The Best Laid Plans...

Well, bad news and good news for the average American family this week. We won't be able to get a mortgage for the new house for a little while - we need to make some credit repairs to avoid a horrible interest rate. The good news however, is that we've devised a plan to 'rent' from the estate for a year (by continuing to pay the old mortgage) to give us time to clean up our credit, while we hang on to the house, and build even more equity.

Meanwhile, the house is FINISHED (thank you Mom and Gordie!) except for some paint and other minor repairs. So provided our plan to keep paying the current mortgage is approved by the estate lawyer on Monday, we will move in by Halloween.

The kids are glad we're chilling this weekend instead of spending all our time working on the house the way we have for the past month. They were GREAT while we worked, but they're happy to get to play with their toys again. They did have some fun during the remodel, though.

For example, here they're doing a little interior decoration on their temporary "playhouses"....


And here they're playing pick-up-sticks. Sort of....


And there's a lot to be said for a nap, although generally two camp chairs pushed together while your parents work past midnight isn't exactly the most comfortable place!


All things considered, working together to remodel the house was a good experience. Hopefully, everything will work out, and this is the last time we'll EVER have to move. Also, just a little advice learned the hard way - paying your bills ON TIME is the most important thing you can do for your credit. Turns out it's not the amount of debt we have, or even the few never paid medical bills we had overlooked that are really destroying our credit - it's the payments we made, but made LATE. We've learned. We will fix it. But it could have been (and could still be - shudder) too late. Why don't they teach this stuff in school???