Mississippi girls don’t change their ways

Grandma Sandy hasn’t blogged in a while because I’ve had to keep a secret.

And no, I’m not pregnant, thank goodness, so don’t even go there.

I usually blog about my family and our life but when the majority of what’s going on in our lives is something I can’t talk about, it’s hard to come up with something else to say, so I just haven’t said anything!

Obviously.

But the secret I’ve had to keep since January does not have to be kept any longer.

This Mississippi girl is heading back home!!

That’s right. Grandma Sandy and her family are moving back to south Mississippi at the beginning of the summer and we’re really excited.

The Chef has taken a position in a church in south MS. The pastor of the church there is the pastor that we started out in ministry with 20 years ago.

It’s a long story, but there’s no doubt that this has all been orchestrated by the Almighty God that we serve. To see how He’s been working the past several months is none other than amazing.

This church is also opening a counseling center and The Chef (who is also a marriage and family therapist) will have the opportunity to do therapy once again.

Sooooo........because the move is just around the corner, it was necessary for me to make a trip down south during our Spring Break this week to find a house.

Pastor Margaret, Peanut and I headed south on Sunday to meet......

.....Rebecca McCollough, our fabulous realtor!

Isn’t she just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?

She’s just so smart and cute and petite and stylish.

I just know that when I die and go to heaven and I’m a figure skater, I’m gonna look just like her.

I got in touch with Rebecca back in February to let her know what we were looking for, and bless her heart, she was gonna have her work cut out for her.

You see, not only is Grandma Sandy, The Chef, our 5 kids, 2 dogs, ginormous cat and Monty, the fish, moving to south MS but we’re taking Pastor Margaret with us!

We were looking for a house with either a guest house or enough acreage to build a guest house. Pastor Margaret needs to be with us but not WITH us, if you know what I mean.

Actually, we would’ve loved for her to be WITH us, too, but for her own sanity’s sake we determined that being with us would be good enough.

So, Rebecca started her hunt for the perfect house which would look something like this: a main house with at least 4 bedrooms and either a separate guest house or enough acreage to build a guest house that also wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Guess what she found?

A main house with 4 bedrooms and a separate guest house.

Unfortunately it cost an arm and a leg.

Actually, more like two arms and two legs and the word was that the owners were pretty firm about their asking price and were not expected to take more than a few thousand dollars less.

But we didn’t let that discourage us.

So, Rebecca lined up several houses for us to see on Monday.

After looking, and thinking, and looking, and analyzing, and thinking and praying, and calling in an expert from Gulfport to come give us her expert opinion on the 2 homes we’d narrowed it down to, it was determined that we would make an offer on the house that cost two arms and two legs.

Actually, after looking at the 2 homes, the expert (who is my smart and talented Aunt Sarah, an interior designer, who is also married to my Uncle Thad, an architect) quite frankly stated,

“I’d jump on this house in a red-hot minute. Don’t even think about that other crummy house. It’s not built well, the owner has tried to take on too many home improvement projects and has halfway done every one of them, and furthermore, The Chef would kill you if you bought a house that needed this much work and he’d have every right to do so. That other house costs 3 arms and 3 legs and isn’t even worth half of that.

Make an offer on the 2 arm/2 leg house because the owner is a former builder and he’s used top quality everything throughout both homes. He knew what he was doing and he did it right.”

Aunt Sarah advised us on what she thought a good offer would be which was within $500 of what smart and stylish Rebecca The Realtor suggested.

So we made an offer.

They countered.

We countered again.

Then smart and stylish Rebecca the Realtor put a little muscle behind our counter by saying to the other realtor, “Look, this is a unique property that will require a certain kind of buyer. You have the perfect buyers and they’re gonna stand firm with this offer. They’ve put their best foot forward.”

And guess what?

The sellers accepted!

So, the Grandma Sandy family has found their home in south MS!!!

Now, I must state that with this new home comes 2 things I never thought I’d have and 1 thing I swore I’d never have again.

I’ll start with the thing I swore I’d never have again because swearing I’ll never do something and then having to eat my words is not an uncommon practice in my life, unfortunately.

This house has......

.....a pool.

Our last house had a pool. It was fun, we loved it, but the expense and upkeep on that thing was a killer and The Chef and I said never again.

Oops.

But it’ll be ok. Our last pool was 45,000 gallons and required loads of chlorine and chemicals. This pool is only 15,000 gallons thank You, Lord,

and its a saltwater pool which is supposed to be much easier and cheaper to maintain.

I HOPE.

Now on to one of the things I never thought I’d have, mostly because I’m still not sure what it is......

This is Grandma Sandy’s new shower. And apparently tub. I’m not quite sure.

Here. Take a closer look.

What on earth?

Have you ever in your life?!?

If I’m honest, I’ll have to admit I’m kinda scared of this thing. It looks like if I punch a wrong button I might be zoomed into outer space or something.

And the seller, bless her heart, was so proud of this thing. She couldn’t wait to tell me all about it.

It has a remote control, why the heck do you need a remote control for a shower..why would you want to turn anything on from outside the shower and if you want to turn something on from inside, can’t you just lean over and turn it on?!? honestly, the remote control feature strikes terror in my heart because I see hours of entertainment in The Chef’s future as he experiments with the remote control while I’M trying to bathe.

It’s supposed to be some kind of steam shower or something or other. As long as it gets me clean and doesn’t zoom me into outer space then I’m good.

And the other thing on this property that I never thought I’d have......

......a barn.

I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with a barn but I’m sure I’ll figure out something. I was just about to say I know I definitely won’t get a horse but because I have a history of saying I definitely won’t do something and then later doing it, I’ll just leave that part out. Now I will hopefully never get a horse but if I do, it won’t be because I said I definitely wouldn’t!

But the best thing, the very best thing is that here’s my back porch....

...and right across the pool....

...is Pastor Margaret’s house!

We can wave at each other from our kitchen windows!

Pastor Margaret joked that one of her favorite things about her new house is the fact that she won’t have to mow her front yard. She can swim in it instead!

So a big thank you to the smart, cute, sweet, petite and stylish Rebecca the Realtor for not only finding our perfect house for us but also.....

.....and here’s the best part....she helped us get our new house for $34,000 LESS than the asking price!

So instead of costing 2 arms and 2 legs, we found our new home for an arm and maybe half a leg!

She may be petite, but she’s tough.

I’ll be sad to leave my friends and especially my other Kindergarten teachers here in TN. Thankfully, we won’t be so far away that they can’t come visit and I’m counting on them to do so!

But in the end......

....this Mississippi gal is glad to be going home.