The next adventure...

Apparently, we like to live a life of adventure and anxiety! "Never without a project" should be our family motto! With our house complete and perfect, we have decided to try and give selling another go-round. Make sense?? No, not at all!! However, we have agreed that we don't see us staying here long term and an opportunity arouse that we decided to give it a shot. I have lost sleep, probably gotten an ulcer and been very stressed about this decision. In the midst of this uncertainty, I know that we are a very fortunate family and we make solid decisions that are always with the best of our family in mind, and with that... I know that in the end, all will be good.
So... here is the latest. As of a couple of weeks ago, we have put our house on the market. We priced it a little bit more "competitive" than we did last summer and are fully aware that the housing market is not in a great spot and will see what happens. We have no pressure to sell immediately, so we are going to take it as it comes (let me say, writing this is MUCH easier than wrapping my head around that concept!) I do feel a little emotional seeing the "for sale" sign in the yard.

And... we have (or will finalize it on Monday) bought a piece of property to build on. It is a lot in an existing neighborhood that is very close to our current home (0.9 miles away to be exact). It is a beautiful neighborhood, with lots of places to walk or bike around. The lot is flat and a decent size with very nice homes surrounding it. We have liked this neighborhood for a while and have even looked at the lot before - but it was priced higher than we would have considered. With a recent drop in price on the lot and Nick's low ball offer... it has panned out for us to be the new owners of this lot. Nick has always wanted to build his own house and we both feel much more knowledgeable about what kind of space is important for us in a house and think we can build a house that is perfect for us, in a price range that will end up saving us money and downsizing our already pretty reasonable mortgage. Nick has an amazing eye and ability for projects like this. With a project of this size, he may not be the "hammer and nail" guy for all the building, but he will be the brains and organizer of it all. We have found a plan that we like and are excited to start thinking about the details, once we get action on our current home.

So... the timetable.... we close on the property tomorrow and will probably do little to lot in the immediate future. We will wait to see what happens with the sale of this home. Once this sells, we will look for a rental (YUCK - I can't even begin to think about the stress that this part of the process will do to me.... moving 2x with 3 kids, while working full time and having to keep up with all their activities, school work and still manage to be sane!). While in the rental, the construction on the house will happen. Depending on the time of year of all of this, will guide us on how much Nick can work on the house, thus how fast the project will move forward. So, I guess the short story of the timetable, is that we don't really have one. We could be in the new house in 9 months or 9 years.... we will see how it plays out.

Since we have made this decision, I have second guessed it about a million times. How does one know if a decision is right?? I list the pros and cons in my head over and over and make Nick talk to me about it more than I am sure he is finding amusing. In the end, I go back to my thought that Nick would never do anything that would jeopardize our family, thus if he feels good about this, I can to. Also, when Nick asks me to forgo all the immediate stress (the selling of the house, the construction, the in-between rental) I feel really good about the new house in the new neighborhood, with the tremendous pride that we will all feel knowing that Nick was the brains behind our home! :)

So... here's to the next project of the Giumarra family!