News...

...and, NO, I'm not pregnant!

In case you haven't heard, Brent and I are going to be building our house soon. I've been hesitant to say this because something could always happen before we get started and keep us from moving forward, but I'm getting really excited so I just couldn't wait any longer to tell you! Brent and I have had our house plans picked out for most (if not all) of Nolan's life, so, I guess about 6-7 years. In June we will have been married for 10 years. For 7 of those years I have been in school. For all 10 of these years we've been TRYING to pay off debt and not feeling like we were getting very far. Recently, we were blessed to have some things happen that helped us really move ahead in our debt paying. We thought....maybe we can start building soon.... We started talking to a couple of banks to see if we could start building next spring...we found out that we are able to get a loan to build....we decided that maybe we would be ready to start in late summer/early fall....Brent began making some phone calls...we kept talking to the bank...now, we've decided that we can start as soon as we can get everything lined up.

Are we excited? YES!!! It is SO awesome to know that we have almost reached this goal that we've had for so long! We are not debt-free but it won't be much longer until we are closer to being debt-free (except for the house and my school loans). Now, I'm obsessed with paying off bills. I sit and stare at the budget spreadsheet and try to figure out how we can pay even more on bills. Can we survive on a $100/month grocery budget? Do I have to have a haircut this month? Do we have to have XYZ? You wouldn't believe how far this OTTER has come!!! (for those of you who don't know about this....it's a personality test that you can do...you can be an otter, beaver, lion, or golden retriever. See the previous post for more info, but OTTERS are the ones that like to have FUN and like to spend MONEY!)

So, anyhow, please pray for us as we begin this process. Pray that we are making good decisions. Pray that our marriage is strong through this process! Pray that we will be able to use our home to be the people that God wants us to be. I can't wait to have a home to use to invite people over and develop deeper relationships with them.

I will definitely post pictures of the work once we get started!