Decisions

Hello, my friends!

I know it has been some time since I have updated our blog.  We have had a lot going on in our household this past month.  We put a contract on a beautiful home about 10 miles north of where we live now.   The house was really great and we felt like things were moving along really well.

I did not anticipate all the feelings that moving forward on buying a home in Maryland would invoke in me.  I felt unsettled in my heart, so Brad and I spent a lot of time talking through concerns.    My biggest concern being, "Is this where we want to settle long-term?"

When we first started looking at homes, we thought of it as a relatively short-term commitment, 3 to 5 years. But the more we reflected on the difficulties of relocating and selling a home with children, we realized that it may not be worth the investment of our time and resources if it was only for short-term.

The reason being, for the most part, we are comfortable in the place that we are renting. Also, in recent days, Brad and I have been personal witnesses to the difficulties of selling a home in this market. Most analysts are not anticipating a large inflation of home prices in the near future and when you calculate the cost of realtor fees when you sell a "pricey" house (which they all are here),  that is a big cost to consider.

So, in our minds, the home-buying decision changed from being a short term decision to a long term decision. We felt like we wanted to know (as much as we could) that this is where we wanted to settle for long-term.

The biggest question to determine where we would settle down was job prospects.   Brad did some more research and discovered that there were NOT the best job prospects in Texas for his skills. There were jobs but most were post-doctoral positions, not good for supporting a family of five.  The question than became, "Would we be willing to completely change our life-style to be closer to extended family?"

For us, it is a big priority that I am allowed to stay home with our kids, so our answer was no. Then,   Brad carefully calculated how much he felt like he could earn in TX and still provide reasonably for our family.  He came up with a solid number and said if he were to be offered that number, he would be  tempted to take it.  By no means would the salary make us rich.   However, the number was comparable to his salary here because the cost of living is less in TX AND we would not have the same travel expenses.

Okay, fast forward a couple of weeks.  Brad and I decided to continue on with purchasing the home, because of our empty prospects of moving to Texas.  Then, the NIGHT BEFORE (crazy timing, right?) our contingencies ended for buying the house, Brad received a phone call from a very special university in Texas :-) with a pre-offer for a job.  And much to our surprise, when the discussion came up about his salary, the man quoted the "solid number" that Brad had previously calculated and written down on a piece of paper.

We only had a few hours to make our decision about the house before the contingency ended. So, in the end, we decided there will be other houses (as Brad said, it is only "an earthly treasure"), but we needed to allow ourselves to fully process what we wanted to do.   Even if we never find as a good of a house  in Maryland and do settle here (because of Brad's fantastic job!), we feel a peace about that.  This is such a  life-impacting decision, we wanted to feel good and comfortable with what we decided.

So now where are we now? We are still in the waiting period. We may be staying in Maryland or we may be moving back to Texas, we don't know. Every day, we are praying to God for wisdom. And in the meantime, we continue to try to enjoy each day with our little ones and rejoice where God has planted us for the time being.  We would appreciate your prayers too!