Irons in the Fire

Whoa!  We've got too many irons in the fire.  We're keeping very busy with:

Family - raising Noah, being married, etc.
Jobs - we both are experiencing unusually busy periods at work right now
Home Improvement - I'm trying to keep you all updated on the bathroom project as it crawls along
Business Dealings - more on that later
Moving? - Buying, Selling, Cleaning, Showing, Negotiating, Financing, Marketing - more on that later too
Bike Team - there are a few meetings and promotionals that we are involved in during the off season

I can hardly keep up with it all!

Business Dealings and Moving-
We were working hard a few weeks ago to get a particular pizza deal to happen.  We got word that it was not going to happen and we closed that deal, cancelled the contract.  While we were "under contract" with that business, another one popped up that was interesting to Brian, but we were unavailable to pursue it.  Shortly before the pizza contract went south, we discovered that we were simultaneously drooling over a house on an acreage very close to the bike trails and a good ride to work.  We decided to go see it when we heard the pizza deal wasn't going to happen.  Fell in love.  It's not a perfect house (because we haven't "made it our own" yet), but the land and location are fantastic.  We heard that they had an offer, but it wasn't reviewed or negotiated yet, it was simply on the table.  Yikes!  We don't like to make decisions fast, but this couldn't be helped.  We would both mourn the "SE Farm" if we let that one get away.  So, we spent 4 days fighting to get the sellers to make a contract with us.  We are, of course, in the middle of a major bathroom remodel, on top of this all.  We have a contract now and it looks like we'll be singing "Welcome to the Farm" in mid-April.  On Sunday we did a "home inspection", made it a family affair, so it was fun and we had helpful feedback from a few other perspectives.  We need to make sure that we don't buy another money pit.  We still need to summarize our findings and decide if the known fixes are worth the expense and challenge of starting over and the price we settled on paying.  On Monday, we heard 2 business related things... The pizza deal could be revived if we want it to be (Corporate changed their minds and decided to approve us even though we won't quit our jobs??!).  The other business of interest to Brian is still available and worth a real consideration.  It would work nicely from the "Farm" and we could easily make the deal work into the finances associated with moving, as long as we sell our downtown house.  We're listing "by owner" until the bathroom is complete, so there is quite a bit of work to be done with that as well.  We made a flyer, have told everyone we know, have shown the house to a few buyers agents.  We are showing the house to a potential buyer on Friday.  It's just a single showing, but we want to be as prepared as if it was a full-fledge MLS open house.  It only takes one! 

We aren't sure what order to make these major decisions in.  We're just praying for clarity and that the puzzle works itself out.  We aren't even sure how we ended up in this tangled web.  Maybe we just need to pray for contentment, learn to say no, and not look for trouble (aka - houses or businesses), but that hasn't really been working too well for us for the past few years...