Update on our giant list of to do's

Happy 2016 everyone!!! I can't believe how fast last year went and I wonder if this year will be the same. Hopefully not! I am really trying to be more present in each day and stop wishing for the next event, next vacation, next big to do, next weekend, etc. and really appreciate each day as it comes.

We've made a "teensy" amount of progress. Here's a little update on our giant list of to do's (Completed tasks has been moved to the bottom):

In process tasks:

• Apply and get a pre-approval letter from our new bank. I've filled out all of the online paperwork and finished sending in our W2s, bank account info, tax statements, pay stubs, our blood type, 401k statements, etc. today. We are now waiting to hear back. Cross your fingers and your toes!
• Put cost into excel spreadsheet in a fancy new tab called "Dairy Home" Done! And it's already starting to add up and we really haven't done much yet! That's scary.
• Plan out our dream home with the home designer / builder I heard from our designer / builder yesterday that he has the 1st floor done in CAD and he's working on the 2nd floor. He wants to meet next week to give us his plans for our 1st markup!!
• Receive contract / MOU for blueprints We will receive this next week at our meeting!!
• Crazy crack down on our budget This is a really good goal to have anyways, but with building a home and all of the costs that go with it, I want to make sure we are really good stewards of our money!

To be completed tasks:

• Try to get the plan right the first time so we don't end up paying for multiple sets of blueprints
• Cry and stress that I've made the right decisions
• Send approximately 1,750 more emails to our home designer / builder
• Get final blueprints and approve
• File our 2015 taxes
• Apply for construction loan / mortgage (we will be rolling our construction loan into a mortgage with the same bank, so less fees, less hassle, etc.) 
• Receive contract for building our home
• Tell everyone we know that we cannot go to your wedding, your birthday, go out to eat, buy new clothes, participate in bake sales / fundraisers, travel to see you - until the house is complete and then we'll have you over for dinner but will you please bring the food / booze because we've now spent all of our money?
• Receive schedule / task list from builder
• Pray that it is super detailed and organized
• Possibly re-do schedule / task list to suit my brain and email to home designer / builder
• Pray he sees this as endearing and not irritating (it's a 50/50 shot)
• Start building
• For once in my life, pray for no rain 
• Install hidden cameras on the land to spy on construction (just kidding, maybe, that's expensive - I have my mother-in-law for that)
• Find reasons to visit the ranch to check on progress
• Pick out finishes, appliances (just wait till you see the stove I am getting / want to get / oh please to everything that is holy pray to get), furnishings, paint colors, etc.
• Cry and stress that I've made the right decisions
• Pick up every piece of furniture I can find at garage sales, estate sales, on the side of the road, at antique shops, at flea markets, etc. and make something beautiful out of it
• Spend weeks planning where art / dead animals will hang on the walls downstairs since, well, concrete walls and where something gets hung is where something will stay. For life. Or until Nick buys himself an impact drill. Christmas gift anyone??
• Finish house (these two words seem so simple)
• Move into house
• I know there is more involved in the whole "finishing" and "moving into" the house, but at the point we're at, that's the gist of what I know right now

Completed tasks:

• Research and find a structural engineer to certify the home is structurally sound to build on AND can support a 2nd story
• Try not to laugh at the guy on the phone who told me this would cost $35,000
• Find and hire a structural engineer who we won't have to name our second born after
• Hire a survey company to do something with the elevation / flood plane - we have to do this to make sure we build above the flood level (something like that, I was not in charge of this step of the process). All I know is if it floods, I'll thank God our floors are remaining concrete and break out my squeegee.
• Research architects
• Almost cry at cost of architects (you want to charge me WHAT per square foot?????)
• Google "how to design a home by yourself using the internet, a pencil and graph paper"
• Read somewhere on the mighty internet that a home designer can do the plans for a home at a fraction of the cost
• Research home designers
• Get irritated that there's a lack of home designers down here that do anything other than a beachy cottage vibe - keep your starfish shells and coral away from my house, please :)
• Find a few home designers that I can stand
• One design company is in Wyoming and apparently Texas is too far away for them - fine, don't take my money
• Interview home designers (Nick had to do this task with his mom, along with me on the phone, since I'm chained to a desk and my current prison sentence only allows for a 60 minute meal break)
• Talk to Nick about the designers we interviewed and decide on one guy 
• Get excited that our decided home designer will also be our builder (and pray for him that he has to deal with me from start to finish)
• Send lengthy email with 914 questions to our decided home designer
• Include link to Pinterest board with 100+ (and growing) pins of our ideal home (how did people design anything before Pinterest???)
• Realize how grateful I am to have a husband like Nick who is on board (99% of the time) with my design aesthetic and is fully supportive of letting me design my dream home - his only requirement: home cooked meals and desserts come out of my fancy kitchen every day - DONE AND DONE
• Hire designer (and silently cheer that he wasn't scared away by my lengthy email signaling possible neurotic and OCD problems)

Sometimes the first decision is the right decision

There's been a lot of back and forth.

We make a decision.

We change it.

We go back to the initial decision.

It changes again.

Oh, well, looks like we're back again at the same decision.

Initially when we were planning to move to Corpus Christi from Dallas when Nick graduated chiropractic school, we planned to rent for a little bit and then build a house. We were going to use an empty concrete dairy barn on Nick's parent's property that was built in 1946 by his grandfather (his mom's dad).

Well, fast forward a few years, and one kiddo later (Conner), I had the strongest desire to live in a neighborhood. One with sidewalks, neighbors we could be friends with and have over for dinner (who am I kidding, I don't like people), easy access to shopping / grocery stores (a nice/big grocery store is a very important part of life), and a place where our current kiddo and future kiddo(s) would play with their neighborhood friends.

So we scrapped the "build onto the dairy" idea and started looking for homes. In this fantasy world I had imagined in my head, we were going to buy a beautiful new home in the best school district around Corpus. There was a big problem though - it's really expensive to live there. And I grew up in Dallas so I know what's expensive and the cost was scary for me. But we wanted the best for Conner and when it came to scores, graduation rates, college attendance rates, SAT/ACT testing and scoring, attendance rate - the school district we wanted to move into was the top top top, minus the private schools. While the private schools in Corpus mostly have amazing academics, their athletic departments are lacking and we do not feel comfortable sending our **crossing our fingers and praying** athletically inclined son to. We are in Texas where football is right up there with Jesus (I hope you sense the sarcasm here) and sports are very important in our family. In a former life (i.e. a few years ago), I worked for an educational non-profit and part of my job was compiling reports and statistics from the TEA (Texas Education Agency) on how our schools were performing so that we could make steps to take under-performing schools in the right direction with training, etc. So I am well-versed in the all of the data that you can get on schools and their districts. It's a LOT of data. Maybe too much for someone like me that will research something to death. So when we moved to Corpus knowing we were having a child, I did all of the research on all of the school districts in the area. Let's just say, there's a whole lot of bad with a few bright spots.

After driving through our fantasy neighborhood a million times (mainly to get Conner to nap in the car on the way home from the grocery store), we started discussing that maybe this wasn't the right move for our family. Could we afford to move there? Well, yes, but would we be able to buy food and clothing? Most likely not. And we'd be the poor people of the neighborhood. As much as that does not matter to me, it's not a stigma I want for my child. Kids are cruel these days and if I can avoid something that might possibly trigger bullying, I will. Another problem with that neighborhood and school district, it's 99% white. Well, yes, we are also white, so what's the problem? I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood and school system (until high school where we moved into a predominantly white school system) where I was the minority. I remember in 3rd grade I was the only white female in my class. I think it's very important to be around people of other races, religions, genders, differences and disabilities. Growing up with the knowledge that others around you may be different than you but they're no less than you is a good lesson to learn.

So, we started looking at other school districts that might have excellent, although not amazing, test scores but also have more affordable housing. We decided on two school districts and started looking at homes that were in our "more comfortable, able to eat" price range. Of course we found a home that we both loved, but it sold. That was definitely a blessing though! After losing the house we loved (although you can't really say we lost it since we weren't even close to actually buying a house yet, but in my mind we had claimed it), we needed to re-evaluate where we wanted to be, what schools we wanted Conner in, what we wanted for his (and future children's) childhood, what area our new business (more on that later) was going to be in, and what our long term goals were.

We kept coming back to the dairy. It checked off so many boxes:

• I would be able to build my dream home from the ground up (makes my design heart SO HAPPY)
• We would be able to take a piece of my husband's history, and now Conner's, and make that a part of the rest of our lives
• I'd get to have mini goats (yes, not kidding, Nick agreed)
• Conner (and future kiddos) would be able to have a similar childhood's to Nick and grow up out in the country
• The best part of all - Conner would be able to grow up "just across the barn" from his grandparents and for Nick and me, that's reason enough

There was one thing that kept stopping us from pulling the trigger and building our home out in the country - schools, again. The school district that the dairy is in is, well, just plain awful and not a place we wanted to send Conner. So I started looking into district transfer rules. With the knowledge of the transfer rules and knowing the closest school district had plans to build a new charter school that will be focused on post-secondary readiness and will graduate you with an associates degree AND allow you to participate in the school district's athletic program, we made a decision.

It was our first decision all along. 

We are going to make the dairy our home.