Life Updates of a Larger Magnitude

December:  After 4 years in Florida, we were nearing the end of our 3-5 timeline to move back to PA. The goal is to be closer to our parents so our kids know them as real people (And not bi-annual visitors). The job and house hunt began at leisurely pace. Early February:  The Hunts stalled after the first week, although I continued trying to persuade my parents to build a smaller addition to their house (for them) and let us buy their main house.  My selling skills are getting better.... McD comes to visit with a potential life path that would begin next year.  I have 3 rehab properties on the market and no end in sight.  We decide to stay in Florida for another 12 months. Late February:  The real estate market goes crazy and I put all 3 properties under contract in 1 week.  In the same vein, we realize our house is worth about $30k more than anticipated if we can get it snapped up in this feeding frenzy.  With my investments freeing up and ...

I've been mulling over how to pair my love of house rehabbing with my desire to give back to the less fortunate.  If I could marry the two, that would be epic.  There is a Tampa based charity that I think I need to learn from, Rebuilding Together Tampa , and I've been meaning to give them a call and see if I can pick their brains. For posterity, I'm going to download what's been rattling around in my brain for a potential charity model... Tonight I thought about finding people to donate their houses to my foundation/charity in their will.  I would then rehab them with company funds, and sell them to the applicant for the cost of renovations plus a small fee to cover overhead.  This is a really long term goal here, but I could also start by tailoring some of my probate marketing to people who have inherited the houses and see if they'd be interested in donating or accepting substantially less than market value for a house.  Ideally, I'd like to give them to ...

This week we are flying out to Denver to spend 5 days with the Schumachers.  WOOOOOOOOOO!  Since we're doing our PA/MA trek for a healthy 3 weeks at Christmas, we thought this would be a prime opportunity to connect with our *other* family.  Not only that, but we are going SNOWBOARDING in gorgeous, powdery, Colorado snow.  (We have sadly lost touch with fun winter sports down here in Florida.) Now that we have kids, and are actually allowing the little urchins to come along, traveling requires a bit more prep.  Kind of like mobilizing an army.  We started shopping for winter clothes last week, laundry began 5 days ago, and packing started 3 days prior to take-off. Yesterday we packed everything that could be done prior to plane day, and today I focused on food.  Yup, almost a whole day focused on food, because (as you have unfortunately seen) I cannot think past my stomach.  And sometimes my children exhibit that same terrible tendency. ...

I just came back from the soul-sucking process known as getting my kids to school/daycare.  (It's like groundhog day, but with a lot of, "Let's go brush our teeth!  Brush your teeth.  BRUSH YOUR TEETH!  Please go get your shoes.  Put on your shoes please.  Put on your shoes.  WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?!  *get in the car*  "Mommy, I forgot to brush my teeth!")  I try to be as pleasant as possible, but I don't always win.  ANYWAY. I walked back into my house, and with an air of defeat said aloud to myself, "All I wanna do..."  at which point, my Fowler brain-washing kicked in and I finished, "is zoom a zoom zoom zoom and a BOOM BOOM!  JUST SHAKE YOUR RUMP!" True story.  This is who I am, people, even when you're not around.

This could be it - the Forever House.  What?!?!?!  That whole covered porch thing would actually become 2 garage bays with amazing doors and then matching entry doors on either side.  Check out these beauties... And my cartoon drawing of the garage area:  The siding and windows will all get replaced.  The interior will get gutted and rebuilt up to code (this thing was built by an artist - great with concepts, bad with "rules" and "codes".)  The back porch needs to be demolished and rebuilt. Currently the house is a 2 family unit, with identical sides that have 3 bedrooms, an office, and 2.5 baths.  They each cover about 2,500 SF.  But the most amazing part is the view from the back.  Through all the crazy vines and trees is a gorgeous overlook of farms,stream, and valley. So the past 3 days have been an emotional whirlwind.  I love how much potential this place has and I'm psyched out of my mind about the thought ...

Tomorrow, I'm flying up to PA to see The Barn (see last post).  My dad and I are going to go through it together, then I'm going to spend about 6 hours coming up with a scope of work and some rough floorplans, and on Wednesday 2 different builders are going to come through it with me and give me an idea of how much it will cost.  I've suspended disbelief and I'm moving on gut instinct alone now.  I hope my guardian angel is watching over me... So, IF the builders say it will cost less than $200k, and IF I can get the house for less than $200k, and IF we can find the financing/money to handle a $400k investment, then... we will either live there when renovations are done OR we will sell it for a profit (I hope).  We could be talking about my forever house here!  Or we could be talking about a flip on the level that I didn't want to be at for another 5 years or so.  Either one is something that I didn't expect to encounter at this point, and I'm a little ov...

It's funny to me (rubber chicken, not funny "ha ha") that things will happen in my life and I think, "Woah.  Everything is dropping into place at a ridiculous rate.  This must be MEANT TO BE."  And I think that about absolutely crazy stuff; my brain has no filter when it comes to "impossible".  Leave Boston and move to FL when you're 8 months pregnant? Sure!  Quit your awesome job because you might be able to make money flipping houses?  Why not?!  But then when I start to encounter a little resistance I think, "Ok, you just went for a ride on the crazy train.  The stars are NOT aligning.  You should get off this train now." And here's how this applies to *right now*.  Sometime in the last 2 weeks, I started to reopen the "moving to PA" door.  I think it's related to 2 things - the fact that my dad is having hernia surgery in a few weeks, and even though this might not be an epic procedure, there have been quite a few ...