A Leap of Faith

I know it's been awhile since my last post and that's because life for our little family has been nothing short of hectic! We have totally begun a new chapter in our lives. Here's the scoop: we won the lottery!!! Nope, just kidding, but that would be awesome, huh? OK, now this other stuff probably isn't going to sound as cool and exciting, but that's alright. Here we go.....

1. Greg quit his job. Yup, my husband is no longer a wind turbine technician. To catch some of you up; we packed up and moved from Colorado to Texas back in April so that we could be closer to our lake house. As you'll recall, we were not having any luck finding a new house to purchase. Perhaps this was fate, because a few weeks into his "new" job (which was with the exact same company that he worked for in Colorado) he began to hate it. I will spare you the gory details, but lets just say that poor management can really make or break a work place.

Ever since I've met Greg he has talked about being his own boss and having his own business. But, we all know that having your own business is a little scary. OK, it's REALLY scary! Once Greg began loathing his job, we started plotting a way to change our lives. It kind of happened faster than we anticipated, so things are kind of a crazy mess right now....read on.

2. We moved back to Oklahoma!!! To our lake house, that is. This happened just under two weeks ago when Greg quit his job. Don't get me wrong...we had been plotting a move so it wasn't completely sporadic. All of our stuff that we had in storage when we moved to Texas was slowly moved into the shop here at our lake place. This past week has involved unpacking and trying to attempt to fit all of our stuff into a house that is smaller than any of the other homes we've ever lived in. To add a little more confusion to the mess.......

3. We are remodeling our house! This began almost a month prior to Greg quitting his job. The living room and dining room are finished, the kitchen just lacks the backsplash being tiled and a little trim work, and Parkers room was just finished on Tuesday. We plan on remodeling both bathrooms soon as well, but they will have to wait. I want the house to look "beachy" so it has a little different feel than any of our other houses. I think my decor will make it more beachy and I haven't had time to shop for un-tacky beach accessories yet, but it's on my never ending to-do list! Don't worry, I will post before and after pictures in a future post. Now I mentioned that this is the smallest house we've lived in; it only has two bedrooms. Our last two houses both had four bedrooms. Are you starting to understand why I said unpacking is slightly difficult. Because of this, Greg is currently building a guest room/hobby room in our shop that's next to the house. If everything goes according to plan that space will be finished by next weekend. (I'm telling you our list never ends). Everyone who knows me well, knows that Greg and I always finish remodeling and then sell a house. We are busting our butts so we can have this house finished so we can actually live in, and ENJOY, our remodel! We are also trying to work quickly because....

4. Greg is starting his own handy-man/remodeling business! The guy has skill, let me tell ya! Although a few people have not been very encouraging about this move because of the economy, Greg is optimistic enough to believe that he will be able to stay so busy with work that people will hire him to do that he won't have enough time to work on our house. With that thought in mind, we are doing every thing we can to quickly make this "house" feel like a "home". Finally, this whole "new chapter in our lives" wouldn't be complete if we didn't also throw in the fact that...

5. I have re-activated my Oklahoma real estate license and will begin working full time next week! I hung my license with a broker in town back in July (told ya we'd been plotting) with hopes to buy up a couple of rental properties before Greg quit his job and we were both self employed (ie: no lender will probably touch us for a loan for the next few years). Unfortunately, I forgot how long it actually takes to get the ball rolling when you first hang your license with an office and by the time I was able to start scoping out properties, there weren't any we were interested in and we weren't willing to wait around for them to pop up either. Things have changed since 2007 when I put my license on in-active to travel around the country with Greg, but I'm excited to jump right back in! My office is extremely small: just me and two other ladies. In a weird twist of fate, one of the ladies who used to work there just quit to work in another aspect of real estate, and they said I could have her office!! This is a bonus for me, because if I ever have to take Parker to work with me, I can somewhat corral him! And, since I know you're wondering, no, I don't plan on putting Parker in a day care just yet. Greg will watch him on the days that I'm at the office answering phones (which is two days a week) and if I'm showing properties and Greg is off on a job, I'll just take him with me. However, we are both prepared that if both of our businesses take off, we will have no other choice but to put him in day care.

Whew! I feel like I can breath better now that I'm able to tell the world what we've been plotting/scheming/dreaming about for the last several months. What is odd about our whole situation is that I'm not stressed out about it at all. And let me say, I can get stressed out pretty easily! I know that we're taking a leap of faith by Greg quitting a job that more than provided for our family, only for us both to begin working without a guaranteed steady pay check. I was more stressed out when I couldn't find a house I wanted to purchase in Texas. Maybe I'm being completely naive, but I know that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. And I have faith that we are exactly where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to be doing.