An answered prayer....

Today, we sold our house!

We got an offer on it yesterday after a showing on Sunday. I didn't sleep at all last night! The offer we got was low and the buyer was also asking for closing costs, so I was anxious about losing the offer when we decided on a counter. Plus, I wasn't sure what we would have to counter at in order to at least break even because we certainly couldn't afford to lose money on the deal! THEN...I was worried that they wouldn't take our offer, which would put us back to waiting on more interest, which means more cleaning and tidying and carting pets around in the car during showings....oh, and not to mention the newborn who is in our very near future. Let's not even talk about the possibility of them accepting our counter, which meant we would have to be out by July 31 (oh, yeah, that was another of their stipulations....), 2-4 weeks away from my due date possibly with no stable place to live. Again...a very sleepless night.....one of those nights when you remember seeing every single hour.

Anyway, we met with our realtor this morning, set the counter offer, and they accepted within 2 hours of getting our counter! So, it looks like we've sold our house! I'm really hoping it all goes through smoothly and that they don't decide to back out. If they do, though, we'll be okay.

Now, we have to try to find something. We're not going to be in a huge hurry, but I'm not good at transitions....especially unstable transitions....like having to rent for a little while and then moving somewhere. If we have to do that, we will, but gosh....moving twice....with a newborn....and 3 pets....and a husband who just got his first head football coaching position so a lot of his time goes to that.....it's just A LOT.

Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes for the selling of our house. It's a huge relief, but it's also very bittersweet. Almost all of our memories with Ayden are in this house, and they will remain in this house. I hate the thought of walking away from the house we brought him home to...gave him his first bath in....where we heard him laugh for the first time....so many sweet memories. I can look at spots in the house and so fondly recall our time with Ayden. While it's sad, it's also nice that our memories with Ayden are contained to this house. Memories with Ayden won't be confused with memories with Collen or future children. They will have a new house for new memories with them. Does that make sense? We will treasure every memory we have with all of our children (however many we have!), but with the situation being what it is, I'm glad Ayden's memories will be contained to a place that was solely his.

I had to make a hard decision and resign my position from the Writing Project I was going to do at ECU. I hated to have to do that because I was excited about it. I had already read the books and had gotten started on ideas for various projects and teaching demonstrations, but I knew that with such a strict timeline for closing, packing, Jeremy starting a new job - where his school year will start on August 4th - and attempting to find somewhere to live, AND being quite pregnant, it was one of the stressors out of the many that could be let go. I went back and forth on it trying to figure out how I could do it all, but I knew that although I would be at ECU until 4 every day, I would still have work to do/projects to work on when I got home. So, I had to let it go. :( I hate having to back out on something I had already committed myself to, especially when there were limited spots to begin with.

Well, please keep us in prayer about the next step of this journey - finding a house! Luckily, we've had time to look around and decide general areas we are interested in. Now, we just have to figure out what we can afford and get things in motion. Oh the joys....

God will lead us in the right direction - of that, I'm sure.