I'm a big kid now

So, the other day Dave and I discovered an extra 15K in the cushions of our couch and the pockets of our jeans so we thought, "What the heck? Let's buy a house!"

Yeah, so maybe it wasn't QUITE as simple as that... but we're still doing it. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bruners are becoming big kids. We have purchased a house.

We're doing it. We are taking a gigantic, enormous, exciting, but also freaking scary step into adulthood. In a matter of weeks, our hearts and minds will be consumed with thoughts of plumbing and painting, weeding and spackling, furnaces and furniture.

Needless to say for anyone who knows us at all, there was a fair share of anxiety in the decision making process, but overall I'm actually pretty proud of us. When we differed (say, I wanted to buy the house within 2 days of seeing it, Dave wanted to actually make sure we could afford it... just for example) we talked and listened to each other without breaking down. There was relatively little running into our bedroom and flinging oneself onto the bed in adolescent angst. I'd say that's pretty darn good, considering our decision-making track record. We're LEARNING!

I have to say, I do kind of feel like God gave us this house. It's been a cool process. We did a few days of searching with our Realtor (my aforementioned BFF) and nothing was quite right. Just for gits, I got onto the local For Sale By Owner website and this house came up. It looked decent, so we scheduled a showing. Once we saw it, this house had me at hello. It was almost everything we were looking for. Right neighborhood, right price, right number of bedrooms. Old and "charactery", but with work already done to update it. The backyard is this amazing secret garden patio in which I can already imagine sitting with our friends around a firepit with glasses of wine and smores. (They go together. They do!)

I loved, loved, loved it. But at first I thought we were going to have to let it go because the seller didn't want to pay a Realtor. But as I mentioned before, our Realtor is a true gift from God because she worked so hard to help us get this house anyway. For free. We're trying to pay her ourselves and she won't let us!

So we went back to see it again with her and loved it all the same. But in a week, I was leaving to go on our youth mission trip, after which Dave and I were both leaving for vacation. It was either pull the trigger now or wait 3 more weeks. And we had a LOT of work to do to make sure we could afford this house, that we were ready to own a house, and SOOO many more details. So last week was a little rough. BUT.... because this house was a For Sale By Owner... there it sat- waiting for us! I fully believe that if this house were being sold by a realty company, it would have been GONE weeks ago. But since most people don't want know how to buy a house without a realtor (us included), our house waited for us until we were ready.

So Dave made the offer last week while I was busy shoveling dirt in Hazard, KY. And we got the inspection done yesterday, with a clean bill of house-health. The loan application is going through and this train just keeps chugging along. Providing everything keeps moving like it's supposed to, Lord willing, on August 21 we will own this house. That is NUTS!

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