he began putting the application together and through my searching for other "free money" I discovered that the bond had some money available and tomorrow I should know how much they are reserving for me, YAY!!! Did I mention, everything in God's time? :)

Riding the purplewave

So I am totally addicted to purplewave.com an auction site rocks!!! I am currently bidding on several restaurant quality items from an Inn that is closing 3 hours away. I googled the stove and found out that it would cost $3000, WOW!!

Anyway, the auction is due to end on the same day as we are closing on the house so everyone pray that I have a smooth closing and a comercial kitchen for a fraction of the cost. Did I mention I'm also bidding on the dishwasher, beautiful high powered piece of machinery.

Oh if I could just take the whole kitchen and the tables and chairs, scratch that, if I could just transplant the whole Inn here, that would be divine. It totally feed into my retirement plans of a B&B but we'll have to work on that a while longer.

Home Buying frustrtion and venting

How is it my realtor doesn't seem to have the faintest concept of time. I call him to check on certain items like getting a key so that the water sample can get done and oh that's right 3 days later I am still calling him and getting the same answers.

Mind you I probably shouldn't be surprised as I seem to constantly be the one calling and calling and calling. It's like pulling teeth with him and that other guy, you'd think we were living in a sellers market and the economy was just booming for their business.

Oh the joys of home buying,no wonder people try to do this but once or twice in their lifetime.

Grocery shopping for a family of 7

I should mention here that we bought a 1/4 side of beef and a 1/2 of hog with our state tax refund. This has been a tremendous blessing and savings as we paid 2.25/lb for the beef wichi included lots of premium cuts that we would othrwise have never bought. Turns out steak is a great thing if cooked right and in this house that means well done or dead as I like to call it. But I digress, this is not about juicy steaks but about the rest of the shopping.

Here is the Original order to get most of the basics and a few stock-up items (item/qty/subtotal):

1. HUGGIES wipes 1 $14.86
2. POM toilet paper 1 $17.88
3. VERYFINE fruitpunch 1 $2.42
4. SWEET ONIONS 5lbs 1 $4.88
5. CANTALOUPE 1 $1.88
6. SLICED MUSHROOMS 2 $4.94
7. POLARWARE (cooking spoons) 1 $4.76
8. PURINA puppychow 1 $18.28
9. SUNNY HILL OJ 3 $10.86
10. STRINGLESS SNAP PEAS 1 $5.48
11. STOUFFERS Lasagna 2 $19.64
12. BAKERS CHEFS Straws 1 $10.46
13. STATE FAIR Corn dogs 1 $8.83
14. BANANAS @ 3lbs each 2 $2.64
15. SEEDLESS RED GRAPES 1 $5.87
16. COLD CUPS - plastic 1 $9.28
17. HOT POCKETS 1 $12.83
18. ROMA TOMATOES 1 $5.10
19. MEMBERS MARK Pull ups 1 $21.88
20. WELCHS Grape jelly 1 $3.12
21. CLIP TOP CARROTS 1 $2.46
22. NAVEL ORANGE 1 $7.84
23. MEMBERS MARK Apple juice 1 $4.52
24. KELLOGGS Waffles 1 $8.02
25. CELERY HEARTS 1 $2.27
26. MRS BUTTERWORTH Syrup 1 $6.34

This brings us to a whopping total of $217.34 for 2 weeks. This was our first trial run at this type of ordering, the follow up orders have been modified. Here is a look at this weeks order whih includes items that we run out of this week, like ketchup.

1. VERYFINE
2. SWEET ONIONS
3. MEMBERS MARK Trash bags
4. SLICED MUSHROOMS
5. STOUFFERS
6. STATE FAIR
7. SEEDLESS RED GRAPES
8. HEINZ Ketchup
9. HOT POCKETS
10. ROMA TOMATOES
11. WELCHS Grape Jelly
12. NAVEL ORANGE
13. MEMBERSMARK Apple juice
14. KELLOGGS Waffles
15. RAINBOW Hamburger buns

The total for the above item was $177.91. Orange Juice was purchased a Dillons this week as it was on special @ $2.99 a gallon and potatoes were also on sale. This weeks was tweeked from last weeks which was tweeked from the week before or the first week shown above.

Welcome to our life and home.

This blog is to chronicle our lives and the transition from city life to country living. It is our hope to have a subsistence farm and a dozen or so God-fearing kids :)

So lets introduce the current cast:
My darling husband affectionately referred to as DH in this blog. Together we have 5 great kids AR -10, EE - 7, HG - 4, SM - 2 and IL - 9months but lets not forget our awesome dog Sammy. And last there's me, Ellsworthville manager and creator, DW.

We currently live in a 'mobile home' (trailer for those who aren't familiar) :P It's a 3/2 and 1200 sq ft, quite small for a family of 8. We are in the process of buying a 5/1 with 2539 sq ft and 10 acres. But, well have lots of time to talk about that later.

Hope to see you soon.