A Good Day

Yesterday was beautiful. Gorgeous. We had the windows open all day long and now our house smells SO good. I'm anticipating doing the same thing today. And the house is getting deep cleaned today, and not by me. Yay!

Nathan woke me up at 1 pm in order to help him clean up the house because we had a local realtor coming over to talk with us about putting the house on the market. Yep, we're already putting it on the market. We figure that we never really know when we're actually going to have to move, and that when it does happen it's going to be an absolute whirlwind so it's better to get it on the market now than later. She absolutely loved what we've done with the house, and was even more pleased than usual as she has sold this house twice before (once to Marla) and knows it really well. After giving us some pointers on little things that needed to be done before it's truly sellable, we made an appointment for her to some back on Wednesday with paperwork and estimates. Yay! Evidently she thinks this size house is going to be selling like hot cakes thanks to Obama's $8000 first time home buyer incentive. I think that's the first time I've ever used "thanks to" and "Obama" in the same sentence without it being sarcastic.

Anyway, we have a really good feeling about getting this house sold, and realize that we're going to take a bit of a hit as it's a buyer's market right now, but you've gotta sell the house when you've gotta sell the house. The best part...selling this house, as much as we hate to do it, will get us 100% out of debt.

100%!

Before we're thirty no less. Both Nathan and I have been watching Dave Ramsey's show on Hulu.com (check it out, he's awesome, be prepared to have your misconceptions about money absolutely rocked; did you know that you really don't "deserve" that new car if you can't really pay for it and that credit doesn't count as being able to "pay for it"?) and we're even more motivated to claw our way out of debt as quickly as possible. The sooner we're out of debt, the sooner we can start saving up our 6-8 months worth of emergency living expenses, and the sooner we can start saving for a house, retirement, and college for the boys. I know I'm tooting my own horn here, but I'm so proud of Nathan and I for admitting that we've made some pretty major money mistakes and working to turn them around. Not to mention resolving to never go into any debt that doesn't involve a house ever again. It feels good.

The other good news we received yesterday? I called the Life Flight HR office to check on the application I had submitted for a dispatch postition with them, as there was a warning on the application page saying that they'd been having problems with their application website. I also wanted to know what their hiring schedule looks like because almost all of the jobs that I've applied to have a hiring process that takes around 5-6 months, kid you not.

When I talked to the gal in HR, she immediately recognized my name, saying she had just read my application. Evidently they are going to be calling applicants to set up interviews in the beginning of next week. I explained to her my situation with my current job and asked when she expected they would be actually making an offer of employment. She said that once they do the interviews (2 or so weeks after scheduling them next week), she expects that they would be making an offer 3-4 weeks after that!!! At that point, she pulled up my application and told me that she had already forwarded it on to the hiring manager and that I should be expecting a call next week. If I read her correctly, that means I'm getting an interview! YAY!

I also received an email from the regional manager of Snohomish, the Young Life area I applied for an Area Director position in, stating that they don't have a position available to match my gift sets. You know, I thought I'd be really disappointed if I didn't get that job, but I think God has been working in my heart because I had honestly stopped wanting that job. For some reason, I'm feeling like we're really suppose to be moving back over into the Portland area, or at least Northwestern Oregon. But we'll see. Just when I think I have God's plan all figured out, he brings something completely different and even better along.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), with the prospect of having to move relatively soon looming over us, we've also realized that we need to get rid of a TON of stuff. So for the next couple of weeks, every spare moment not devoted to taking care of the boys, eating or sleeping is going to be consumed with mercilessly paring down our collection of junk. If we don't absolutely need it in our day to day lives or haven't used it in six months, it's getting put in our shed outside. And then in about three weeks or so, we'll be having a massive yard sale and anything that doesn't sell will be taken directly to Salvation Army. I can't even tell you how excited I am to get rid of all of this clutter. I mean, massively excited. Once the yard sale is over, we'll be focusing on getting the last touch-up's done on the house. It's going to be insanely hectic, but so rewarding at the same time.

Please be praying for these hiring processes for me and that we'll sell the house quickly. And that everything will fall into place at just the right time. Oh, and for our sanity please. Thanks and we'll keep you posted!