Life is never complicated or busy enough

So I thought I'd up the RPMs and we are moving!

I've been dying to post about this on Facebook but we are early enough in the process we don't want to make a formal announcement yet, plus we want to tell friends and family versus having them find out on social media.

We've been looking for a small acreage for a few years now. We've put offers in a couple times over the years and have either been outbid or found major issues in inspection.

Nancy and I took a day off last week to attend a funeral of a family friend, and on the drive home we were talking about what we wanted out of life and for our family, and the acreage conversation resurfaced. On a bit of a whim she went to craigslist (we never look on craigslist for homes) and found a 3.5 acre place listed for almost what we could afford.

We looked at the place on Thursday, and made an offer on Saturday. The owner accepted our offer Sunday and it has been a whirlwind since then.

We live a couple miles east and north of Fort Collins, CO. This place is exactly 4 miles west and 4 miles north of our current home, so our drive for school, work, church and friends remains practically unchanged.

The home and land are valued about 25% more than our current home, but we've accrued a lot of equity over the past few years due to favorable market conditions in our area. The seller doesn't want to use a realtor and wanted to close fast so she had an asking price that was 170000 below market price. We offered 15K under that and she accepted. The net result is we are getting a really sweet deal on the land and home. We will end up with a lower overall mortgage than we have now!

The home is older, built in 1978, but looks to be in pretty great shape. Most importantly our whole family is very excited about the move and the new space. The house is in the county so livestock, shooting and hunting are all allowed, with the minimal covenants of the older rural HOA being favorable for all those items. There are massive sweeping prairie views and really nice (although a bit less sweeping) mountain views. Mature trees surround the home and the home has a very cool 2 story sunroom with a balcony from the second story hall and one bedroom.

We're planning on chickens and a dog joining our tribe once we move, with goats and possibly a cow at some point. The goats will be pets and weed control and the cow will be dinner.

There is also a finished, lit, heated, insulated shop in the barn, probably 500-600 square feet - which will be my rock and woodworking shop!

Any good vibes and prayers would be welcome in this process, we have to get have 2 concurrent mortgages until we sell our current home. We could afford both payments if needed, but dinner would be tree bark and top ramen so we're hoping for a fast sell on our current home once we can empty it for showing.

Thanks for reading!