Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Continuing to plan

Well, we had this Realtor over on Saturday, and he is very excited about marketing our home - and getting us excited, too! He was there for over 3 hours, walking around the house and talking to us. He says it's ready to show as is, but there are a few items that we want to fix up - painting my sewing room and our master bedroom, straightening the library (might as well start gettting rid of some of those books now - they won't go in the 5er!), and re-staining our front door. All managable projects that we should be able to finish up before spring.

The extended families are still trying to get their heads around the idea of us hitting the road, but the more we talk about it, the less "strange" it begins to sound to them . . . so, I guess we just keep talking about it! Tom's parents have a computer and internet access and they are getting better at using it; I just have to get my mom comfortable with the idea of communicating with us online!

The boys are back in school today, following their "winter break" 4-day weekend. Our agenda for the week includes more realtor meetings - the guy from Saturday is bringing back a couple of colleagues for a 2nd opinion, and one of his competitors is coming over on Thursday to meet with us. In the current market, we want the realtor who is going to work the hardest for us and provide the best value for our money - who wouldn't?! I've got painting on my agenda for this weekend. I should be able to get the sewing room done - it'll be easy; hardly any furniture to move, and maybe get a start on the bedroom.

That's about it - think SPRING!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Cleaning Day and Camper Show

We had a busy day today! The boys were home for winter break, and we were cleaning fanatics! They cleaned their bedroom and their study room, and I worked on my sewing room. There's 11 years of accumulated fabric and craft stuff in there, and it took me all day to sort through it! I kept my favorites (I'll still be sewing on the road!), set some aside to sell at the next Mom2Mom sale, and threw out several garbage bags full! It was exhausting, but I'm very pleased with the results. Now, all it needs is a fresh coat of paint (next on my to-do list!), and it'll be like a new room!

Once Tom got home from work, we took off to the Camper Show in Novi, MI. After a quick dinner at a Coney Island, we arrived at the show. It was pretty crowded, but tonight was 2 for 1 night. We were concentrating on Toy Haulers, and Bunkhouse 5th Wheels. We saw the Newmar X-Aire, Keystone Fuzion and Raptor, and the Heartland Cyclone. They're all pretty nice, with the X-Aire leading the pack for what you get for the money. Then, we wandered into the Mobile Suites just for the heck of it, and started talking to "Ezra" the Manufacturer Rep.. Mobile Suites takes RVs to a whole new level, and they are really impressive. They have two bunkhouse models with larger refrigerators - a 40 footer and a 43 footer. That's our biggest complaint with most bunkhouses - all they offer is an 8 or 9 cu. ft. frig. Travelling with our 2 boys, we need room for several gallons of milk!!! Since they are in the area (Howe, IN), we'll add them to our factory tour list for April. We're planning on visiting all the others also, plus Forest River and Sunnybrook, although I'm less interested in the Cyclone now. The living areas of those are nice, but they take space out of the master bedroom, and with the bath fully enclosed in the longer units, it really makes the bedroom feel "closed-in". Just something else to consider as we shop!

We took a 2nd look at each of the toy haulers, and then headed out. On the way home, we stopped for an ice cream cone at Baskin-Robbins, and put the Mamma Mia DVD in when we got home - the boys loved it!! LOL

OK, more cleaning and straightening tomorrow before the realtor gets here at 1:30, so we should get to bed . . . Goodnight!

P.S. I think I fixed the comments feature - try it out!!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Took another step!

Yes, we took another step towards our full-timing dream! We have an appointment to interview a Realtor on Saturday. We have our list of things we need to do to get ready to sell, but we'll see if his recommendations match our list. He's also going to give us an idea of what price he would market the house for. Having built it ourselves, we know exactly what we've got into it, and where we want to be, so it should be interesting to hear his opinion. We don't know if we're going to hire this guy or not, but he's been very persistent in pursuing us since he saw our house on Zillow. Also, he works for the Realty Co. that we were leaning toward anyway. Any advice from recent home-sellers?

We're headed to the Camper Show on Friday - that'll be fun! I don't think we'll pull a "Howard & Linda" and walk out of there with a new RV, but hopefully we'll narrow down our choices somewhat.

It's been very spring-like here in Michigan these last couple of days . . . easy to get use to, but not likely to last! It's supposed to be warm again tomorrow, but rainy all day. I'd almost rather have snow! NOT! We're ready for spring and summer to arrive - even the boys are! They love the snow, but they're ready or warmer weather so they can get their bikes and scooters and ATV's out again. They had them out this past weekend - helping Tom and a friend of his who were cutting down some dead trees on our property. It's easy to get them to help out when there's a motor involved! I was off shopping with my Mom and my sisters on Saturday. We went to a quilt shop in Ohio (The Door Mouse, in Bettesville). It was fun, but I exercised restraint in my spending - trying to use up all the fabric I already have before I buy more! IT was nice just to spend the day with them.

OK, time to go get the boys to bed! I'll try to post more often!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

We're still here

Where did the last week go?? I don't think we've been terribly busy . . . just the usual work and school. I've been working on our taxes, and we started a spreadsheet comparing the different toy haulers we are considering. It really helps to list all the features and specifications side-by-side. We hope this will help us narrow down the list of Manufacturers we want to visit, and the models that we will look for. There's a Camper Show coming up next weekend, so we'll probably go. We had pretty much ignored the toy haulers at the last Camper Show (we were still focused on bunkhouses at that point), so this will be our chance to look at a few, and see how they feel. I'll let you know how it goes.