Moving Update

Intro

I haven't been blogging as much because I had been so busy moving.  I apologize ahead of time because this post is going to be fully-loaded.  To fill anyone in who hasn't been following my social media posts, this all began about 6 years ago.  My husband had an opportunity to move with his company, but we turned it down because I'm a small-town girl with severe anxiety being in a big city.  So moving from a little town with 11k people, to a big metroplex with over 7 million people was a bit overwhelming.  Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to move.  I was all on board, but my husband saw how much anxiety I had just driving around the area, that he pulled the plug.  I knew we were meant to move, though!

The Decision

Many things happened to push us to move.  Joann's closed it's doors permanently--my favorite store and go-to for my business supplies.  I seriously thought, "What's the point in living here with no fabric store?"  My youngest daughter was graduating and I really felt like we needed to be ready to list the house by the time she graduated.  I kept telling my husband and he wouldn't listen.   I suggested working on one project each weekend and it would give us plenty of time to gradually get the house finished without being stressed.  He still wouldn't do it.  You can imagine my frustration.  Then I finally showed him our budget and debt, showed him what Dave Ramsey's chat rep said--that we were facing foreclosure on our house if we didn't sell.  Thus, my husband finally was on board.

I had already begun thinning things out, selling, etc. for quite a while beforehand.  I was selling things like crazy that summer.  Then September when my husband started working on the house, I went full throttle selling things.  Many things I sold for way under what they were worth and I of course am kicking myself.  I was taking load after load to the thrift store.  He was taking loads to the dump.  I was listing things for sale online and on Facebook marketplace.  I had a yard sale with my neighbor and made $300.  I made $10,000 in a few months on Facebook.  So Facebook marketplace is definitely the way to go.

The Realtors

We met with three realtors.  The first one, Kelly, was recommended by YouTuber Kati Spaniak.  I'll warn you, if you ever get a referral from Kati, she will take a large chunk of your realtor's commission.  If I had known that, I would have never asked for a referral.  To top that, after we sold, my realtor and I both received unprofessional and disturbing messages from Kati—wanting her share of the commission and being upset that I posted in HER group that I didn’t choose the agent she referred.  I stopped following Kati on all social media.  She is no longer someone I look up to.

Anyway, Kelly came over and she didn't even notice our broken deck!  It had collapsed during the 2017 Snowmageddon when we got several feet of snow.  She didn't even look at the rest of our house, either.  She already had a number picked out for what our house was worth--$270k.  We had updated the kitchen and living room several years ago.  She said had we not updated, it would be worth $240k.

The second realtor was Rebecca Musser.  She was recommended by a friend.  She was very thorough, looked at our entire property, was friendly, asked questions, etc.  She was our girl.  The third realtor sold my MIL's house so my husband just wanted to see what she would say.  She said our house was worth even less than Kelly said.  She mainly asked about the neighborhood.

So we went with Rebecca and I'll tell you, she was AMAZING!  Everything a person wants a realtor to be is what she was.   We had many obstacles come up and she was able to work things out.  Even after closing, the county didn't want to record, but she was able to convince them to.  She had our back 100%.

For the buying agent, I went with the one who really cared about finding a place for my ducks.  Several reached out to me on facebook groups.  Lori Silves was the one for me.  Like Rebecca, she was very friendly and had our back.

Making Our Old House New

My husband said, "I'll have the house finished in 3 weeks and we should be able to have it listed by October."  He absolutely has zero time-perception.  Usually, if he says something will take an hour, it takes a day.  If he says it will take a day, it takes a week.  A week is a month, and a month is a year.  So he said it would take 3 weeks and it actually took 3 months.  He worked on it after work until midnight--sometimes 2am.  Then get up to go to work at 6am.  Talk about stressful.  And because my husband and I are both perfectionists, we ended up redoing the entire house.  Like seriously, even the outlets were replaced with new ones.  Top to bottom, the house looked like a brand new home.  New carpet, new paint, new bathroom, new steps, new water heater, landscaping, etc.  All in all, it cost about $15,000--all which was put on credit cards.

The Trials

I'll be honest, this whole process was not easy.  We had every force of nature against us.  We were looking at houses that we could afford if we sold at $270k and there wasn't much.  Pretty much total dumps.  We had to find a place that would accommodate our ducks--which meant a town that allowed ducks, and a big enough yard.  This limited everything.  There were times I just sat with my ducks and cried.  I felt so much despair.  I felt like we were losing our home just because of our stupid spending habits.  I felt so much guilt, and then resentment, depression--you name it.  My faith was tested and I leaned on God like never before.  I watched in awe as God pulled everything together and paved the way.  There's no way this could have ever happened without Him.  And I had my realtors who kept saying, "In God's perfect time."

Finding The One

We looked at hundreds of homes in the DFW area.  Some were perfect, but had too small of a yard, or was in a bad location.  Some had the perfect yard and location, but the house was a total dump.  We wanted something that was not so close to neighbors that you could see them when you look out your window.  We wanted privacy and room for the ducks.  We wanted trees.  We didn't want a fixer-upper.  We found one that had a forest reserve in the backyard.  It was within our price range, but it was only two bedrooms, it was all wood, so it had that old wood smell, and the backyard dropped off, so there really wasn't much of a yard.  But it was the closest thing within our price range. 

Week after week, we searched for houses that met our criteria.  Finally, my husband changed the search filters to 1.5 bath instead of 2 baths.  One came up in Duncanville.  It was perfect!  It checked all our boxes.  It wasn't a fixer upper, it had a big yard, lots of trees behind the yard, a big privacy fence, nice neighborhood, etc.  But at the time, when we were expecting to only sell for $270k, it was out of our price range.  So we put it on the back burner until we were ready to list our home.  

The Sale

The last week of December we listed the house.  It sold 34 days later.  It was a manufactured home in a flood zone, but it had an acre, a large shop, shed, and chicken coop.  After fixing it up to look like new, we were able to confidently list for $325k and sold for $315k.  We had listed on local Facebook groups to get the word out and received a lot of scrutiny.  People said there's no way we would get that much for a manufactured home.  My realtor said if it wasn't in a flood zone, it would have sold 5 times over.  Come to find out, when she looked into getting it removed from the flood zone, she said it was an excellent candidate.  It was just on the border of the flood plane and roads had been built up quite a bit since they made the map.  Since we were able to sell for higher, we were able to buy the Duncanville home!  We closed on both homes the same day.  

The Drive

The biggest challenge driving 1600 miles was obviously the ducks.  For overnight, I was originally going to find a motel with outdoor access so we could sneak them inside the room.  Then ChatGPT suggested Airbnbs.  Perfect!  So I found Airbnbs with garages, and was granted permission from the owners to have the ducks in the garage.  I bought tarps to put down on the garage floor, layered with puppy pads, and bought two dog playpens with covers.  It really worked out perfectly.  In fact, they have been life savers and we continue to use them when we need to separate the boys.

As for the drive, we went back and forth how to transport them.  I had thought about taking the duck house and having them in the U-Haul, but people on the duck group advised against that.  I purchased cages to fit in the SUV, but they didn't fit well and were pretty crammed for three ducks.  Finally ended up putting them in individual large boxes, padded with plastic and puppy pads, with ventilation holes poked in them.  We stopped to get gas on our way out of town and Salt freaked out, tore up the box, and made his way out.  Poop was everywhere and made my son throw up.  So we put Salt in one of the cages that we had originally planned on using and put a towel over it to keep him from seeing out and getting anxious.  So from Ontario to Salt Lake, he was in the cage while the others were in their own boxes.  They did fine since it was nighttime.  They slept the entire way.  We had left at 6pm and rolled in around 1am.  This was after we had just spent all day loading the U-Haul.  Which, by the way, it takes about 30 hours to pack a 26-foot U-Haul.  So don't get it the day you have to move.

The next stop was Albuquerque.  It was supposed to be a 9.5 hour drive, according to Google Maps.  But with the U-Haul and the horrible roads, it took 14 hours.  After about 7 hours, I had reached my limit.  I was stressed to the max.  I was cranky.  I yelled at the cashier at a gas station as I was walking out that there was no toilet paper in the bathroom.  That's not like me at all.  Since it took about an hour to set up the duck pen and get ready for bed, I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep each night.

The third stop was supposed to be home, but I couldn't do it.  I booked another Airbnb half-way between home and Albuquerque and instead of driving behind the U-Haul which was making me fall asleep, I left my husband in the dust and drove the speed limit, making it in 5 hours.  I was able to let the ducks out in the backyard and get some good rest.

The Arrival

The fourth day was home.  We rolled in around 4pm.  The journey wasn't over, though.  Now we had to unpack the U-Haul.  The house needed cleaned because the professional cleaners didn't do a good job.  So I hired some more and they still didn't do a good job.  I mean, how hard is it for 5 ladies to clean a completely empty house?  So I had to clean it myself.

We had the best welcoming committee! Our neighbors brought over home-made tamales!  It was the first home-cooked meal I had in a while since we weren't eating while we packed the U-Haul or on the drive.  We didn't stop to eat--we just had snacks along the way.

The neighbors helped us unload.  Then I spent the next few days unpacking.  It took me a week to find the silverware.  It was such a mess and we were so exhausted and my husband had to go back to work.

Once we got most of the stuff unpacked, I needed some major creative time.  So I started working on designing my doll/sewing room.  That will be my next post.

To stay up-to-date, be sure to check out my social media pages:

Duck Tunes:
facebook.com/ducktunes1979
instagram.com/ducktunes79

Diana's Patch:

✅https://www.instagram.com/cpkdiana/
✅facebook.com/cpkdiana
✅etsy.com/shop/cpkdiana
✅https://www.ebay.com/usr/cpkdiana
✅https://www.youtube.com/cpkdianacpk
✅cpkdiana.blogspot.com
✅https://www.facebook.com/groups/cpkdiana/