Teagan turns 6!

It's hard to believe that Teagan turns 6 this week!! We had her B-day party last weekend. Wonder Women showed up too! Teagan was pretty excited! The lighting wasn't the greatest for picture taking but none the less pictures need to be taken!! :)

Three and a half weeks!!

Per the norm in this process things have moved VERY quickly!! The house is officially in sale pending mode! There were 4 offers last week. We accepted one of them,  Now this week is inspection week for the house and then once that is over there will be a two week waiting period before signing on the 13th.  And then I move a week after signing! Movers have been hired! We can at least get help on one end! They'll just load the truck but that's a biggie!!

And it's official that I got the house in Rupert! It now shows off market. That one gets signed on the 19th. I'm getting pretty excited at this point! Three and a half weeks and I'll be on my way to a whole new life in a new to me state and a new to me house. I will miss my established garden but I get to set up a whole new one over there! It's a half acre of property so lots of space to work with!

My yard here is bursting with bulbs now!

Soooo close!!!

I've just got a handful of accounts left to finish for 2017 so I'll be able to make my goal of being done by end of this month! Very exciting!! Then there's a handful to update through February and all accounts will be ready to hand off! I did find a company to hand off payroll to so that was exciting as well. April 1st is the hand off for everyone for payroll and books.

Thanks to the help of many friends and family the house got pretty much packed and cleared out in just over a week! I didn't get any client work done last week (except for some onsite work) but Amanda stepped in and got a lot of client work done! The repairs got done inside and out, the yard got cleaned up, the carport got cleaned up, and the house became house tour ready. Below is the end result. Those who know what it looked like before, it really is the same house lol!!! :)  The good news is there really isn't a whole lot to pack. Only basics are left.

The house got listed Tuesday evening and there's been lots of people through. Today was crazy! I left the house at 10 and didn't get back until 6. There's was lots of people in and out not only during the open house but also before and after! Open house tomorrow and then we'll see if someone makes an offer. The realtor said there's at least a couple of people highly interested but they need to actually make the offer!! Then it'll be about a month after an offer and I'll be starting a new life!! I'm still adapting to that thought!

I'm going to miss my little buddy! 

He hopped right up when I got to Brenda's today.

Let the craziness begin!

I feel like I'm being pulled 20 different directions. (Probably because I am! :) ) Between trying to take care of clients this month, trying to get the house ready to list, trying to figure out what all needs to be done to hand off clients, I'm kind going a bit crazy. Tomorrow is pack the house to prepare for listing. Not everything is being packed but a lot of the personal items need to go and that means a storage unit since this house has absolutely no storage available!!

I've never had to do this on my own so this is quite the learning process! Lots of stuff going on tomorrow other then packing. Siding guy, lawn guy, the hot water heater guy is going to finish off what he started today. Yikes! But I made a nice pan of spaghetti sauce for everyone so hopefully that'll make some people happy! :) It's been a challenge to find boxes. I posted on Nextdoor and have gotten a couple of bites for boxes. Dropped by lots of stores but Safeway was the only one that actually saved any for me. Apparently Freddie's forgot that they had someone coming in in the evening and had none. Into my 22nd year in this house so there is a lot to go through!

And truth to tell, it's going to be a bit harder emotionally then I realized. This is the last piece of Dave left. Over in Rupert there will be nothing of him left and while that probably isn't a bad thing it's sure is a tough one! But I know that my Father is leading me there so I'm hanging on to that!

Anyway, wish me luck!! 😆

HUGE (and I mean HUGE!) Life Change!!!

On the 2nd of February all was going quite well for my business (and still is!). And then I get a text from Christina on Saturday saying the people Linda and her are staying at are looking for an accountant. Sometimes you get that feeling that you just need to follow up on something so I kind of shocked her when I started asking questions. :)  It's a corporate farm in Rupert Idaho. My dream has always been to live in the country and to do work with something that is farm related. So learning that was a whoa moment! After talking with them Monday it was even more amazing how right it felt. Another interview Wednesday went quite well and then a bit of a briefer one Friday; the first two were over an hour and the last probably about a half hour. It's amazing to me because I've always been terrible at interviews. I never know what questions to ask etc but this one just flowed. Granted it's been about 25 years since I interviewed but still!! 😃  The trick is getting myself ready for a move! I've been in my house for 21 years! There's a ton of stuff to go through and they want me over there in April! And then there's the business!! I'm contacting CPA's and there's a lady I know that belongs to a bookkeeping networking group. We're meeting to go over my accounts (around 80 and 30 payrolls!) and see how they can be divided up. I need to be able to give my clients options! It's amazing that one week life is as usual and the next week all the sudden there's a really good chance that life is on a totally different track. It's crazy! When life changes for me it does it QUICK! It's not quite as quick as the life change when Dave left but a week after finding out about a job I've interviewed 3 times! And am starting to look at houses. All that's left is the visit to the farm and I'm headed over on the 23rd.

This trip has had many changes to it! The first change was before I ever left Portland! The flight was delayed due to lots of snow in Salt Lake. Ended up spending the night at a friends in Salt Lake since I got in at around midnight and my flight to Twin Falls was supposed to land at 11! Made it to Twin Falls around noon Saturday and puttered around. Met with a realtor over in Burley. Awesome guy! He's still going at 92! It was snowing in Twin Falls when we had lunch, managed to temporarily out run it on our drive (Christina's with me this weekend!) to Burley but by the time we left the guys home it was coming down pretty good and drove in the snow storm to our current location. No meeting Sunday morning due to ice, which was the pits because I was hoping to see everyone!

Gorgeous Sunday sunrise in Rupert!

The cutest dog! She's quite the character! :)

And the job is mine!! Met with the CFO today and took a tour of the properties and the buildings where they fix farm equipment, vehicles and make parts. Took a look at the books and discussed and I think I'm really going to love this job! There's going to be a lot of learning but I'm used to learning new businesses. This will just be a lot more intense! :) And I took a look at a house this evening and it actually matches all my criteria. I may make an offer on it tomorrow and see what happens. It would be contingent on my house selling. Exciting times indeed!!

Looking from the office that I'll be working at. In the summer when all is planted and growing it'll be quite the view!

I took a trip to the coast earlier this month and had an awesome time. A couple of days at the beach and lots of wonderful visiting. A person we didn't even know gave me 4 perfect sand dollars! So cool!

Winter... and almost March! Big news next week!

Well... it's what we call a back loaded winter this year! Christmas had a few days of cold weather and snow but other then that it's been a dud. Until this week! We got snow Sunday, Monday morning and again today. And they're saying there's a possibility tomorrow night and maybe Thursday... wow! That would be 5 days in a row! It snowed all day practically but didn't stick until about 6 tonight and now we have 3 inches on the ground! I'm always amazed how bright it is outside with the snow!

There will most likely be really big news next week! This week has been wonderful practice! :)

All those dead flowers make a wonderful place for the snow to rest! :)

After Meeting

After Meeting

This years plans and mussings

I've been doing a lot of pondering and thinking about where things are headed this year. The first step is to get me where I need to be. It's become more and more real that I'm somewhat off track. I've just felt off and I believe part of it is I'm not allowing my Father to lead the way I need to. It became very real in our meeting this evening. There are things that are in the way of going forward and to go forward they HAVE to be taken care of. There's no going around them because if you do you'll find yourself even more off track. I'm very good a trying to figure out a way to go around an issue in my life that needs to be settled and gotten rid of instead of just doing it! Then any semblance of peace is gone.  Really they're minor issues easily gotten rid of but habits are a funny thing and before I know it I'm back at it. It was also mentioned tonight that there could be a bigger thing in that needs to be taken care of but our Father will step us through the process one by one. If He were to build on what's in my life as it is there would just be a huge tumbled mess in the end. It works much better to work on a solid foundation where everything is taken care of. Things creep in but I need to be willing to listen and to obey. It's amazing how strong the human nature is. Even knowing that there will be peace in willingness I still fight. Grr!!

I really feel that there will be some big changes this year business wise. A new website is going to be going up in the next few months. It's been YEARS since it was changed and that's not a good thing in this day and age. New procedures are going to be implemented that will make next years year-end easier. It's kind of been a 'by the seat of the pants' business up to now. This last year was better but I still felt like I was scrambling a lot. Looking to try and minimize the scramble! I'm headed to a Dave Ramsey event later this year. So I'm pretty excited about that! My first ever business trip!! And it's almost completely paid for, in cash!!! So I'm sure that will give me some good ideas! :) And I'm rereading the Entreleadership book he wrote. There's a lot of really good stuff in that book! Bit the bullet and signed up for the monthly book club as well and last months book was Boundaries. Super good book!!! Not sure what this months will be yet.

The house is going to get new siding this year. There's a couple of really bad areas that I'm really hoping aren't bad in the main frame area. There were 3 out of 4 corners that had no protection for the edge of the siding so the rain just went in and over the years is caused issues to the point that the windows are leaking. One small part is done but now for the rest. Fingers crossed that this is the only issue to tackle this year.!!

Now to stay on track. I'm kind of an all or nothing person. It seems like I have all these grand plans but then there's so many things that I need/want to change that I get bogged down in the process. And that's where allowing my Father to lead me this year comes in. Focus on that and all else will fall into place where it needs to be. Maybe the above plan isn't His plan, only time will tell but just be willing for whatever needs to happen! As I well know, life can change in a moment. I also know that there's help through anything when there's obedience and willingness.