Summertime

And the livin' is easy . . .

I must, of course, thank George Gershwin for that simplistic, unrealistic, yet terribly desired phrase.  No job offers yet.  Likely if it doesn't come today, then there's a tiny hope for tomorrow, but then hope is mostly gone after that.  They said it would be this week.  Still, we did what was right, and we felt good about it, so we have faith.  That said, I think most of our boring time is over for this summer as things are revving back up for our move.  We are 12 days from our contract ending, and though we have no job, no house, and no clue, we're pushing forward with faith and hope.  Bonus, we're trying to show charity to one another during a rather stressful time; trifecta!  Our current thought is to stay here in Columbia, even in our same ward if we can.  Unfortunately, we really need a rather large home and there aren't any to be found with our possibly unrealistic expectations.  We don't ask for much, really, just 4 bedrooms (or 3 with a den or SUPER large family room), living room, dining room, family room, Kitchen, yard, and a bathroom.  The things we'd like?  A finished basement, which can double as a family room, fencing around our yard, a place for a little storage (those little boy clothes have to go somewhere!) and, if at all possible, more than one bathroom.  Square footage required?  2100-2500.  We've tried to whittle down the list the best we can, but this is already rather bare bones.  Here are the considerations:

• We home school.  That requires space not only for the schooling, but also room for children to be there most of every day.  This space must be both inside and out.  Large family room, large fenced yard.
• Liz works from home.  Not like doing PTA work, but real, intense, 30 hours every week work.  She needs an office space where she can have peace away from television and bedroom.
• James also requires home office space, but this can be shared with Liz.  In fact, we're willing to make an all out Liz/James/Boys office where all the work gets done.
• We want to have people over for fun.  I wouldn't call us entertainers, but we've made so many friends here, and rarely do we get together at our house because it's just too small for more than one family at a time.  Living Room necessary.  Yard helps too.

See?  We don't ask for much, but these are hard to come by.  There are some really nice new construction homes available, but they're only 1300-1500 sq. ft. on a slab.  That's smaller than our house now, and without the extra basement storage!  We have a couple leads, one split-level quite near the church with which Liz is in love, and another in Ashland, a small town about 15 minutes south.  That one's on 3 acres, but it might be 900 sq. ft.   Who knows?  We'll have to call and see, I suppose.  So, that is our task for this week—get closer to having a house in two weeks.  Keep us in your prayers and we'll keep you posted.