Listed..and Ready...

The house is officially listed with Iowa Realty!!!

I am ready for it to be sold...ready to be on to our next adventure, and be able to celebrate.

The photos were taken today and that was the last thing to get it all listed....now we wait...some more...

While we've been waiting on the house to sell, we've done some looking, cost comparisons, debating, updating of the budget, and some more selling.  We're technically not really waiting.  We are believing our home is going to sell fast and we are planning for the future. As much as possible, that is.

We've sold our living room furniture. 1. We thought we wanted recliners. Now, we hardly use them because the kids are either trying to play under them, or are running around them and we don't want one of them to fall on the metal piece. 2. They are HEAVY and BULKY, also something we thought we wanted. 3. EVERYTHING goes under them because they recline and we have wood floors there is a larger gap on the bottom.  Which means, every toy car or every small toy has at some point claimed it as their hiding spot.  When you have more reasons to get rid of something than you do to keep it in our house...it goes...sell, donate or trash. Depending on the size of our next place we have two options/styles of furniture picked out and the color.  Basically, we have made a profit selling our furniture and buying new furniture to go towards our next financial goal. Can I get a whoop, whoop...SCORE!

Meanwhile,  Kenzlie decided she no longer wants to wear diapers.  We've been working on potty training for about two weeks and she has it down. We haven't tried night time yet, we're still working on naps.  However, I haven't bought diapers in two weeks and she has done awesome, especially this week, going in to the bathroom on her own. Ahh, the joys of no longer having to buy diapers.  Another SCORE for the budget! She picked out her own undies and of course of all the different ones Target has she got Doc McStuffins. She loves her show and doesn't like when Kypton choses to watch something other than, "Doc."

Last night, being the house is cleaned and ready to go we didn't really want a mess, it worked perfect that my Brother and Sister-In-Law invited us to the ICubs game.  It was a 1st time for the kids, they did great.  It was puppy night so of course Kenzlie was in puppy heaven.

My Sister-in-Law is going to have her baby boy any time now, so I just keep hoping and praying! Kenzlie loves to say his name and Kypton told me last night, "Jenna already had the baby, remember? Paxton." I think he is going to be in for a rude awakening when he doesn't have his Yenna and Uncle G to himself anymore. Another waiting game to throw in the mix.

Do you ever feel like life is all hurry and wait? You can't do one thing until you know what yada, yada, is going to do/happen.  It literally makes me crazy some days.  I know, I have to let go and trust God.  But, seriously, just seriously.  Everything always works out the way it is suppose to. I honestly believe that. We may not like that we have to go thru the Valleys to get to the Mountain tops, but man it feels so good when we get there, right?

Hope everyone had a great Summer, and is ready for Football season to start soon..Yahhh Fallll!!!

Love,
The Buchholz's

Simply Living...

So, I know one of my recent posts was about living a simpler life.

I'm about to take it to a whole new level.  I mean starting from scratch...

Many of you know me from the college days, and I will admit I was high maintenance.  That might even be putting it nicely.  I don't know if I didn't realize it at the time or if I was just okay with it because I had a standard of life that I wanted.

Enter the real world, a mortgage, jobs, cars, kids etc. Not only did I realize how I was living wasn't making me feel better it has actually done the opposite.  A while back we did Dave Ramsey...twice.  We follow some of his stuff still, but really have lost sight of what we were initially going after.

Four years and two kids later, we've done a lot of reflecting, talking, praying and now taking action.  As most of you know, our house is on the market, today was the last day of 'for sale by owner,' tomorrow it's going to an agent.  We've been talking with him throughout the whole process and we've finally decided after a lot of talks that its time to take the plunge.  Maybe we were just taking our time with the listing self consciously because we weren't sure if it was the right thing, now we are fired up and ready for the big leap.  We are crossing our fingers it goes FAST!

I know the big question everyone has for us..."Where are you going."  Right now, honestly, we have no idea.  And it doesn't really bother us either.  We have a lot of things we want to accomplish in a short amount of time.  We've talked about the idea of moving South (as in southern states, not southern Iowa.)  It's always been a dream to live down South and we aren't ruling it out, just adding it to the bottom of list for now. Lucky for us, Dan loves his job and team here but if he did decide to go with another team, we do know his company has locations in Georgia and Alabama (two of our top choices!)

Our list is long, first and foremost, concurring those pesky student loans (AND FAST.) Second, we've always talked about building...but doing it DEBT FREE.  Building has turned in to me wanting an acreage, where I can work the land, have some pets, maybe some big kids toys ;) and be out of the suburbs. I know some of you are re-reading that saying, "is this the same girl?"  Yes, still me, I still like cute clothes and all things girlie.  But, I've also seen how peaceful a simple life can be.

So, if you are curious about what things are going to be happening with us you will have to keep up with the blog.  We won't be posting much on FB about our new journey and the changes we're making, but I'll try to update the blog with all the changes: budgeting like crazy, everything from scratch, going green, simplifying the closet, decluttering, and decorating our new place. This is the short list.  We are so excited to be stepping closer to our dream life!

This is going to be a long, exciting journey and we are excited to see what God has in store for it all.

Are you living simply? Have you given up the "American Dream," of material must haves and debt? I'd love your tips!

Love,
The Buchholz's